by SG’s Team Agony feat. Casca and Leandra

Let us answer life’s questions – because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls.

Q. I was with my school sweetheart for 11 years and was married for 6 of those 11 years. I worked hard to give her the world till one day I found out she had been cheating on me. We tried to give it a second try. Because we got married on Halloween, I paid for us to go to Euro Disney, but thing’s after we came back got even worse, to the point that now our marriage has ended. I still love and want her in my life, but I’m just an old romantic at heart. Friend’s say that I will find someone special again but I don’t know? I’m a tattooed English guy who feels lost in the world we live in!

A: Hiya hun! I’d like to start by saying that I can relate to what you are going through. I started seeing my partner in my first year of college and we have had more than our fare share of ups and downs.

Leaving school and starting college can be a very emotionally draining time. It therefore a common that the passion filled relationships we had with our childhood sweethearts tend to change or fizzle out around this time in our lives. There is nothing wrong with adapting and trying to make it work, but there is also nothing wrong with knowing it is time to call it a day. It seems like you have tried very hard to make the relationship work, and that’s great, but it sounds like there were some trust issues going on and that can ultimately kill a relationship.

It can be hard to move on from your first love, but it can be done. You will find someone else in the future and part of the fun in is finding that person. You will never forget this person, and you don’t even have to get over her; the key is to learn from that relationship and pour all the good stuff into a new one. Your friends are right, there are plenty of other women out there, and you will never know if one of them is that special someone until you try.

Good luck and all the best!

Casca
XOX

Q. Hey Suicide Girls, I’ve been having problems with a girl I have know since her birth. We lost contact in 1999. She called me out of the blue in 2006 and we have been best friends since. We fell in love a couple months back, but she told me she doesn’t want to date me right now. I didn’t think this was fair.

What do I take this as? And should I continue with the other girl and ask her out being that she is 18?

A: I’m going to be brutally honest, I don’t think you can be too much into this girl because you are looking elsewhere, and someone else has caught your eye. She has said she doesn’t want to date you, and that would be enough for me to consider it over and done with as far as a relationship is concerned. Her asking for help, and then not being particularly grateful, also indicates she was just using you rather than looking to start up anything. Furthermore, you sound like you have already had enough of this, so I would let the girl and the situation go.

As for the other girl, I don’t think age really matters –– it depends on the maturity of the people involved. Most of my more intense relationships have been with older men. The problem is, how do you approach someone you don’t know? I would tread carefully, you don’t want to come across creepy in any way or scare her off. Just start with casual conversation and see if you guys could have something going on between you.

Good luck and thanks for writing in!

Leandra
xxx

Got Problems? Let SuicideGirls’ team of Agony Aunts provide solutions. Email questions to: gotproblems@suicidegirls.com

by ExAddict

Late last summer, a controversy erupted in National Hockey League circles after three prominent on-ice enforcers passed away during the off-season. Wade Belak, Rick Rypien and Derek Boogaard died of a tragic combination of mental illness and addictions. The three were so called ‘tough guys’ – called on by other players to keep the action rough, and let goal-scorers do their jobs.

Much of the media-driven controversy of course was centered around the amped-up Don Cherry, a highly-charged broadcaster who labeled three other former league bruisers as ‘pukes’ for stepping outside of the shadows and linking NHL fighting to substance abuse and depression.

In typical NHL fashion, sports fans’ tongues went wagging and opinions varied from demands for a crackdown against unfair hits to protect players from concussions (the current enemy #1 in pro-hockey) to banning fighting outright.

So that’s what’s happening in hockey, a so-called ‘real sport’. We can expect that because it is one of the big four pro-sports leagues, the issues surrounding mental health and drug abuse will be addressed both by the player’s association (NHLPA) and NHL league executives.

That’s all well and good to save lives and protect athletes on the ice. But there might be another sport that needs the attention of media….

Unfortunately for fans of sports-entertainment, or ‘pro-wrestling’ as it once was called, voices calling for an increased examination of the cause and effects of mental illness, tragedy and death in this highly-athletic profession are few and far between.

With respect to the squared circle, there is a much more horrific tale lurking beneath the surface excitement of the storylines and dramatics put on by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), Impact Wrestling (TNA) and the hundreds of other smaller grappling organizations that operate worldwide.

Every week, for the past eighteen years, WWE and Monday Night Raw has been entertaining millions of fans who clamor to follow and cheer on names like John Cena, CM Punk, and The Undertaker as they do battle with evil-doers like R-Truth, The Miz, and Mark Henry.

Yet beyond the spotlight, there is a tough road of dues-paying and hardship for up-and-coming wrestlers as well as a path of serious discontent for names from the past. Even the biggest name in wrestling history – the immortal Hulk Hogan – now toils for the #2 wrestling organization, hobbled by numerous surgeries to repair a body damaged by nearly thirty-five years of competitive action. On average, an NHL player can expect to play five to six seasons.

For wrestlers, there is no off-season or players’ union. If it was any other sport, there would be a Congressional investigation concerning the numbers of athletes dying before age fifty.

For once-famous grapplers who fall through the cracks, hanging on to the spotlight can be mentally devastating.

Scott Hall, a former champion in WWE, is the latest tragedy to garner attention. An ESPN feature that compared the journeyman wrestler to the fictional character portrayed by Mickey Rourke in the film The Wrestler was completed in mid-October but this did little to address the susceptibility of once-popular celebrities to mental illness and substance-abuse problems.

Earlier this summer, former Impact Wrestling and WWE superstar Matt Hardy ran into his fair share of legal trouble after crashing his car and getting arrested for possession of illegal substances. His brother, the equally-as-famous Jeff Hardy, encountered similar difficulties.

So what happens after the spotlight fades and wrestlers are left fighting for fame and the few dollars that past glory affords? Hopefully, a change is afoot. Perhaps gone are the days when wrestlers used to performing in front of tens of thousands in packed arenas are left toiling in front of a few dozen fans in high school gymnasiums, left alone and isolated as they slowly descend into mental illness.

In response, WWE has instituted a tough Wellness Policy for current superstars and pays for substance abuse rehabilitation of former “independent contractors.” The Wellness Policy serves as a “three-strikes-you’re-out” safety net meant to protect current and former wrestlers from life on the road. WWE has even gone as far as to ban infamous chair-shots to the head and remove blood from broadcasts – an effort to maintain a PG friendly atmosphere and to protect the long term health of employees.

Christopher Nowinski, a Harvard graduate and former WWE Alumni himself has much to say about sports-related injuries in his book Head Games: Football’s Concussion Crisis and in 2007 became the founder of the Sports Legacy Institute, dedicated to researching brain trauma in professional and amateur sports. That same year, former WWE World Champion Chris Benoit killed his wife and son in a brutal double murder suicide.

An examination of Benoit’s brain revealed that extensive injuries and concussions suffered by the Canadian could have caused dementia. Since that time, the stigma of mental illness has meant he’s all but been erased from the record books. Benoit’s name is never mentioned on WWE broadcasts and his reign as champion is scrubbed from history.

For pro-wrestling a.k.a. sports-entertainment to truly address the demons of mental health and addictions, gone must be the notion that those addicted to drugs or the spotlight are criminals or unrepentant. It’s time that all professional sports addressed the 1-in-5 statistic of mental illness that effects all North Americans. If more wrestlers are willing to speak out about mental illness in sports, it may very well set a precedent for other athletes in other sports to address these issues in a very public way.

For WWE, it’s time to take the bull by the horns and end the stigma of mental illness in sports. Lives are on the line. To save just one, I’d pay top dollar.

Images: Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler

By Fred Topel

In May of last year, I found myself sitting alone in the stands of a race track with Sean Astin. He was filming an independent movie about horse racing, and I was invited to visit the production at Hollywood Park in Los Angeles. When Astin had a break in shooting, we walked into the stands to sit for an interview.

You may not think of them as a whole, but several of Astin’s movies have become seminal films for more than one generation. I grew up with The Goonies, where a teen Astin led his friends on a quest for pirate treasure. A young adult Astin portrayed college football legend Rudy Ruettiger in the football classic Rudy. To today’s kids, he’s perhaps best known as Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Astin was happy to stroll down movie memory lane with me. His recollections of even the earliest film are as vivid as his descriptions of the film he was shooting. And They’re Off cast Astin as Dusty, a disgraced jockey who gets another chance with an underdog racehorse. It’s a comedy in mockumentary style. The independent film played the Hollywood Film Festival and is now open in select cities, including racing centers like Kentucky.

Read our exclusive interview with Sean Astin on SuicideGirls.com.

Aymel Suicide in Rise and Fall

• INTO: Bizarre luxury, piercings, tattoos, music, laughing, sunny days, sleeping, rock & roll, mini skirts, sushi, porn, mojitos, playing with Photoshop.
• MAKES ME HAPPY: Tattoos, kissing, my friends, my family, spending time with my doggy.
• MAKES ME SAD: Gossiping bitches, missing people, having to prove myself to people.
• HOBBIES: Shopping, swimming, walking with my dog, and drawing.
• 5 THINGS I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT: Cigarettes, iPhone, affection, food, and friends.
• VICES: Sex, alcohol, peanut butter (especially Reese’s chocolate).
• I SPEND MOST OF MY FREE TIME: Drawing, organizing parties, and seeing my friends.

Get to know Aymel better over at SuicideGirls.com!