Living near a suicide magnet

called the Golden Gate Bridge makes me appreciate life more. I have read many posts about people wanting an easy escape from life, even wrote some myself years earlier. Maybe it's a good thing that I'm a coward, aside from my personal beliefs that hold me back from doing anything that leads to suicide, I never acted in any of my suicidal thoughts.

Don't get me wrong. I still feel incomplete, I am easily frustrated, and I tend to blame other people for my own wrongdoings. However, just a few months ago I think I found my solution. It's called sharing, not some kind of "Suicide Anonymous", or worse, "Suicide Club" (in which a group of people plan to do a suicide pact). Nah, nothing like that. I took part in a volunteer program, my job was... listening to other people's problems. Sure it might get depressing at times, this kind of job should be labelled "professional only", but that's not it. It helped me see things through different eyes. It made me realize about everything I took for granted. "One man's trash is another man's treasure", they say. It's true.

"Like the proton and the electron,” Anthony D. Smith said. “They actually hide one another as do night and day. They perpetuate each other and are often termed as opposites. We could hide something that is blessed in a place that appears to be cursed. Like ‘in’ is the same as ‘out’. ‘Up’ has to have a ‘down’. And the ‘up’ must be inversely proportional to the ‘down’. Perhaps even good and evil…”

I thought I was lost in the dark. “Why is life so hard? Since I was born, all that life gave me was more trials to overcome.” During those times, I looked into the mirror and asked myself, "What did I do wrong? What did I do to deserve this only happening to me?”. It feels like it will never change. Not tomorrow, or even the day after.

It was too dark… I couldn’t see the road I was taking. All I had on me was one match and one candle. I doubt that it would do anything even if I tried to light it, but that’s not the case, so much happened by lighting that one small candle. I thought there was nothing else all around me, but then I discovered another candle. When I lit it, they became two. By the light of the two candles, I could find more. Two became three, three became four, and the darkness disappeared.

If it would help, I suggest talking to a suicide survivor, people who are grateful that God has given them another chance. Kevin Hines, a Golden Gate Bridge suicide survivor mentioned experiencing what he called “instant regret, powerful, overwhelming”. The thoughts in the 4 seconds he went on freefall was ‘What have I done? I don’t want to die. God please save me.’ He remembered thinking very clearly, 'Kevin you can't die here, if you die here, no one will ever know that you didn't want to. No one will ever know that you knew you made a mistake.'

It’s also worth mentioning that there are suicide survivors saved by other people’s actions. Some people who have tried to end their life before actually wanted someone or just anyone to notice what they were about to do. They wanted someone to reach out to them and asked if they were all right, “I would have changed my mind”. Now I want to tell you, you can do it too. Be a light in the darkness.

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