Why So Sad? Summer ’22 | Post 1

 

John Rattray, Frontside Melonchollie Grab—aka Sad Grab—in Winnipeg Canada circa 2011
John Rattray, Frontside Melancholy—aka Sad Grab— in Winnipeg, Canada, c2012. Photo by Jamie Thomas

 

Why So Sad?

Exploring How Childhood Experiences Affect Our Brain’s Response to the Stresses of Adult Life  

10-minute read:

May 8, 2022: Heads up, this story touches on the subject of suicide. If you, or someone you know, is going through a mental health crisis please reach out to your local support line.

Section 1: The Thing that Hurts You So…

Early in 2018, seven years after Katrina died, I was eating lunch alone.

The good thing about being alone is it affords you time to quietly learn. Today I’m eating ramen noodles while listening to a conversation with Dr Rangan Chattergee and Johann Hari, author of Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression and the Unexpected Solutions.

The reason I’m listening to this conversation, and the reason I’d read Hari’s book in the first place and found it so helpful, was because Katrina, my sister, died by suicide.

Right after that, in 2011, I travel back to Scotland to be with mum Continue reading “Why So Sad? Summer ’22 | Post 1”

Why So Sad? x Actions REALized

Photo by Ari Landon Morris

To date, over the course of the Good Egg 1 & 2, and the 2019 Why So Sad? Mission, we’ve raised around $13,000 for SAMH, Grassroots Suicide Prevention and the Johns Hopkins research into treatment of major depression. For this next phase, we’ll be helping out Rob, Susie and Lucy push forward with their work in 2020 at The Ben Raemers Foundation.

To that end, Real Skateboards have been kind enough to partner up on a run of boards that we’ve made based on 1) the art that Jon Horner so skillfully provided, 2) a top graphic collage comprised of a decent selection of the photos that you all sent in over the course of the campaign; and a little inscription: Read on…

Shralp for Ben: Carl Harling’s Mission for the Ben Raemers Foundation

Carl Harling riding his bike with his board strapped to the basket on a mission for mental health in memory of Ben Raemers
Carl Harling riding his bike with his board strapped to the basket on a mission for mental health in memory of Ben Raemers

Details of the ongoing Why So Sad? mission for mental health can be found here.

Read on for a conversation with Carl Harling who is riding his bike and skating his way down the west coast in memory of Ben Raemers and in aid of the Ben Raemers Foundation… Read on…

Why So Sad? A conversation with Auby Taylor

Auby Taylor Sad Plants at a Texas vert ramp.
Auby Taylor, Sad Plant. Photo by Patric Backlund

Participate in the Why So Sad fundraising mission for mental health…

You can find all the details on how to contribute to, and participate in, the Why So Sad? 2019 mission for mental health… here.

Warning:

The following post explores the subject of depression and suicide. If you do not want to read about that, please don’t read on.

A CONVERSATION WITH AUBY TAYLOR:

Themes:

  • The importance of talking openly about issues of depression and anxiety.
  • The inner-critic we all have a version of.
  • Fitting in, or not, in the California skate industry.
  • The importance of being able to know and express our true selves.
    • Especially the painful parts.
  • The process of unlearning certain conditioned thinking.

Context:

The WhySoSad? mission for mental health is the third annual fundraiser I’ve organized in memory of my sister, Katrina, and now more recently, tragically, in memory of Ben Raemers also. But it’s really in memory of every loved one we’ve ever lost to depression and its worst-case…completely unnecessary…tough-but-avoidable side-effect…suicide.

So part of the mission is that I’ll ride my bike many miles and do my own Sad Plant (hopefully finally approved by the grand–masters) and also I’ve been collecting photos of Sad Plants from skaters around the world…I think to ultimately make a collage, or create a show or something.

In the course of collecting photos of Sad Plants from skaters who can already do, or have recently learned Sad Plants, I’ve had some great messaging going back and forth. One of the best interactions I’ve had has been with Texan transitional-terrorizer, Auby Taylor. Read on…

Why So Sad? 2019 Mission for Mental Health

In memory of my sister, Katrina, and pro-skater Ben Raemers, I plan on riding my bike 100 miles and finally — in my early 40s — doing my first proper Sad Plant. All money raised gets split between three good organizations doing some of the best work to reduce depression and provide access to tools, knowledge and services to improve our mental health. Read on…

Why So Sad? Three Options to Support the 2019 let’s-end-depression-and-suicide cycle-skate mission.

Hello and thanks for visiting this page. In case you have no idea what’s going on, this page is dedicated to my sister, Katrina, as well as pro-skater Ben Raemers, both of whom lost their lives to suicide. For the last three years I’ve been doing an annual mission to raise funds and awareness around the issues of mental health and emotional well-being. And I’ve been attempting to drive a more open dialogue around the subjects of depression and suicide.

This year I am collecting Sad Plants. I mean, there’ll be more to it than just that but for the sake of retaining some semblance of mystery I’ll leave it at that for now. Read on…

Ben Raemers: Some thoughts on depression and its worst-case conclusion

Ben Raemers was the sweetest, funnest kid I ever toured with. I only traveled with Ben a couple of times, first through Europe and then through the Pacific North West. Now, in light of his recent death, I realize that there was a subtle anxiety in him that only in hindsight I see was the surface ripple of something profoundly painful. Having experienced episodes of darkness in my own life, I can’t help but interpret that as an indication that somewhere deep inside him was a dark, agonizing, Mariana Trench, from which he was desperately trying to escape. That constant struggle is exhausting but I remain convinced that there are concrete methods out there with which we can defuse these mental short-circuits — these false narratives that get stuck on loop in our heads. And, I have to say, I feel lucky that although I have suffered through periods of depression at times in my life, I have each time been able to find that invisible side-door through which to escape back onto a more optimistic path through this labyrinth we call life; and I have not been stuck in the awful, crippling loop of long-term or truly chronic depression.

The spark to start writing this post came when I picked up my old notebook from the weeks that directly followed my Continue reading “Ben Raemers: Some thoughts on depression and its worst-case conclusion”