Addiction, depression, self-injury, and suicide.
These are problems some people are forced to face.
Some can't. Some don't know how.
Sometimes something has to happen before a person can face these problems, like carving the phrase "Fuck up" into your arm with a razorblade – that was the identity Renee gave herself, and the identity many others give themselves.
This is what happened to Renee. This is when she knew she needed help. Luckily she met Jamie Tworkowski.
Their connection led to something that would help people just like Renee.
At age 26, Tworkowski started a revolution. At age 32, the non-profit organization Tworkowski founded in 2006, To Write Love On Her Arms, has become a worldwide phenomenon. TWLOHA strives to change the self-inflicting path of behavior that people with addiction and depression face by using music as an outlet.
College events help to raise awareness, and Tworkowski – along with musical acts Eric James, Inlite, and Under The Skylight – brought their passion for this organization to Canisius College's Montante Cultural Center this past Thursday night. Although Tworkowski and James appeared together for a similar event at UB in 2009, they were back on the Buffalo college circuit to spread their message.
Tworkowski has spoken at many colleges, but he retold his story as if it were his first time. He enthralled the audience with the details and intimacies of what began the organization.
"People deserve to be honest [and] the right to say that they don't have it all together, and that life is really hard at times," Tworkowski said. "There are things we feel haunted by…lose in this life, and there are things we encounter in this life, and [people] deserve the right to be honest."
He proclaimed that TWLOHA was jumpstarted in Florida when he met Renee.
As Tworkowski got to know Renee better, he wanted to help her escape from an afflicted lifestyle and overcome her obstacles through rehab.
Tworkowski recalled that before she entered treatment, he spent time with Renee. Music was important to her, and a friend to her, as a source of strength when life was difficult. She spent her last days before entering treatment going to shows.
Although Tworkowski expected Renee to turn down the idea, she was intrigued at the notion that her pain and experiences could possibly help others. That someone else could relate to her life and find hope in her story.
Her story, penned by Tworkowski, was called To Write Love on Her Arms.
Tworkowski then took it upon himself to foot the financial burden to send Renee to treatment. While at a Coldplay concert he was inspired to sell T-shirts to finance Renee's treatment, with the title of her story written on them.
And soon, her story morphed from words on paper to words spread across the globe, both as encouragement for others and as the first steps to realizing the necessity for recovery.
Tworkowski enthusiastically shared the accomplishments from the past six years of the organization. The TWLOHA team has since responded to over 170,000 personal messages from people from over 100 different countries, and invested over $1 million in treatment and recovery. Tworkowski noticed that the comments stacked up on the website, and saw that people realized they were not alone in their plights.
The main goal of TWLOHA is to simply communicate. Tworkowski has learned that most people who need help rarely take the first step toward getting it, and that two out of three people who struggle with depression never get help for it.
"What we do is really try to invite and encourage, and even challenge people to talk to someone, or to take that first step," Tworkowski said.
Music has always been a part of spreading the word and is part of Renee's story. The organization took off when lead singer of Switchfoot – and friend of Tworkowski's – Jon Foreman sported a TWLOHA shirt and advocated the cause to the audience at one of the band's concerts.
After the show, the Myspace page for the budding organization exploded with messages to Tworkowski about suicide attempts and soulful revelations – revealing that music was integral with the organization, and the story was larger than the individual narrative Tworkowski set out to tell.
Music has played a large collaborative effort in the TWLOHA events as well, with Switchfoot, Anberlin, Paramore, Thrice, Underoath, and many more bands advocating the organization's goals. Many different musicians perform alongside Tworkowski at college events, and at this event, Eric James of The Last Royals performed along with local bands Inlite and Under The Skylight.
"We believe that music is powerful; music has this unique ability to remind us that we're alive and that it's OK to ask questions, it's OK to feel things," Tworkowski said. "Music's allowed to be honest, and so we feel like there's a lot of common ground with that and with what we're trying to talk about."
James has performed at many TWLOHA events with Tworkowski, and realizes the important presence of music to combine with the event, and was humbled to be able to perform and help others.
"Music is just so mysterious, it does something to our emotions," James said. "It's just a highly spiritual and mystical thing. So when [one is] talking about the deep, dark things of life – life, death, hurt, pain, and hope – there's no better complement."
Although Tworkowski performs with musicians at many colleges, others have their own chapters of TWLOHA or Active Minds to advocate for mental health issues, and UB is no different.
UB Active Minds spreads awareness for mental health issues on campus, and was founded in the spring semester of 2011. The club works to dispel mental health stigmas by hosting events and having general meetings to encourage students to seek therapy, according to Annie Monks, a junior Spanish major and first president of the club.
Just like TWLOHA helps facilitate the means for people to seek help, so does Active Minds, and the club points people in the direction of counseling services. According to Rachel Gaydosh, a junior psychology and theater major and former president of the club, Active Minds was inspired by TWLOHA.
Looking into the audience while Tworkowski told his story– a room full of stories, and a room full of lives, were encouraged to tell theirs.
"Hope is real, and help is real – we're able to believe these things," Tworkowski said. "Not that it's simple, not that it's easy, and not that it's a guarantee, but just that we believe that it's possible and it's worth fighting for. That it's possible for lives to change, it's possible for people to let go, it's possible for people to start over."
Email: arts@ubspectrum.com
