I intended to gradually talk about my involvement with a women’s support group over the past eight months.  The group is for women who have mental health issues, who have been raped and sexually assaulted, who have family or financial issues or other problems.  I initially joined to help support someone else, but I stayed both for my own benefit and because I’ve been able to help others.

Where I can’t help is one of the group leaders who is leaving.  I won’t list her traumas, but she has made multiple suicide attempts over several years and is submitting herself for long term psychiatric care.  It has fallen to me to lead weekly meetings of the support group because I’m the most regular attendee.

I worry about letting down people, about running the group well.  I hope I’m up to the task to continue what she started, because it was her baby, her initiative to help other women and men too.  Mental health is a taboo subject in Taiwan, and we’ve only just begun getting the public to talk about it.

I owe her greatly as a friend and what she did for me early this summer, which is a topic for another time….