I know this isn’t a great photo, there are other better photos of Jim Rogers and I, but in this one he’s handing the gavel to me, the handing of the presidential leadership from one president to another. It was one of the most significant and meaningful events in my life, becoming president of the American Association of Suicidology nearly ten years ago.
I have put off writing about this because I didn’t want it to interfere with any messages this month regarding National Suicide Prevention Month. And I waited to see how things would roll out, but I know now that I have severed my last ties with the organization that brought me so much, that gave me a new family, that connected me with people around the world, and was my professional home even before my first book was published. In fact, AAS led me to the publisher of my first book about sibling suicide grief.
But a leadership grab that quite honestly makes no sense to me has forced me to cut that final string and shut the door.
Most people will say that I severed ties a long time ago because I tried to walk away from the work. What many people don’t realize is that since my sister died, my parents have died also and it changed the “place” of my sister Denise’s death in my life. I felt it was time for me to do other things.
And there was something else– when I went back to a conference, this particular one in Phoenix several years ago, I was dismayed by what I saw. This was not the professional organization that I had joined back in 1999, a group of people who made me want to do better, to be better. Instead, I saw bashing of people and a lack of respect from one particular group to another. The leadership that had gotten us where we were was gone because the people who came in chose to blatantly disrespect others. And then the bylaws.
I didn’t tell many people what I saw; I thought maybe it was just me. But it turns out, what I saw was the beginning of the end and where we have landed today.
I grieved the loss of AAS then and I grieved it again in August. I would not be who I am or where I am without AAS. I’m glad I walked away when I did, that I chose wisely not to rejoin several years ago and watch the demise from a closer seat than I needed to sit.
I don’t like it; part of me is angry, knowing the work of so many that is gone. But I do understand that change happens and somewhere in this I’ll find my way forward. Like I always have.
And I hope everyone else does, too.