We are stoked, beyond stoked, that we were lucky enough to get this interview with a pretty special and influential guy.
Although his organization doesn’t focus specifically on young people that are struggling with eating disorders, or self esteem issues, it does focus on hope, and help, and rescue, and the possibilty and reality of all of those things. Hope in situations that are dark. Help in situations that are bleek. And rescue from situations that we’d prefer that people never have to be in. Although our blog does focus on organizations and people that have dedicated their time to building self esteem and prevention of having to go through eating disorders, depression, cutting - all results and symptoms of low self esteem - we also focus on those organizations and people that do great work in trying lift people out of situations like the ones mentioned, in addition to the many other consequences of poor self esteem.
Jamie Tworkowski is a part of one of those organizations.
Jamie Tworkowski, founder of the non-profit organisation To Write Love On Her Arms, or TWLOHA, was willingly to have us ask him a couple questions. Take a look and enjoy!
1. What is your main focus at TWLOHA?
i’m involved in all of the big decisions relative to the direction of TWLOHA. My focus is the creative - how things look and feel and sound, the language we use, etc. My favorite part of my job would be the writing (blogs) though i don’t do it enough. i’ve spoken at 22 colleges over the last three months, so that’s been taking up a lot of my time. Lots of airports and airplanes but it’s worth it in that it means we’ve been able to bring a message of hope, help and community to thousands of young people.
2. What were your expectations going into this?
In the very beginning, it was simply an attempt to help a friend and tell a story. The idea of it becoming a non-profit came in response to the response to the story. The story, the shirts, the MySpace page - it took on a life of it’s own beyond what anyone could have envisioned and the non-profit was born in the midst of that surprising response. As it turned a corner and i quit my job at Hurley, the hope was to continue to bring a message of hope and help to people, starting online and then in the context of concerts and events as well. The desire was certainly to build something that would last, not just a trend or an exciting year, but something that would be around five and ten years down the road.
3. What do you think about the growing number of people, not just women, in the United States suffering from self esteem issues, that lead to eating disorders, cutting, and the most unfortuante, suicide?
It’s heartbreaking that so many people buy so many lies - lies that suggest we can’t be honest, lies that suggest we have to look a certain way or that pain is something that we can’t talk about. The greatest privilege with TWLOHA has been to see people start to believe better things, to see people stepping into ideas like hope and help and community. The reality is that each of us is priceless, each of us is living a story entirely unique and entirely important. Our lives, our freedom, our healing - it’s all worth fighting for.
4. What are your beliefs on prevention? Getting to people before they start to stuggle?
i think it starts with community. It starts with being known, having a support system of honest relationships. Those are the people who earn the right to meet us in our struggles.
5. What do you think we should do about this growing epidemic of suicide, and cutting, and depression, among other things?
My friend Byron said to me once, “Life is hard for most people most of the time.” i remember it felt true when i heard that. i think it’s in line with the answer above. We need to know it’s okay to be human, okay to be honest. And we need outlets, we need healthy safe place we can go with the stuff that’s painful. So we believe in community and then we absolutely believe in (professional) counseling as well. We have heard countless stories of people finding healing in counseling.
6. Do you think your passion for people will ever die out?
i’ve felt things deeply and cared about people since i was a little kid so i have to hope that continues. That said, i’m definitely more careful now about boundaries vs. a couple years ago. For a while, i was saying yes to everything - just travelling all the time and trying to build TWLOHA and doing nothing to take care of myselft. i’ve learned that i have to be healthy in order to have something to give people. i value my friends and my family and the things that i love - like music and surfing - now more than ever. i can’t just focus on the public story of caring for people. i have to remember my own story, my own dreams, as well.
7. How long do you see yourself with TWLOHA?
i get asked that a lot and it’s funny, because i have no idea. i know i’m not thinking about leaving or quitting anytime soon. TWLOHA represents a conversation that is at the core of me - pain, hope, questions, community, honesty, music - that stuff resonates deep inside of me. If i won the lottery, i’d want to keep working on TWLOHA.
8. Growing up did you ever think you’d be doing something like this?
No but at the same time, if you asked my Mom, she would tell you that TWLOHA is everything i know and love under one roof. It’s so many different parts of my heart and brain and story coming together in one place. And looking back on my story, it’s easy to see that maybe God was up to something all along. There’s just too many surprising doors that opened, too many dots that connect.
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