Believing in it until it hurts

Event planning, promoting and advertising can be really exhausting. These days I think I'm running on pure passion and drive (with a little help from caffeine! )

I put hours and hours a day into my current mental health project: Dancing with the Stars of JMU for Suicide Prevention - and often times am I not only not getting paid for it, but I'm actually spending my own money on it.

Even when I type it, I think it sounds crazy.

But the thing is - I believe in this event more than I can put into words. I believe that if even just ONE person in the audience gets the help they need after Wednesday night that every single second and penny was worth it.

It's easy for me to believe that, to talk about it, to breathe it in and out - when for a long time I was the girl who needed to be in the audience. I was the girl who felt all alone, lost and confused because I didn't understand what was going on with me. For a long time I was just scared.

That was me. So advocating, event planning, raising awareness -- all of it - is as easy as breathing because no one should be that girl or that boy or that kid or that student or that man or that mother or that sister or that daughter or that father or that son - watching life happen feeling alone.

That is why we're putting on Dancing with the Stars of JMU for Suicide Prevention. Because everyone needs to know that they are not alone.