It started with a song. Yep, I have to give some credit to Paramore* for Letters of Love, because it was their song “Misery Business” that got this whole thing started. Mike was playing NHL 2008, and “Misery Business” was on the soundtrack. The song got stuck in my head, so I eventually Googled it and came to their website. While looking through their site, I came upon a page** listing some of their causes. On that page was an organization called To Write Love On Her Arms.
To Write Love On Her Arms? I thought to myself. Could it possibly be what it sounds like?
Being someone who has struggled with self-injury throughout my adolescence, it didn’t seem possible that TWLOHA could mean anything else. I had never heard of any organization who helped people who self-harm, though, so I tried not to get my hopes up as I clicked through to their website.
I quickly discovered that TWLOHA is a
…non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.
I felt unbelievable amazement at knowing that such an organization existed. Since I had struggled with depression and self-injury, I felt an overpowering urge to get involved somehow. Unfortunately, at the time, TWLOHA didn’t have a street team***. I was bummed, and I couldn’t think of any other way that I could do something like what they were doing: providing awareness of depression, and support to others living with it.
Still, I became obsessed with TWLOHA. I bought a tee shirt, told everyone who I thought would listen about them and what they were doing, and looked up different communities on LiveJournal to get in touch with other supporters and to see what they were doing to get involved.
While browsing one community, I stumbled upon a thread where one of the community members suggested that a few of them swap addresses and become pen pals.
Pen pals… Something clicked, and Letters of Love sprang into life. I had grown up writing letters to and receiving them from friends and family, and had always loved checking my mail to see if a letter had arrived. It had always given me something to look forward to, and writing them was just as fun as getting them. It just made perfect sense to take that simple concept and take it to a level where it could actually be therapeutic, in a way, for myself and others.
On February 13th, 2008, I set up a LiveJournal community and posted asking for a pen pal****.
Anyone who would like for me to write them a letter, please leave your name and address here. In turn, if you want to leave your address for someone else to write a letter, please make a separate post as I will be screening comments here for people’s privacy.
Along with your name and address, please write a little about yourself, such as your favorite color, any hobbies you might have, favorite musicians and movies, etc.
I will screen comments here for privacy. Feel free to add me on Lj or on the same username on Insanejournal, as well as my MySpace, myspace.com/delirious19th (just send me a message letting me know you’re from Letters of Love).
Good night, and have a good day tomorrow!
Elizabeth Kaylene
Honestly, I thought that the whole thing was probably too spontaneous and that no one would even be interested in snail mail, since, hello, we have email!
Obviously, I was wrong.
Tune in next week for Part II!
*Ironically enough, I don’t like Paramore because, to me, all of their songs sound the same beyond “Misery Business”!
**This page apparently no longer exists ):
***But they do now! (:
****Luckily, LJ had settings that allowed me to screen comments so that only I could see them, enabling people to post their addresses securely. Now, it is required for Letters of Love pen pals to email or private message each other their addresses.
