<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" version="2.0"><channel><atom:link rel="hub" href="http://tumblr.superfeedr.com/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"/><description>A suicide attempt is made once every minute in the United States; a suicide is completed once every 15 to 18 minutes. The annual suicide rate is higher than the mortality rates from homicide, AIDS, and most forms of cancer. 

Live Through This is a project about life on the other side of a suicide attempt. 

Through the presentation of portraits of suicide attempt survivors and the stories they share, the mission of Live Through This is as follows:
      · present suicide as the complex, multi-dimensional issue it is;
     · reduce stigma and break down stereotypes associated with suicide and who considers/attempts it by showing the viewer the faces of those who have lived through the experience and gone on to lead successful, fulfilling lives;
     · increase awareness of suicide as a pervasive social issue that no one is immune to;
     · promote suicide prevention education;
     · encourage dialogue about suicide, especially if a loved one is potentially at-risk;
     · reduce the fear and taboo of “suicide” as a dirty word.

I believe I can begin to achieve these goals by embracing individuals who have come out from behind their veil of shame to tell me—and the world—who they are now and who they were, where and how they got there, and what brought them to a place in time where they relish their ability to continue living. In sharing their journeys of struggle and survival, we can begin to honor, respect, and educate in an open and accepting forum. The hope is that our voices will strengthen and compel those in need (self, family, friends, co-workers) to get the help they require.

Ideally, the work will culminate in gallery exhibitions, as well as in book format. 


I am currently seeking the help of individuals who have attempted suicide, and who are willing to both share their story with me and sit for a portrait. If this catches your fancy, please contact us. Tell us your age (21+ ONLY, please), location, and as much as you’re comfortable with sharing about your past experience with suicide, as well as what your life looks like now. Please be willing to sign a model release.

It should be noted that this is a long-term project, and thus, it may take some effort to coordinate meeting/shooting sessions, especially if you are located outside of the immediate New York City area. Your patience is greatly appreciated.

My name is Dese’Rae L. Stage. I am a photographer who makes pictures of people who make life worth living. Executed in bold color and high contrast, the majority of my work centers on musicians and the live show experience. My images address music as emotional catharsis and, in many cases, isolate the artist as a singular, untouchable figure. I am self-taught.

In December 2005, I completed my Bachelor of Science in Psychology at East Tennessee State University, where I helped to co-author a comprehensive self-injury self-report (SISR) measure as a part of my undergraduate studies. I also participated in developing studies looking at the influence of stigma on interpersonal relationships of self-injurers; the effects of knowledge and conservatism on the stigma of self-injury; suicidality and responses to attempters; and the relationships between intimate violence, self-esteem, sexual orientation, and gender. I am trained in crisis intervention, including time served in 2005 as a hotline counselor and rape care companion at the Crisis Center in Bristol, VA.  I have participated in LivingWorks’s Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) and am a certified QPR Gatekeeper.

I am a survivor of nine years of self-injury and a suicide attempt catalyzed by an emotionally and physically abusive lesbian relationship. I was diagnosed with Bipolar II Disorder in 2004, but have regulated fluctuations in mood without medication and have been functioning at a high level since 2006.

I live in New York City with my wife, Katie, and our menagerie of pets with people names. You can see more of my work at deseraestage.com

     · save.org
     · suicidology.org
     · everyminute.orgIf you feel you are in crisis, don’t hesitate to ask for help. Talk to a friend or family member, or call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 and remain 100% anonymous.

     · Tell your friends about LTT on Twitter!
     · Get your own official LTT logo tee.
     · Donate to LTT via PayPal.


Click the headers above to expand/collapse information.</description><title>Live Through This</title><generator>Tumblr (3.0; @lttphoto)</generator><link>http://livethroughthis.org/</link><item><title>Friend and official LTT videographer Aleksandar Cosic grabbed some candid shots of me working with...</title><description>&lt;p&gt;Friend and official LTT videographer &lt;a href="http://www.co2studio.com/" target="_blank"&gt;Aleksandar Cosic&lt;/a&gt; grabbed some candid shots of me working with Krista Andrews back in January. Check &amp;#8216;em out. You&amp;#8217;ll see Krista&amp;#8217;s story at some point in the near future.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img align="middle" height="333" src="http://deseraestage.com/ltt/cosicltt1edrs.jpg" width="500"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img align="middle" height="334" src="http://deseraestage.com/ltt/cosicltt2rs.jpg" width="500"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://livethroughthis.org/post/21792613096</link><guid>http://livethroughthis.org/post/21792613096</guid><pubDate>Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:29:35 -0400</pubDate><category>live through this</category><category>suicide awareness</category><category>candid</category></item><item><title>I first met Devin Jones on a social networking site way back when. These days, we don&amp;#8217;t have...</title><description>&lt;p&gt;I first met Devin Jones on a social networking site way back when. These days, we don&amp;#8217;t have an entire country between us and hang when we can. Below, he discusses some of the stigma associated with depression.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img align="middle" alt="Devin Jones for Live Through This" height="750" src="http://deseraestage.com/ltt/devinjones_for_ltt.jpg" width="500"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I saw some picture online, actually, and it was a really good quote that summarized everything. The gist of it was, ‘do I tell people when I have issues that I’m dealing with&amp;#8212;pain and whatnot&amp;#8212;and let them think that I’m seeking the attention that comes with that, or do I just suffer in silence and pretend that everything is OK?’ It really does feel like a lot of the time, it’s one or the other, even if you legitimately have issues. &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I know there have been a lot of people who assume that’s just a cry for attention, because unfortunately, there are some people who do that. You hear about people that cut themselves, and do that stuff for attention, and that’s sickening, honestly, but it happens. So, a lot of people don’t understand, especially if they haven’t dealt with it, and they don’t get it, so it’s hard to talk about. I think that because there’s such an awful stigma placed upon having depression in our society that it makes telling people that much worse.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;#8212;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you would like to participate in Live Through This, please &lt;a href="mailto:des@livethroughthis.org"&gt;contact me&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you&amp;#8217;re sympathetic to the cause, please share &lt;a href="http://livethroughthis.org" target="_blank"&gt;a link&lt;/a&gt; everywhere you see fit. The more eyes that see this, the better. I get the most inquiries about participation from shared links, for what it&amp;#8217;s worth.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you would like to help fund the project, click &lt;a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&amp;amp;hosted_button_id=RS79CTVWSLSKS" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you want to follow LTT on Twitter, you can do that &lt;a href="http://twitter.com/lttphoto" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you want to buy a LTT logo t-shirt, you can do that &lt;a href="http://ltt.bigcartel.com/" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. We currently only have 1&amp;#160;S, 2&amp;#160;L, and 1 XL left in stock.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;</description><link>http://livethroughthis.org/post/21326342674</link><guid>http://livethroughthis.org/post/21326342674</guid><pubDate>Wed, 18 Apr 2012 11:25:00 -0400</pubDate></item><item><title>Ever since I started this project, I&amp;#8217;ve grappled with the idea of including myself as a...</title><description>&lt;p&gt;Ever since I started this project, I&amp;#8217;ve grappled with the idea of including &lt;a href="http://deseraestage.com" target="_blank"&gt;myself&lt;/a&gt; as a participant.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I decided to go ahead and do so for two reasons:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ol&gt;&lt;li&gt;I needed to make myself vulnerable to this process so that I could  understand what the people who are sharing their stories with me might  be feeling in these moments.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;My experiences with nearly a decade of using self-injury as a maladaptive coping mechanism, an emotionally and physically abusive  lesbian relationship which resulted in my suicide attempt, and the struggles of living day-to-day with Bipolar Disorder (which I&amp;#8217;ve chosen not to medicate) have made me feel pretty strongly that my story needs to be shared, too.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;p&gt;Text excerpted from an interview with &lt;a href="http://livethroughthis.org/post/15676554950/cara-anna-was-a-foreign-correspondent-for-the" target="_blank"&gt;Cara Anna&lt;/a&gt; (full text &lt;a href="http://whichtools.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/talking-with-deserae-stage/" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;). Photo by Katie Marks.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img align="middle" alt="Dese'Rae L. Stage for Live Through This" height="750" src="http://deseraestage.com/ltt/dls_for_ltt.jpg" width="500"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The decisions I made that night shaped every day of my life after it. I had to make the decision to live. I had to make the decision to stop  cutting myself. I had to make the decision to physically remove myself  from the situation. I had to make the decision to stop being a victim,  to stop being a person I knew I wasn’t (and was terrified I’d become). &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I needed something, and I guess it was to know that I wasn’t alone,  that these things happen, that there are cycles of abuse and they’re  fucking HARD to break.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Domestic abuse is as easily stigmatized as self-injury and suicide. My story, I guess, is like a triple whammy. Maybe even a quadruple  whammy, because it was domestic abuse in a lesbian relationship, which  isn’t something that seems to ever be addressed.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt; It needs to be explored because it happens, and I’m sick of these things being swept under the rug.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;#8212;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you would like to participate in Live Through This, please &lt;a href="mailto:des@livethroughthis.org"&gt;contact me&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you&amp;#8217;re sympathetic to the cause, please share &lt;a href="http://livethroughthis.org" target="_blank"&gt;a link&lt;/a&gt; everywhere you see fit.  The more eyes that see this, the better. I get the most inquiries  about participation from shared links, for what it&amp;#8217;s worth.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you would like to help fund the project, click &lt;a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&amp;amp;hosted_button_id=RS79CTVWSLSKS" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you want to follow LTT on Twitter, you can do that &lt;a href="http://twitter.com/lttphoto" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you want to buy a LTT logo t-shirt, you can do that &lt;a href="http://ltt.bigcartel.com/" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. We currently only have 1&amp;#160;S, 2&amp;#160;L, and 1 XL left in stock.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;</description><link>http://livethroughthis.org/post/17666651867</link><guid>http://livethroughthis.org/post/17666651867</guid><pubDate>Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:30:38 -0500</pubDate><category>live through this</category><category>Dese'Rae L. Stage</category><category>suicide awareness</category><category>domestic abuse</category><category>self-injury</category></item><item><title>Nicole Keimer is the first person I interviewed and photographed for Live Through This. Since our...</title><description>&lt;p&gt;Nicole Keimer is the first person I interviewed and photographed for Live Through This. Since our shoot, I&amp;#8217;ve changed my interview format and my shooting technique, which accounts for why her portrait is stylistically so different from the rest. The project evolves with every new story. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Nicole has been an active member of the suicide prevention community for years and spends quite a bit of her time working with &lt;a href="http://www.postsecret.com/" target="_blank"&gt;PostSecret&lt;/a&gt;. As a result of being bullied about her weight, she developed and struggled with multiple eating disorders from adolescence through her early twenties. Below, she discusses how these struggles led her to consider suicide as an option.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;img align="middle" alt="Nicole Keimer for Live Through This" height="333" src="http://deseraestage.com/ltt/nik_for_ltt.jpg" width="500"/&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;When you have a problem with food, you can’t just stop eating and cut food out of your life. So there was a time period where I thought, ‘I’m never going to get out of this. Every day is just going to be getting up and thinking about food.’ There was a time where I was literally spending 16 hours of my 24 hour day thinking about food: how I could cut calories, how I could just get down to as little as I could. &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;‘How am I going to get to a place where I can stop thinking about food?’ &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I just thought that was never going to happen, because you have to think about food every day. Once I started to feel like I was stuck in this for years, that’s when the suicidal thoughts started to happen. It was, &amp;#8216;The only way to actually stop thinking about food is to kill myself because otherwise I’m going to have to think about food every single day.&amp;#8217; &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;It was a comfort when I went to bed each night knowing, ‘Well, I could kill myself. You don’t have to do this forever. There’s always an opportunity. This is a possibility; this is an out.’ I think a large part of just knowing that I had that possibility was enough sometimes&amp;#8230;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;#8212;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you would like to participate in Live Through This, please &lt;a href="mailto:des@livethroughthis.org"&gt;contact me&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you&amp;#8217;re sympathetic to the cause, please tweet about it, or post a link on Facebook or G+, and ask your friends to re-post it. The more eyes that see this, the better. I get quite a few inquiries about participation from shared links, as well.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you would like to help fund the project, click &lt;a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&amp;amp;hosted_button_id=RS79CTVWSLSKS" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you want to follow LTT on Twitter, you can do that &lt;a href="http://twitter.com/lttphoto" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you want to buy a LTT logo t-shirt, you can do that &lt;a href="http://ltt.bigcartel.com/" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. We currently only have 1&amp;#160;S, 2&amp;#160;L, and 1 XL left in stock.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;</description><link>http://livethroughthis.org/post/16830278189</link><guid>http://livethroughthis.org/post/16830278189</guid><pubDate>Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:02:56 -0500</pubDate><category>nicole keimer</category><category>live through this</category><category>suicide awareness</category><category>suicide prevention education</category></item><item><title>I met Joey Olszewski in McCarren Park in Brooklyn. I found out in the middle of our interview that...</title><description>&lt;p&gt;I met Joey Olszewski in McCarren Park in Brooklyn. I found out in the middle of our interview that we were just feet from where he made his attempt. I&amp;#8217;m so glad that suicide wasn&amp;#8217;t one of his successes. Below, he discusses his methods of coping with his attempt as well as the reality that mental health takes real work to achieve, and it isn&amp;#8217;t always easy.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img align="middle" alt="Joey Olszewski for Live Through This" height="750" src="http://deseraestage.com/ltt/joeyolzsa_for_ltt.jpg" width="500"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Eventually,  it just got to the point where I was just sick of being sad like that,  and I just got real, real positive. I changed my group of friends. We  abide by this philosophy&amp;#8230; I’m not sure if we invented it, but it’s just  something we just do to each other to remind each other to keep our  heads up, because we’ve all struggled with these issues. At least, the  friends that I have now that are a bit more mature like that. &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;#8216;P.M.A. –  Positive Mental Attitude’ is what we call it. If anything bad ever happens, we always go and hang out with each other and provide that  solidarity, but it’s not commiseration. It’s always like, ‘Listen,  you’re going through this shit, but you &lt;/em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;got&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;em&gt; this. It’s not the end of  the world.’ That’s the most important thing to remember, I think. &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Right now, I feel like I’m doing so much better. I still think about it sometimes, but it’s…I’m struggling for the  right way to phrase this. It’s difficult because, unless you’ve gone  through that, unless you’ve gotten to the point where you’re willing to  end your reality because it’s gotten that crappy, it’s hard to explain to  someone. They’re just like, &amp;#8216;Why would you ever want to do that?’  They can’t relate at all. &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;My perception of reality has  changed, I think. I  feel so grateful for the things that I thought used to bring me down.  Like empathy, humility&amp;#8212;things that would be unrelated to me  entirely. I would read something in the news and I would just get so  depressed by it and now I’m grateful that I have that much  compassion for the world.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;#8212;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you would like to participate in Live Through This, please &lt;a href="mailto:des@livethroughthis.org"&gt;contact me&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you think you know someone who might be interested in participating, please pass along the link to &lt;a href="http://deseraestage.com/blog/2011/12/09/live-through-this/" target="_blank"&gt;this entry&lt;/a&gt; or to the &lt;a href="http://livethroughthis.org" target="_blank"&gt;LTT website&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you&amp;#8217;re sympathetic to the cause, please tweet about it,   or post a  link on Facebook or G+, and ask your friends to re-post it.   The more  eyes that see this, the better.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you would like to help fund the project, click &lt;a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&amp;amp;hosted_button_id=RS79CTVWSLSKS" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you want to follow LTT on Twitter, you can do that &lt;a href="http://twitter.com/lttphoto" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you want to buy a LTT logo t-shirt, you can do that &lt;a href="http://ltt.bigcartel.com/" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. We currently only have 1&amp;#160;S, 2&amp;#160;L, and 1 XL left in stock.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;Thanks, always, for your support, and more thanks to Cat Downs for helping me with transcription.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://livethroughthis.org/post/16417487860</link><guid>http://livethroughthis.org/post/16417487860</guid><pubDate>Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:20:25 -0500</pubDate><category>live through this</category><category>suicide</category><category>suicide attempt</category><category>suicide awareness</category></item><item><title>Chris Agudo&amp;#8217;s suicide attempt and subsequent hospitalization was the inspiration for Living is...</title><description>&lt;p&gt;Chris Agudo&amp;#8217;s suicide attempt and subsequent hospitalization was the inspiration for &lt;a href="http://livingissobig.com" target="_blank"&gt;Living is So Big&lt;/a&gt;, the life appreciation organization he and his family operate. They travel around the country helping people of all ages find their reasons why life is worth living. Below, Chris shares what saved his life.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img align="middle" alt="Chris Agudo for Live Through This" height="750" src="http://deseraestage.com/ltt/chrisagudo_for_ltt.jpg" width="500"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;For  some reason… for some reason, out of nowhere, I’m like, ‘let me turn my  phone back on.’ I turn it on and I  see&amp;#8212;exaggeration, of course&amp;#8212;but hundreds of missed calls,  hundreds of missed texts and voicemails. I go through them. They’re my  parents, my brother, my friends, and even friends of friends, who I  don’t even know. That really got to me. That really got to me, and on  the spot, I was crying like a baby was being born. Just ridiculous. It  was the worst I’ve ever cried. It was tremendous.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;#8212;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you would like to participate in Live Through This, please &lt;a href="mailto:des@livethroughthis.org"&gt;contact me&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you think you know someone who might be interested in participating, please pass along the link to &lt;a href="http://deseraestage.com/blog/2011/12/09/live-through-this/" target="_blank"&gt;this entry&lt;/a&gt; or to the &lt;a href="http://livethroughthis.org" target="_blank"&gt;LTT website&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you&amp;#8217;re sympathetic to the cause, please tweet about it,  or post a  link on Facebook or G+, and ask your friends to re-post it.  The more  eyes that see this, the better.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you would like to help fund the project, click &lt;a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&amp;amp;hosted_button_id=RS79CTVWSLSKS" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you want to follow LTT on Twitter, you can do that &lt;a href="http://twitter.com/lttphoto" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you want to buy a LTT logo t-shirt, you can do that &lt;a href="http://ltt.bigcartel.com/" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;</description><link>http://livethroughthis.org/post/16011356045</link><guid>http://livethroughthis.org/post/16011356045</guid><pubDate>Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:58:00 -0500</pubDate><category>live through this</category><category>suicide prevention</category><category>suicide attempt</category></item><item><title>Yesterday, I did the sixth interview/shoot for LTT with Chris Agudo of Living is So Big. Chris is...</title><description>&lt;p&gt;Yesterday, I did the &lt;strong&gt;sixth&lt;/strong&gt; interview/shoot for LTT with Chris Agudo of &lt;a href="http://livingissobig.com" target="_blank"&gt;Living is So Big&lt;/a&gt;. Chris is such a positive person, and his family is equally as charming. They snapped a behind the scenes shot of me working, which is below. I can&amp;#8217;t wait to share Chris&amp;#8217;s story with you guys.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img align="middle" height="375" src="http://deseraestage.com/ltt/bts_ltt_agudoshoot.jpg" width="500"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://livethroughthis.org/post/15782441870</link><guid>http://livethroughthis.org/post/15782441870</guid><pubDate>Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:22:58 -0500</pubDate><category>livethroughthis</category><category>suicide</category><category>suicide prevention</category></item><item><title>The CDC released preliminary data on their 2010 National Vital Statistics Reports earlier this week,...</title><description>&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href="http://www.cdc.gov/" target="_blank"&gt;CDC&lt;/a&gt; released preliminary data on their &lt;a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_04.pdf" target="_blank"&gt;2010 National Vital Statistics Reports&lt;/a&gt; earlier this week, which included the top 15 causes of death in the United States that year. Interesting fact, and the reason why I write this at all: suicide was tenth on the list, and homicide was altogether absent. Food for thought, yeah?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Thanks to the ever amazing &lt;a href="http://michelleholshue.com/" target="_blank"&gt;Nurse Michelle&lt;/a&gt; for catching &lt;a href="http://twitter.com/vasta" target="_blank"&gt;@vasta&lt;/a&gt;&amp;#8217;s tweet and passing it along. Oh, and the &lt;a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/la-heb-death-rates-homicide-20120111,0,3460781.story" target="_blank"&gt;LA Times&lt;/a&gt;, too.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://livethroughthis.org/post/15743280886</link><guid>http://livethroughthis.org/post/15743280886</guid><pubDate>Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:13:16 -0500</pubDate><category>suicide</category><category>causes of death</category></item><item><title>Cara Anna was a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press in Beijing when she attempted suicide...</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://whichtools.wordpress.com" target="_blank"&gt;Cara Anna&lt;/a&gt; was a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press in Beijing when she attempted suicide most recently. Below, she shares a thought that really resonates with me:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img align="middle" alt="Cara Anna for Live Through This" height="333" src="http://deseraestage.com/ltt/caraanna_for_ltt.jpg" width="500"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You do things that define you and your life, and this is one of them, but it&amp;#8217;s hidden because everyone is so scared of it. What would happen if we talked about it instead of hiding it away? What would happen? I don&amp;#8217;t know what would happen, but what &lt;/em&gt;would&lt;em&gt; happen? Why not try it?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;#8212;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you would like to participate in Live Through This, please &lt;a href="mailto:deseraestage@gmail.com"&gt;contact me&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you think you know someone who might be interested in participating, please pass along the link to &lt;a href="http://deseraestage.com/blog/2011/12/09/live-through-this/" target="_blank"&gt;this entry&lt;/a&gt; or to the &lt;a href="http://livethroughthis.org" target="_blank"&gt;LTT website&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you&amp;#8217;re sympathetic to the cause, please tweet about it, or post a link on Facebook or G+, and ask your friends to re-post it. The more eyes that see this, the better.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you would like to help fund the project, click &lt;a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&amp;amp;hosted_button_id=RS79CTVWSLSKS" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you want to follow LTT on Twitter, you can do that &lt;a href="http://twitter.com/lttphoto" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you want to buy a LTT logo t-shirt, you can do that &lt;a href="http://ltt.bigcartel.com/" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;Thanks again for your support, and more thanks to Cat Downs for helping me with transcription.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://livethroughthis.org/post/15676554950</link><guid>http://livethroughthis.org/post/15676554950</guid><pubDate>Wed, 11 Jan 2012 12:48:00 -0500</pubDate><category>live through this</category><category>suicide prevention</category><category>help</category><category>hope</category></item><item><title>When last we spoke, I&amp;#8217;d just done the first Live Through This shoot. Since then, I&amp;#8217;ve...</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;span id="internal-source-marker_0.2754390138199173"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;When last we spoke, I&amp;#8217;d just done the first Live Through This shoot. Since then, I&amp;#8217;ve done three more, and have three more scheduled. Things are rolling along nicely, and I&amp;#8217;m so excited to finally share some of the work with you. I&amp;#8217;d like to introduce the project to the world with the story of &lt;a href="http://twitter.com/tileceleste" target="_blank"&gt;Tile Wolfe&lt;/a&gt;, who had some brilliant, eloquent things to say about her experiences with depression, her suicide attempt and its aftermath, and what made her decide to Live Through This:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img align="middle" alt="Live Through This: Tile Wolfe" height="333" src="http://deseraestage.com/ltt/tilewolfe_for_ltt_2.jpg" width="500"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I think the aftermath was really constructive. I needed to know what was worth saving about me. After that, I spent so much time alone because I felt like I needed to  give myself rehab. I started  writing and photographing things and living with myself, being my own  girlfriend, being my own… I started figuring out who I wanted to save, the Tile that I didn’t want to be gone and disappear.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;em&gt;For  me, in the moments after I had actually done everything that I had been  planning for so long, I realized that I didn’t want to die. But that’s  unique. That’s not everyone. It wasn’t a release, it was afraid. I was  afraid, and I said, “There must be someone that I like in there,” and  that was what I realized. It was constructive, and that is why I still  want to live. I lived through the rehabilitation process after it, but I  did it all by myself because I was ashamed of what I had done. I  thought that everyone was going to say, “That’s so… Oh, wow. How lame.  How selfish.’ &lt;/em&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;em&gt;That’s  kind of what happened in a couple of cases when I did express it.  People pushed back and said, “Why would you do that? How silly. How  frivolous.” And I thought that was the worst thing. To think that  suicide is something that is kind of privileged, like, “Oh, you can just  take your life like that? Don’t you think you’re special!” And that’s  the worst thing. It’s absurd that people think that you think you’re  special. That you’re another kid who tried to kill themselves, and they  think that it’s not going to stay with you forever. It has to stay with  you forever. &lt;/em&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;em&gt;It’s  not to say that I’m better and not manic; I mean, you can hear  it in my voice. Clearly, I’m still very zero to sixty about most things and that’s  kind of what almost killed me. I was being so black and white and had no gray  area, but I’m building the gray area. I want to live long enough to  build the gray area for myself and learn to love myself the way that I  want to. &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Some people can’t do that, and don’t want to do that, and are  done, and I felt that. It’s not always in the bullied, queer teen, which  I thought of myself as, and still do. It’s not always that story that is  the example of why kids should live. It’s not that simple. It’s so much  more complicated. All I know is that there are no voices that I know of that are showing that it’s a  complicated, muddled issue; that there are people who not only have  ‘survived suicide,’ which I think is a kind of silly term in the first  place, but who also have built a life… not around it, but built on the  foundation of wanting to live through suicide, and through suicidal  thoughts, and through suicidal feelings, and self-destructive  behavior. I mean, I wanted to love every ounce of my flesh after that,  because I saw it going away, like &amp;#8220;Oh my god, it’s all going to be gone. Everything’s going to be gone.&amp;#8221; &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I feed myself in various different ways  now. It&amp;#8217;s complex, but I think it’s very important to be a voice against  the chorus of sad, crying videos, or the ‘it will all be fine’ kind of  mentality. It’s not always fine. It’s not always completely a hundred  percent better, but to live with yourself and realize the parts  of you that you love&amp;#8212;and you still might hate parts of yourself&amp;#8212;but for  me it’s realizing the parts of yourself that you really want to live to  see, live to be. I have faith in myself and hope for myself.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;#8212;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If what you see here resonates with you in any way (or if you know someone who may want to share their story), would you do me a favor?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Reblog this post. Email it to a friend. Tweet &lt;a href="http://livethroughthis.org" target="_blank"&gt;a link to the project&lt;/a&gt;. Follow and ask your followers to follow &lt;a href="http://twitter.com/lttphoto" target="_blank"&gt;@lttphoto&lt;/a&gt; to keep up to date on our progress. Post about it on Facebook. Write about it on your blog and link back. If even one more person is aware of the project today than yesterday, I&amp;#8217;ll consider it a success.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If you would like to help fund the project, click &lt;a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&amp;amp;hosted_button_id=RS79CTVWSLSKS" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. T-shirts are &lt;a href="http://ltt.bigcartel.com/" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Thank you so much for your support, and another, extra special thanks to Cat Downs for helping with me transcription.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://livethroughthis.org/post/15404434216</link><guid>http://livethroughthis.org/post/15404434216</guid><pubDate>Fri, 06 Jan 2012 12:42:00 -0500</pubDate><category>suicide</category><category>suicide prevention</category><category>live through this</category><category>hope</category></item><item><title>I finally started shooting for Live Through This (LTT) yesterday. This has been a long time coming....</title><description>&lt;p&gt;I &lt;em&gt;finally&lt;/em&gt; started shooting for &lt;a href="http://livethroughthis.org" target="_blank"&gt;Live Through This&lt;/a&gt; (LTT) yesterday. This has been a long time coming. I feel incredible, and incredibly inspired.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
If you&amp;#8217;re not familiar with LTT, it&amp;#8217;s a project about life on the other side of a suicide attempt. Suicide is a terrifying epidemic. Instead of talking about it, we make broad generalizations about who it affects (ie., not us), and then sweep it under the rug and hope it will disappear. It won&amp;#8217;t. Suicide knows no age, creed, race, or sexual orientation. It does not discriminate.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
The best we can do to combat this epidemic is face it and talk about it. LTT will be a collection of portraits and the accompanying stories of those who have tried to commit suicide and found reasons to live. It&amp;#8217;s a topic extremely personal to me. I&amp;#8217;ve lost friends to it, and I nearly lost myself to it five years ago. I&amp;#8217;d like to see the project fully actualized in the form of a book and traveling exhibition in coming years.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
With this collection of stories, we can start a conversation. We can show the world that the face of suicide is multicultural, ageless, gender and sexual identity neutral. We can start to help people see that the easiest way to combat suicide is to have the balls to ask someone if they&amp;#8217;re suicidal and then, if they are, find them help. Armed with this collection, we can help people to see that there is always an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on, that there is a reason to live through this painful moment in time.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
This has been my passion project for well over a year now. I&amp;#8217;ve spent all this time reaching out to strangers, setting super ambitious goals that were destined to fail, and agonizing over nitpicky logistical details. All of which resulted in one thing: paralysis. I recently made the decision to scale back and start with the basics. That way, growth will be organic. There will be obstacles along the way, but that&amp;#8217;s how progress is made. Eventually, I&amp;#8217;d like LTT to be large scale and multifaceted, but everyone has to start somewhere.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
All of that said: I&amp;#8217;m starting with the stories and portraits of people local to the New York area. I&amp;#8217;ll also be in Miami from 12/20-12/23 and Orlando from 12/24-12/27. I want to meet and photograph as many people as possible. Strength in numbers, right? This will help me to gather a small catalog of images to show potential backers when I actually launch the &lt;a href="http://kickstarter.com" target="_blank"&gt;Kickstarter&lt;/a&gt; project I&amp;#8217;ve been talking about. Then I can travel to &lt;strong&gt;everyone&lt;/strong&gt; who wants to share their story.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
I can&amp;#8217;t do any of this alone, though. I&amp;#8217;d just be spinning my wheels. I need &lt;em&gt;your&lt;/em&gt; help. So:&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
 
&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you would like to participate in Live Through This, please &lt;a href="mailto:deseraestage@gmail.com"&gt;contact me&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you think you know someone who might be interested, please pass along the link to &lt;a href="http://deseraestage.com/blog/2011/12/09/live-through-this/" target="_blank"&gt;this entry&lt;/a&gt; or to the &lt;a href="http://livethroughthis.org" target="_blank"&gt;LTT website&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you&amp;#8217;re sympathetic to the cause, please tweet about it, or post a link on Facebook or G+, and ask your friends to re-post it. The more eyes that see this, the better.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you want to follow LTT on Twitter, you can do that &lt;a href="http://twitter.com/lttphoto" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you want to buy a LTT logo t-shirt, you can do that &lt;a href="http://ltt.bigcartel.com/" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
 
&lt;br/&gt;
Thank you so much for reading, considering, and any help you&amp;#8217;re willing to give. I promise: this will save lives.
&lt;p style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img class="aligncenter" src="http://distilleryimage9.instagram.com/c288125c221911e1a87612313804ec91_7.jpg" alt="Live Through This" width="612" height="612"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="text-align: center;"&gt;LTT logo art by &lt;a href="http://tattoosbyvinny.com" target="_blank"&gt;Vinny Romanelli&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://megangersch.com/" target="_blank"&gt;Megan Gersch&lt;/a&gt;. Cross-posted from &lt;a href="http://deseraestage.com" target="_blank"&gt;deseraestage.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://livethroughthis.org/post/14005624073</link><guid>http://livethroughthis.org/post/14005624073</guid><pubDate>Sat, 10 Dec 2011 02:07:16 -0500</pubDate><category>suicide</category><category>suicide prevention</category><category>mental illness</category><category>help</category><category>hope</category><category>self injury</category><category>self harm</category></item><item><title>I&amp;#8217;m nearing the end of History of a Suicide: My Sister’s Unfinished Life, a memoir by Jill...</title><description>&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#8217;m nearing the end of &lt;em&gt;History of a Suicide: My Sister’s Unfinished Life&lt;/em&gt;, a memoir by Jill Bialosky. Years after her sister committed suicide, Bialosky contacted Dr. Edwin Shneidman to piece together a psychological autopsy. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In talking, he gave her a key piece of information&amp;#8212;one thing &lt;em&gt;everyone&lt;/em&gt; should know about suicide and its prevention:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;#8220;What should you do if you fear someone is suicidal?&amp;#8221; I said.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;#8220;Dare to ask,&amp;#8221; he said.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Contrary to long-perpetuated myth, asking a person if they&amp;#8217;re considering suicide won&amp;#8217;t plant the idea in their head. Chances are, if you&amp;#8217;re bringing it up, they&amp;#8217;ve thought about it already.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#8217;s just that simple. It&amp;#8217;s a powerful question, but nothing to be afraid of. Keep it in the back of your mind. Use it if you need to. That one question could save the life of someone you love.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Reblog/tweet/share, please.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://livethroughthis.org/post/6353381231</link><guid>http://livethroughthis.org/post/6353381231</guid><pubDate>Thu, 09 Jun 2011 10:20:00 -0400</pubDate><category>suicide prevention</category><category>live through this</category><category>jill bialosky</category><category>edwin shneidman</category></item><item><title>Hello, everybody!
I apologize for the long silence. Summer&amp;#8217;s here, and it&amp;#8217;s business as...</title><description>&lt;p&gt;Hello, everybody!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I apologize for the long silence. Summer&amp;#8217;s here, and it&amp;#8217;s business as usual behind the scenes at LTT headquarters.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;T-shirts are out in the world! I&amp;#8217;ve had reports back from cities as close as Philadelphia and as far as Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. It&amp;#8217;s amazing to see all these smiling faces in support of such an important cause as suicide prevention.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Check out nurse Michelle lookin&amp;#8217; sassy in her shirt:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmfkgwuZG21qzxqqb.jpg" align="middle"/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#8217;re still working hard toward our Kickstarter launch. We&amp;#8217;ve got some really amazing artists helping us out with backer rewards, too.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#8217;re also reaching out as much as possible to make people aware of the project and stir up some interest. That reminds me: if you&amp;#8217;re reading this and LTT is a project you support, could you do me a favor?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Tweet &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://livethroughthis.org"&gt;a link to the project&lt;/a&gt;. Ask your followers to follow &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/lttphoto"&gt;@lttphoto&lt;/a&gt; to keep up to date on our progress. Post about it on Facebook. Write about it on your blog and link back. If even one more person is aware of the project today than yesterday, I&amp;#8217;ll consider it a success.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://livethroughthis.org/post/6288900913</link><guid>http://livethroughthis.org/post/6288900913</guid><pubDate>Tue, 07 Jun 2011 13:33:00 -0400</pubDate><category>live through this</category><category>suicide prevention</category></item><item><title>The headline:

Shock, Tragedy at Bend &amp;#8216;Open Mic&amp;#8217; Night: Teen Keyboard Performer Stabs,...</title><description>&lt;p&gt;The headline:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;h2 class="Headline"&gt;Shock, Tragedy at Bend &amp;#8216;Open Mic&amp;#8217; Night: Teen Keyboard Performer Stabs, Kills Self as Crowd Looks On&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;A brief synopsis: 19 year old Kipp Rusty Walker performs at an open mic night at Strictly Organic Coffee Company in Bend, OR and then stabs himself in the chest repeatedly in front of the audience. He dies.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;A Google search of &amp;#8220;Kipp Rusty Walker&amp;#8221; relays plenty of hits, most of which are some mish-mash of an &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://www.ktvz.com/news/27561976/detail.html"&gt;article posted by local Bend station KTVZ&lt;/a&gt;. Interestingly, while KTVZ does actually address what you should do when a friend threatens suicide (the correct answer here is TAKE IT SERIOUSLY), most of the other posts are more concerned with what Walker called the song he played before he killed himself (something like &amp;#8220;Sorry for the Mess&amp;#8221;).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If you watch the video associated with the KTVZ article, you&amp;#8217;ll notice that anchor Adam Aaro says something I find absolutely infuriating, and it is this: &amp;#8220;We normally don&amp;#8217;t report on suicides.&amp;#8221;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#8217;ve got a lot of thoughts on this, but most of them are ethical and stray from the most important question, which is: Why does it take the inherent sensationalism of a &lt;strong&gt;public&lt;/strong&gt; suicide for a media outlet to decide to cover the topic at all?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It is a fact that suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the United States.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If the media chooses to sweep it under the rug, how is the public at large supposed to know that it is an omnipresent social issue which knows no age, creed, or ethnicity? I understand that we&amp;#8217;re all supposed to be responsible citizens of the world, but that&amp;#8217;s mostly unrealistic given the constant influx of content and the warp speed at which we live our lives. The fact remains that many of us rely on the media to supply us with information about the world, and that includes telling us what&amp;#8217;s going on and what we should be paying attention to.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If the media chooses not to report on suicide, the knowledge is not made available to the public that &lt;em&gt;saving a life could be as simple as asking someone if they&amp;#8217;re having thoughts of hurting themselves&lt;/em&gt;. If the media chooses not to report on suicide, all the crap mythology gets perpetuated. I know that people will still die by their own hand, but isn&amp;#8217;t saving just a couple lives a start?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Sure, it&amp;#8217;s depressing, but I&amp;#8217;d rather hear about suicide over Charlie Sheen any day. If we&amp;#8217;re talking about it, there&amp;#8217;s a better chance we&amp;#8217;re doing something about it.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://livethroughthis.org/post/4731147388</link><guid>http://livethroughthis.org/post/4731147388</guid><pubDate>Mon, 18 Apr 2011 19:32:58 -0400</pubDate></item><item><title>A quick note for those of you who purchased a LTT t-shirt: The order has been placed and you should...</title><description>&lt;p&gt;A quick note for those of you who purchased a LTT t-shirt: The order has been placed and you should have your shirt within approximately two to three weeks.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;We ordered some extras, but they&amp;#8217;re going fast. We are now completely &lt;strong&gt;sold out&lt;/strong&gt; of medium t-shirts. As I mentioned before, it may be awhile before we order more, so if we still have your size, make sure to head over to &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://ltt.bigcartel.com/"&gt;&lt;a href="http://ltt.bigcartel.com/"&gt;http://ltt.bigcartel.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and grab one. Here&amp;#8217;s what we have left:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;     S - 2&lt;br/&gt;      L - 2&lt;br/&gt;      XL - 2&lt;br/&gt;      XX - 1&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Thank you so much for your support. I can&amp;#8217;t even express how much I appreciate it.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://livethroughthis.org/post/4694859027</link><guid>http://livethroughthis.org/post/4694859027</guid><pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2011 14:38:15 -0400</pubDate><category>live through this</category><category>t-shirts</category></item><item><title>Hello! I apologize for the long silence. We&amp;#8217;ve been working hard behind the scenes and...</title><description>&lt;p&gt;Hello! I apologize for the long silence. We&amp;#8217;ve been working hard behind the scenes and haven&amp;#8217;t had much time to write.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Your two big updates for today are:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ol&gt;&lt;li&gt;This is your last chance to grab an &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://ltt.bigcartel.com/"&gt;official LTT logo tee&lt;/a&gt; at the pre-sale price of $19.99 (plus shipping). We&amp;#8217;re about to send off the order for the first batch of shirts, and it may be awhile before we order more. Check &amp;#8216;em out at &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://ltt.bigcartel.com/"&gt;&lt;a href="http://ltt.bigcartel.com/"&gt;http://ltt.bigcartel.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; As a reminder, all sales go toward gear needed to shoot LTT.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;br/&gt;&lt;li&gt;We&amp;#8217;ve got a tentative launch date for the &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://kickstarter.com"&gt;Kickstarter&lt;/a&gt; project! I&amp;#8217;m not sharing it until I know we&amp;#8217;ll be 100% ready to go on that date, but be prepared. &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;In order to emphasize the multimedia focus of LTT, we&amp;#8217;ve asked a handful of extremely talented artists working in various mediums to contribute some cool (and in some cases, limited edition) items as backer rewards. So far, we&amp;#8217;ve got &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://henryrollins.com/"&gt;Henry Rollins&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://neilgaiman.com/"&gt;Neil Gaiman&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://charlottemartin.com/"&gt;Charlotte Martin&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://shannasharp.com/"&gt;Shanna Sharp&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://www.davedanielsmusic.com/"&gt;Dave Daniels and the PTA&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://iheartfailure.net/"&gt;Jesse Bradley&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://jasonshogreen.com/"&gt;Jason Sho Green&lt;/a&gt; on-board.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; Yes, you read correctly. Some of my heroes are on that list! I&amp;#8217;m extremely grateful and extremely excited. Are you? You should be! Stay tuned! &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;</description><link>http://livethroughthis.org/post/4422273507</link><guid>http://livethroughthis.org/post/4422273507</guid><pubDate>Thu, 07 Apr 2011 16:30:00 -0400</pubDate><category>live through this</category><category>suicide prevention</category><category>kickstarter</category><category>neil gaiman</category><category>charlotte martin</category><category>shanna sharp</category><category>henry rollins</category><category>jason sho green</category><category>dave daniels</category><category>j. bradley</category></item><item><title>We&amp;#8217;re a week and a half into the launch, and things are rolling along. There have been some...</title><description>&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#8217;re a week and a half into the launch, and things are rolling along. There have been some bumps so far, but these things are to be expected. I&amp;#8217;ve also gotten some extremely touching messages in my inbox. The project is already affecting people in ways I never could have imagined. I&amp;#8217;m dumbfounded, and happy for it.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;A huge update worth noting is that last week, thanks to a loan from a generous, kind, anonymous soul, I purchased a new camera body which will allow me to realize the multimedia-ness of &lt;em&gt;Live Through This&lt;/em&gt;. The Canon 5D Mark II is capable of capturing still imagery as well as HD video, and is what I will be using to shoot the video for the upcoming Kickstarter project and participant interviews/portraits. I&amp;#8217;m still testing it out and getting comfortable with it, but I intend to start shooting the video soon.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;By the way, official LTT logo t-shirts are still going for pre-sale prices. &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://ltt.bigcartel.com/"&gt;Get &amp;#8216;em while they&amp;#8217;re hot!&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://livethroughthis.org/post/4189401287</link><guid>http://livethroughthis.org/post/4189401287</guid><pubDate>Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:32:00 -0400</pubDate></item><item><title>&amp;#8230;And we&amp;#8217;re officially launched!
I&amp;#8217;m really excited that Live Through This is...</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&amp;#8230;And we&amp;#8217;re officially launched!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#8217;m really excited that &lt;em&gt;Live Through This&lt;/em&gt; is becoming a reality. I&amp;#8217;d been carrying this seedling around with me for years, this idea that maybe I could take my life experience and merge it with all the training I&amp;#8217;ve had, both academically and artistically, to mold it into something bigger than me&amp;#8212;something useful, something that could save lives.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I finally decided to plant that seed last August. Since then, it&amp;#8217;s grown and changed so much that what you see now is barely recognizable from what I started with. In the coming weeks, we&amp;#8217;re going to start taking our next steps: we&amp;#8217;ll be casting out lines for participants and we&amp;#8217;ll be working toward launching the &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://www.kickstarter.com"&gt;Kickstarter&lt;/a&gt; project.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Kickstarter is an amazingly innovative way for artists to find help in getting their messages out into the world. I&amp;#8217;m going to need quite a bit of funding to take this from being a vision in my head to being a tangible exhibition piece, and I think Kickstarter is the perfect platform. There are bits of gear I need to purchase to bring the project to fruition, but more importantly, I&amp;#8217;ll need to make cross-country pilgrimages to interview the people who will become the faces of &lt;em&gt;Live Through This&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I am 100% willing to contribute every extra bit of my own personal funds available after living expenses; however, it is impossible for me to do this on my own. The scope is too broad and the need is too great. This is where you come in. Because I know that funds are tight for everyone these days, we&amp;#8217;re doing our work to lock in some fantastic backer rewards, so even if it&amp;#8217;s a tough call between donating to LTT and investing that cash elsewhere, you should come out of the experience with something pretty cool to show for it. Something in addition to my undying gratitude, anyway. More on this soon.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I want to thank everyone reading this for taking the time and for caring about the cause, and I want to thank Lisa Lombardo for her faith in me and this idea. She&amp;#8217;s been a key player in bringing LTT into the world, and I&amp;#8217;d probably still be floundering without her.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://livethroughthis.org/post/3940346486</link><guid>http://livethroughthis.org/post/3940346486</guid><pubDate>Fri, 18 Mar 2011 10:24:33 -0400</pubDate><category>live through this</category><category>suicide prevention</category><category>kickstarter</category></item><item><title>Welcome to the new and improved home of Live Through This. Any and all project updates and other...</title><description>&lt;p&gt;Welcome to the new and improved home of &lt;em&gt;Live Through This&lt;/em&gt;. Any and all project updates and other relevant information will be posted here over time. We&amp;#8217;re still working on getting everything up and running, so bear with us, but bookmark this url, too!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In the meantime, check out our &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://ltt.bigcartel.com/"&gt;Live Through This T-shirts&lt;/a&gt;! All proceeds will go to getting this project off the ground. They&amp;#8217;re going for a special pre-sale price of $19.99 plus shipping at the moment. Get &amp;#8216;em while they&amp;#8217;re hot!&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://livethroughthis.org/post/3743557596</link><guid>http://livethroughthis.org/post/3743557596</guid><pubDate>Wed, 09 Mar 2011 10:41:00 -0500</pubDate></item></channel></rss>

