Your writing always makes me feel better Jamie. Thank you for being so amazing and inspiring :)

1 | Left by cre8ive_ovadose | Oct. 31, 2011 at 11:52pm

I'm studying the Gothic genre in English ALevel and ghosts are thought to represent our "innermost anxieties" and also to serve as a symbol of what is missing. I think that works in real life as well as in literature.

Letting someone in and being that person for other people sounds incredible, but I guess I'm worried that they won't be able to accept me, anxiety and obsessive compulsive and all. I've spent a long time trying to be someone people would like and I'm scared of messing that up.

Things are slowly getting better with the anxiety stuff though so thank you for giving me the courage to seek help. Always thank you for your words.

2 | Left by Clare | Nov. 1, 2011 at 1:17am

Your words are always inspiring, encouraging, and TRUE. It's hard to admit the need for help, but you continuously remind me that it's ok. What you have done with your life is just amazing and many follow, including me. Thank you!

3 | Left by Natisha | Nov. 1, 2011 at 2:35am

Jamie, your words are always so inspiring to me. I had the honor of getting to see you speak a few years back and your words are even more inspirational in person. Thank you for writing. You always leave me with hope.

4 | Left by Francesca | Nov. 1, 2011 at 9:32am

I'm not afraid of the ghosts,
Nor the house that they call home.
My body is the haunted cell,
Filled with hurt that i condone.
How do you help something...
Too hideous, too broken to love?
You watch them suffer and live out their life
Never knowing where the hurt is born from.

This is how I have felt most of my life, but TWLOHA helps. Thanks

5 | Left by Hannah Jean | Nov. 1, 2011 at 9:57am

...but sometimes, when we reach out for help, we end up rejected and ignored. What then? (Perhaps inspiration for your next blog)

6 | Left by Anon | Nov. 1, 2011 at 10:42am

This is beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing - your words always find a way to connect with me and move me so deeply. Posts like this are why I support TWLOHA so much - because of the constant reminder of hope, the reminder that we're not alone, not if we don't want to be, and our only company doesn't have to be our ghosts.

One of these days I'll get the courage to open up to my friends and family about these things. Until then, thank you for this movement, which continually keeps me going.

7 | Left by Elle | Nov. 1, 2011 at 10:54am

a beautiful way to put it. you are raw and real and for that i am thankful.

8 | Left by victoria | Nov. 1, 2011 at 11:01am

omg, this is beautiful! Jamie, your writing GMH.

9 | Left by Lariza | Nov. 1, 2011 at 11:01am

Thank you Jamie, your words always ignite hope.

10 | Left by Trudie | Nov. 1, 2011 at 12:35pm

This is truly inspiring because at the moment I am dealign with a lot of ghosts and I don't how to get rid of them. This entire rang so true, thank you. Thank you for the blogs that you write (I check almost every day for anything new on this website.) Please keep this organization going because it gives people like me hope, a place to go. It gives me a glimpse of what my future will be like if I fight for it. Thanks you for sparking the conversations that need to happen, to save lives. Keep fighting

11 | Left by jc | Nov. 1, 2011 at 1:22pm

This is beautiful and inspiring even for those of us who have largely healed.

12 | Left by Erin Grewe | Nov. 1, 2011 at 4:07pm

I was having an off day but this inspired me a lot. Thank you! (This is why I love twloha)

13 | Left by Aubrey | Nov. 1, 2011 at 4:11pm

Wow, Jamie. This is the first I've come across your blog, but what an amazing piece of writing this is. You captured incredibly how the past hangs on to us, and how it steals the future just like in those haunted house situations. Thanks for writing this.

14 | Left by Mike | Nov. 1, 2011 at 4:26pm

This gave me goose bumps as I read it. So very well put, you are an amazing, inspiring, beautiful person.Don't ever stop expressing yourself:D There are so many people out there that deserve to hear what you have to share. Thank you for inspiring me today:D

15 | Left by Ashley rrSorensen | Nov. 1, 2011 at 4:32pm

Jamie, that was amazing. Words just can't express the emotions that went through me as i read your words. Thank you for creating this

16 | Left by Mariana Ramirez | Nov. 1, 2011 at 4:49pm

Sometimes those ghosts can be so powerful. When you are supposed to be strong and supposed to be a leader but you feel their ghostly hands grasping you and pulling you.... You hear their whispers and feel their doubts... Thanks for reminding me of hope.

17 | Left by Thomas | Nov. 1, 2011 at 5:19pm

I absolutely relate to the post. It is so well written!

18 | Left by laura | Nov. 1, 2011 at 5:32pm

thank you for writing this jamie. you are my source of inspiration, because i know that you, like so many of us, are broken. and i appreciate it. i appreciate your honesty.

19 | Left by kelli | Nov. 1, 2011 at 6:57pm

WoW, relates to my life so much right now .... I'm broken right now and got slot of things I need to let go of but I know I have to tell people what's going on with me to do so ... But I dont know if I should but i do know I need to, to heal ... As the saying goes things have to get worse before they get better and the truth will set you free and its okay not to be okay but telling people is really hard and it's something I have to do ... And the only way I'll ever be free and whole again and before I figured this out I was broken with no way out and ever since I figured this out it seems more and more the right answer but I just don't know it's so simple and so easy yet soo hard and complacated

20 | Left by Sarah | Nov. 2, 2011 at 1:17am

This is exactly what I needed to hear right now.

21 | Left by Monica | Nov. 2, 2011 at 11:41am

''Friends with hope like candles''....love that. Many a time, I have found myself keeper of the flame for someone else....I am a nurse, and I bring that into my friendships as well. I have my own ghosts, and they're painful, and I honestly, most of the time, don't want people to come into my darkness, and see my ghosts. I don't want to burden those around me.. Thanks for reminding me that sometimes, I have to pass the torch.

22 | Left by Amanda | Nov. 2, 2011 at 11:45am

Wow, this just made me cry a little bit. Thank you for this amazing post, and I think you're right, we all have a past. But living in the present, in reailty is where the healing can start.

23 | Left by Lynne | Nov. 2, 2011 at 11:48am

once i told my mother i needed help and needed her to take me because i couldn't do it by myself. she said sheshe would buti then forgot about it. i couldn't bring myself to ask again as it obviously didn't concern her.

24 | Left by Anon | Nov. 2, 2011 at 12:50pm

I decided to check out this post after you were at GPRC last night, and I am 'glad' I did. I use quotes because I am not glad, but there is some sort of positive thinking stewing in my brain amidst the muck that is me right now. I've graduated from Bible School and am supposed to have all the answers, be healed, and grown and spiritually mature or whatever, and I feel just as broken as when I got here, but not helpless, and not hopeless, but certainly haunted. I think there is a tension in it, and I am wondering if it ever lightens up? Does sharing start to make you feel better? Or does it just make you feel worse, really I don't know. I do share, but then it gets stupid...that's the word I'll choose.

25 | Left by Cheryl | Nov. 2, 2011 at 12:55pm

Oh. My. Goodness. Wow. Ive been needing to read or be told something like this for awhile. I have a lot of ghosts and I need to let them go. All those things that haunt me day in and day out, I need to let go of them. Of course, this is easier said than done, but reading this made everything clearer and it got through my stubborn mind. Which isnt easy to do.

But is the sharing and the talking and the getting it out there as easy as you say it is? Am I going to be imstantly freed? That I can answer-No. Its going to take a long time. A. Very. Long. Time. I know that I need to rely on the love of God, and my family. But again-Im stubborn. I want to not be haunted-but I 'shut down' whenever I dont want to talk about something-not my best quality.

I dont know. Maybe Im just scared, because getting everything out there in the open seems more real now. More like a reality than something that was months away. Its real. And Im going to have to spill everything that haunts me day in and day out.

Oh My God. Crap. I am going to have to talk. Jamie-you made me realize this. Wow. I dont know what else to say. Except that Im scared and I dont want to do this alone....

26 | Left by Megan Ashleigh | Nov. 2, 2011 at 4:57pm

I definitely needed to hear that today.. I've felt haunted for years by things that happened in the past and I've just started opening up to people and letting them know what's going on. It's super hard, but it's so necessary for healing those hurts.

27 | Left by Mitchie | Nov. 2, 2011 at 7:30pm

I always love reading your writing or hearing you speak. You give hope to so many people, thank you so much for everything you do.

I met you at the University of Toledo on October 25th (first one there, one of the last to leave :D ) and it will forever go down as one of the happiest days of my life. Thank you for caring.

28 | Left by Lisa | Nov. 3, 2011 at 11:00pm

This made me feel better(:

29 | Left by Briona | Nov. 4, 2011 at 4:23pm

Wow! Great post. Thanks for sharing this insightful wisdom. I've made a lot of peace with my haunted past but it wasn't easy.

30 | Left by Danfrye39 | Nov. 4, 2011 at 8:39pm

you write so beautifully. i feel haunted sometimes. like i am the ghost, floating through life, but not really there. it's the hand reaching out to me that always brings me back. back to the world of the living. it's the people who bring me back.

31 | Left by Terrie | Nov. 5, 2011 at 10:25am

For a long time I thought I was okay. I came here today because this was a place that gave a voice to my ghosts, an exorcism of the past. Thank you Jamie, for reminding me that this is still a place of safety. God Bless.

32 | Left by mark | Nov. 5, 2011 at 6:35pm

Just saw a TV presenter on a New Zealand TV program wearing a TWLOHA tank top. Love it :)

33 | Left by Telina | Nov. 5, 2011 at 9:29pm

this is the most amazing thing i have read in a long time.

34 | Left by Anon | Nov. 6, 2011 at 1:00pm

I've needed to hear this for some time. i need to let go of some things, and perhaps some that i don't even know of. thanks jamie. =) God bless you!!

35 | Left by Anon | Nov. 6, 2011 at 1:05pm

Great blog and spot on. I celebrated five years of not cutting this past week, but I've still got some ghosts to get rid of and still need people willing to walk with me.

36 | Left by flutterbypridge | Nov. 6, 2011 at 3:13pm

The last paragraph made me cry. Open doors and let others see inside? Scares me how much I have forgotten how to live.

37 | Left by Anon | Nov. 6, 2011 at 5:38pm

Thank you for such beautiful message. I really needed to hear it.

38 | Left by Emilia | Nov. 6, 2011 at 8:18pm

I love this. I didn't see where it was going until I got to the end. It is true that without letting someone in you won't be able to let go of our ghosts. Let the past be the past and focus on the present and the future.

39 | Left by Kali | Nov. 8, 2011 at 12:00am

This... is beautiful. I'm in tears.

40 | Left by Kendra | Nov. 11, 2011 at 1:58pm

One of the best entries I've read on the site.

41 | Left by Rachel Ruse | Nov. 15, 2011 at 7:02pm

Thank you for this, Jamie. Really. Entries like this help me move past the bad moments, especially when I want to fall into them.

42 | Left by Nina | Nov. 16, 2011 at 2:09pm

Jamie i just wanted to thank you for your inspirational words in all of your blogs!

43 | Left by Taylor Rae | Nov. 22, 2011 at 7:25am

I'm supposed to be doing homework, but was feeling, I guess as you would say it, "haunted" by my past. Sometimes I feel that my past is still a huge part of me. I've been waiting for something like this. I needed permission to let it go. I'm ready to. Your article made me cry. Thank you.

44 | Left by Anon | Nov. 30, 2011 at 2:16pm

Dear TWLOHA
I lost a friend on October 8 of this year....he would have been 15 on the 1st of November...he gave me te love not to kill my self....now I have a butterfly drawn in my wrist name after him....if I cut the butterfly dies....I can't kill him...both u and the Butterfly project have kept me alive so far. But I need so much more if I em to make it.
Love an butterfly's,
Kira

45 | Left by Kira rainbowZ | Dec. 20, 2011 at 3:37pm

Absolutely beautiful. Just what I needed to hear today, right before the start of the new year. You folks are amazing. You've helped me more than you could ever know.

46 | Left by Anon | Dec. 30, 2011 at 6:41pm

This is honestly one of my favorite posts. Not just on TWLOHA, but generally one of the best, and most meaningful, to me, posts i've read anywhere.
Thanks, Jamie.

47 | Left by ISITMWWinfinite | Jan. 23, 2012 at 11:03pm

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48 | Left by XDHBGJNHGJM | Feb. 17, 2012 at 6:50pm