This is how wonderful the online world can be: it can make connections between people who would never otherwise meet, providing them with resources they need. (It can also highlight the holes in your publicity department, showing where you're missing crucial sales.)

By the way, when I use "F2F" above, it's not in the network sense. I was trying to decide how to describe people I know from my daily life—as opposed to those virtual friends I've met online. So in this case, F2F means face-to-face.

A couple of months ago, I saw a former business owner I knew, a F2F friend, on Facebook. I'm not sure who reached out first, but we ended up becoming FB friends. I had not seen or heard anything about Ed since my early reporting days. (He once owned a computer business in Preston County.) He ordered a copy of my book, Sister of Silence, and sometimes posts insightful comments with suggestions about how to continue marketing it in this online world.

Yesterday he made my day—not in the Clint Eastwood sense—but by sending me an email that goes, in part, as follows:

"Hi Daleen, Well this is an amazing story. I met (a new friend) the other day at the local gas station. We talked for 30 minutes and . . . I recommended your book to her . . . I mentioned your name and she said you had already emailed her, yet said nothing of your book!"

Turns out, she was new to the area and facing a challenging move. Something about her told Ed she needed to read my book. (How cool is that?!) Of course, he was shocked that she and I had already "met" via Facebook—and that I had not promoted Sister of Silence when we did so.

(Here's the thing: I have many diverse interests, some which have nothing to do with my book. And sometimes, I just don't want to seem, well, pushy, by automatically saying to a new contact: "I'm an author and you should really read my book!" That being said, this story shows I probably need to ramp up my marketing strategy.)

I "met" this same woman, apparently just prior to when Ed met her in person, on FB. I saw her post in a news feed and sent her a message. Not a "please friend me" message, just a general, friendly inquiry. I have a close friend in California with the same last name, who once wistfully told me that, due to her parents' divorce, she wasn't close to her father's side of the family. Because it's an unusual spelling, I asked this woman if she had relatives in Ohio, where my friend's father was from. Turns out, she did.

I have a feeling this story isn't over yet, but for now it has a semi-ending: I feel good because people are talking about my book while pumping gas—which is pretty good, considering that the high price of fuel has turned the experience of just going to the gas station into a negative one. (Have you noticed how crabby people are, as they fill up their tanks these days?) And now they have something positive to share with each other, as their paychecks virtually disappear into their fuel tanks.

I've also learned it doesn't serve me well to be shy about my work, and I've sold another copy of my book. Plus, Ed said he personally believes he's being used in a way that will help others, which is the ultimate highlight of this wonderful story!

Editor's note: Sister of Silence, which is not about FB or anything else virtual, but which does nonetheless actually provide amazing life insight, is available now for only $14.99.

Posted by Daleen at 06:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last month when New York mom La’Shanda Armstrong deliberately drove her van into the Hudson River she and three of her four children died. Her oldest son, La’Shaun, survived after he escaped from the sinking vehicle and swam to shore. I connected with Armstrong because my book, Sister of Silence, tells how I came so close to what she did that it still scares me today, 26 years later.

The Armstrong tragedy is still fresh in our minds, so perhaps the public backlash is to be expected. But having hate mongers come out of the woodwork probably wasn’t what the deceased mom would have wanted. It’s what she should have expected, though—because the act of mothers killing their children polarizes our nation almost more than any other issue.

I wrote Sister of Silence to help other equally overwhelmed mothers learn what to do differently—so they don’t reach the breaking point Armstrong did. That’s why, one week later, I decided to discuss her case during my book signing at Main Street Books in Frostburg, Md. When I edited the Facebook event I had already created to reflect that, I never dreamed that the world would weigh in so hatefully and viciously as it has.

One comment came from Lisa Yonta-Staccio, who described herself as a mother: “I wish she survived so they could hang that (expletive)!”

Another commenter, Felicia Ferguson-Bundy, described Armstrong’s actions as “a disgusting, horrific act of selfishness.” This shows what a lot of work we have to do as a society before we can wake up to the problem of abused, depressed and overwhelmed mothers who will one day implode. It’s only a matter of what their weapon of choice will be: drugs or alcohol, family abandonment, or murder-suicide.

But the comment on my event page that I found most unsettling came from another reader—one among many—who expressed sympathy for Armstrong’s children. Eric L. Rothstein then said he hoped Armstrong “rots in hell.” Apparently he had none for her.

And yet, many comments serve as a powerful reinforcement for me, in my belief that my story can empower other mothers like Armstrong. “What Lashanda did was not right. Even though it is not right . . . Sometimes people hurt you so bad . . . you think about carrying out things like that. She took those kids because as a mother u wouldnt want them to depend on anyone in this world,” wrote a woman named Tashie Terrell.

Jeanne Giordano Boughton, a particularly intuitive Facebook user wrote: “Unless you've been a victim of domestic violence, you can never understand what this young woman must have gone through . . . All the blame is placed on the mother, but God only knows what went on behind closed doors to drive her to this act of desperation . . . Please keep this in mind as you judge her, you did not know her situation.”

From commenter Demi Leathers came this, after I felt I had no choice but to urge people to stop being so hateful: “Thank you Ms. Berry for creating such a wall and for expressing to those that insensitive comments does no one any good! That is what is wrong with this world today, people are so quick to condemn . . .”

Another Facebook user, Bernadette Price, said Armstrong “was troubled . . . its a hard job and having kids early is no joke . . . if only she could have been helped.”

The comments show the serious disconnect between what people think they know about these cases—and what really happens in these women’s lives, and to their psyche, before they reach this point. More than 200 people said they wanted to “attend” my event, but 36 hours after I edited it, there were so many hateful comments directed at Armstrong that Facebook removed it. An email I received said it had been deleted because the comments violated Facebook’s terms of use. Events that are “hateful, threatening, or obscene are not allowed.” The attitudes expressed on my event page explain why it took me 20 years to tell the world my story, and why I suffered in silence for so long.

Naturally, my heart goes out to Armstrong’s children, who had no choice in whether they lived or died. And if you’ve never experienced the life forces that led Armstrong and me to feel that death was our only option, then I’m happy for you.

The collective anger directed at Armstrong reflects how most people feel about suicide—especially when it comes on the heels of murdering one’s own offspring. But that anger also does something else—it prevents us from having a meaningful dialogue about the forces that cause people to reach this point.

If we really want to help mothers like Armstrong, I hardly think calling them names and condemning them to a fiery afterlife is going to cause them to want to come forward, when they begin thinking about murder-suicide or—God forbid—plan to carry it out.

Posted by Daleen at 11:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)