Emotional Intelligence | Stevehein.com
My personal journal writing about the free hugs
Nov 17 - I have been depressed lately and haven't found anyone to go with me to try this. I made the signs awhile back. I'm gonna try again today I think, to go out alone, to the campus here... but I'm really scared. But I'm gonna do it I guess.
Nov 3
I saw this comment...
this is great video with a good message. My church has done something similar only with free prayers, this works for everyone. source
And I thought of writing this person and saying "There is just one small differnce... Religions divide us. Hugs unite us."
Nov 1
I am feeling really discouraged. Trying to just keep hanging on by a thread so to speak again today. I decided to start this "hugs journal page" to write my more personal thoughts/feelings about all of this. One of my goals is to try this where I live right now, Salta, Argentina. I am really scared to try it myself but maybe I can organize it from behind the scenes sort of.
I wrote this earlier today that I was going to put on another one of the hugs pages, but I will move it here...
Personal writing -Nov 1
The last time I got a real hug was July 28th. The day I left Paris.I had been in Europe with Ocean.
When I think of trying to start a free-hugs, or abrazos gratis campaign here where I live I feel scared.Too scared to do it. Scared of rejection. Scared people will laugh at me, judge me. I am too insecure. I really need the hugs myself but I am too afraid to do anything about it. I suppose a needy person is not the best one to try to give free hugs. Everyone or many people will be able to see they are needy. A kind of signal will be sent out that tells people to stay away. I am embarassed to say I am this insecure. But I will say it. I need someone, a female, in my life. It isn't the same when a male says "I will help you." If a female said, "I will help you. Here is a sign for you. Let's go downtown." I would go. But I can't do it alone.
Right now I am so depressed I hardly have the energy to type. I don't have the energy to get up, go to a store, buy a board, a marker, make the sign, take it downtown, hold it up and then smile. I would feel so self-conscious. It would be easier to do in a place where no one knows me. I am too afraid to just start doing it. I would want to have some kind of back up to support me. Like another person or a video of the free hugs so people will understand where I got the idea. Actually I had the idea of giving free hugs in Singapore a few years ago too. My friend Fabio and I saw the cold people there and one day I suggested the idea to him. He said it was a great idea, but we only talked about it and never tried it out.
Right now if someone were offering free hugs it would be hard for me to even accept one, because in all the videos all you see are people smiling. So if you are really sad and depressed or suicidal, you probaby won't be smiling and feeling all happy. And you probably need more than a short 3 second hug. You probably really need someone who will hug you for a long time, while you cry.
I know there are people in the world who would hug me. My mother would hug me. Ocean would hug me. x in England would hug me. y in the USA would hug me. I can think of people in a few countries who would hug me, most of them would let me cry for as long as I needed. Most of these people I know from online. Except my mother of course. ha ha. But here I am in Salta, Argentina. Feeling very lonely and alone. Not wanting to even go out of my room. Just watching other people hugging in the videos.
In a way, watching them hugging and smiling makes me feel worse. It is kind of like watching people eat when you are starving, or watching them give free food to starving children.
My mother, though, as I re-read what I just wrote, wouldn't just let me cry. She would feel a need to say something. This would ruin it.I don't want to hear anything from her. First of all I have heard it all before. Second, if she had something new to say she could write me a letter. My sister could scan it and send it to me. It isn't that hard. I am not sure how I would feel if she called my voice mail and left a message for me. She would say something like "We all miss you and I think about you everday." She might add something like "You are in our prayers." Which would remind me of one of the divisions between us.
I guess I will stop there.
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ok i just checked my yahoo mail. nothing yet. i guess it will give me something to do to keep checking it and reporting what i find. i will feel encouraged when i get some mail. i miss nicole by the way. i think she would like this idea. it has been over two years now i think since i have heard from her. she gave me a lot of great hugs one day. i still dont know what happened to her. sarah told me nicole thinks her life is better off without me. maybe i remind nicole too much of her father. teens use me for a father figure for a while it seems then resent me later sometimes, or forget about me. some later criticize me and label me as sick. yeah i am sick alright. and dying from lack of emotional support, one form of which is hugs from someone you want to be hugged by. nicole used to send me so many hugs. she might have been the first who really sent me electronic hugs. it was either her or sarah. i still talk to sarah but we aren't as close anymore.
3:30 pm
There are no messages in your Inbox.
Now it is 9 pm I am feeling better. I got quite a few virtual hugs and felt inspired again by some of the things happening with the hugs. For example, I really liked the interview with the Sick Puppies. I like the cute Ozzie accents. It brings back good memories of Australia. I like the lead singer. I like his style. I feel heartwarmed, as Danielle said, when I watch him talk. He seeems pretty sincere, as so many Australians are. That is one thing I really liked about Australia. It was so different than what I grew up with in the USA. I think people around the world probably trust Australians more too. I suspect that the same thing wouldn't have gotten the same publicity if an American guy and band had done it. They would have probably been doing it for more materialistic motives. Like the guy in Atlanta who started a business called Free Hugs a few years ago. I don't want to criticize him too much, he also seems pretty sincere, but it does show a representative difference, I think at least, between the USA and Australia.
I was also telling my online friends that I will probably never get invited to Opra no matter what I do as long as I am such a vocal advocate for suicidal teens and so opposed to the laws which keep them teen prisoners. This hurts me a lot. I know many people who cheered Juan and welcomed him when he came on the Oprah show would call me a sick pervert and not let me get near their their crying, suicidal teenager.
I want anyone who reads this to think if about the reality that teenagers do kill themselves. In much greater number than they are killed by so called Internet predators, as I was called in legal filings by Ocean's father last year, and they are in much greater need of hugs than the people out shopping at Walmart. They are crying alone at home, cutting themselves with razor blades and broken glass because they have not received the emotional support they needed in their lives.
I for one will continue to be their advocate. I support what Juan and so many others are doing, but I ask you to please not forget that there are many many suicidal teens around the world, trapped in homes because of the laws which keep them there. They are also in need of hugs. And not just public hugs for 3 seconds while everyone is watchihg. When you are suicidal one of the last things you want is a lot of people seeing you in that condition. You don't want to be seen crying. That is why so many teens cry alone in their rooms at night, or go to the bathrooms in their schools, one of the only places where they get any privacy, to cry.
This is a sad reality. I hope more people around the world become aware of it and do something to help these young people.