Tag Archives: suicide

Sep10

World Suicide Prevention Day

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2019 World Suicide Prevention Day banner in English

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. According to the World Suicide Prevention Day website,

Suicide prevention remains a universal challenge. Every year, suicide is among the top 20 leading causes of death globally for people of all ages. It is responsible for over 800,000 deaths, which equates to one suicide every 40 seconds.

To help call attention to this tragic reality, today’s post is about my own experience with suicide.

The Man and I were going over the Bridge at 10 o’clock on a Saturday morning in early June. I was driving. When we were in the middle of the Bridge, I looked over and saw two uniformed state troopers standing on the observation deck. They were looking down, down, down, into the river. One peered through a pair of binoculars, and the other looked with his naked eyes.

Oh no!  I said. Someone must have jumped. I knew those state troopers weren’t bird watching. If they were looking down at the river on a Saturday morning, they were probably trying to spot a body.

Do you think so? The Man asked.

Unfortunately, I had to say yes.

When I sold jewelry and shiny rocks at the Bridge, it was always a sad time for me after someone jumped. Whenever I got word that a suicide had happened, I packed up my merchandise and went elsewhere for the day. Too many people (tourists and vendors alike) wanted to talk about the event as if it was only the latest bit of juicy gossip. Other people made bad jokes about suicide or said indignantly that it was something they would never do. Suicide has been a reality I’ve faced throughout my life, and I don’t take it lightly. There’s nothing funny about it as far as I’m concerned. Any time a person is so distraught that taking their own life seems like a good idea is a time for sorrow and mourning.

Even with the call boxes offering a direct line to a suicide prevention hotline placed on and around the Bridge, people still jump. Some people have given up, and no hotline can save them. Of course, I’m glad the call boxes are there. I’m glad they’re available to help the people who can be reached, the people who are undecided, the people who may be swayed by the kind voice of a stranger coming out of a speaker.

About three hours after I saw the state troopers on the Bridge, we headed over it again on our way home. I saw several vehicles marked “State Police.” They were all parked on the sides of the highway and none of them had lights or sirens on.

Something is definitely going on, I told The Man. Did you see all those State Police cars?

He had seen them too. We both knew those cops weren’t out at the Bridge having a picnic. We were both quiet the rest of the way home.

On Wednesday, my fears were confirmed.

I was listening to the local community radio station while I washed dishes. One of the news stories was about a woman who had committed suicide by jumping off the Bridge the previous Saturday. I was sad to have been right.

The radio announcer didn’t give many details about the death. He said the State Police don’t release the names of suicide victims out of respect for the survivors. He did say the woman had driven hours from her home in the big city to jump off the Bridge. Her family said she’d been depressed and talking about suicide. When her family members couldn’t get in touch with her, they called the State Police and asked them to do a wellness check.

The State Police found the woman’s car in the rest area adjacent to the Bridge. After finding the car, they started looking for the woman in the rest area. When they couldn’t find her there, they started looking below the Bridge. Unfortunately, that’s where they found her. I don’t know if she jumped at night so the darkness shielded her from the sight of her body’s final destination or if she waited until after sunrise so she could see where she was going. However it happened, by 10am she was gone.

The radio announcer said the woman was the second person to jump off the Bridge in 2019. The first person had jumped in April.

When someone jumps, I think it’s a sad and somber occasion, even if I’m not at the Bridge when it happens or when the body is discovered. When someone jumps, a life is over, a light has gone out, potential will never be realized. I know the pain and distress that leads people to kill themselves, and I don’t wish such hurt and sadness on anyone. 

Honestly, I’ve considered jumping from that bridge several times. I’m not sure what’s held me back, but whenever someone ends their life there, I think about how it could have been me. I have a personal connection with every single person who jumps from the Bridge.

Whenever I drive across the Bridge—especially in the early morning when I’m alone in the truck—I fantasize about seeing someone about to jump, stopping the truck, intervening, driving the person to safety. I was too late for the woman in June, but maybe I’ll be right on time for the next person.

If you are feeling sad, depressed, distraught, or suicidal, you can reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1800-273-8255. The hotline is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. If you have internet access, you can find more information on the hotline’s website. If you’d rather chat with a counselor instead of talking, you can do so from the website. If you’re having trouble, please ask for help.

Mar4

Another Good Man Gone

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William died some time ago, but I haven’t been ready to share my thoughts and feelings about him and his passing with the world.

I knew William from the Bridge. He was a good man. He was one of the area’s native people, one of those Indians, he always called himself with pride. He sold at the Bridge, alone when I first new him, then later with his mother.

When I was homeless and sleeping in a picnic pavilion at a rest area, William was one of the few men I wasn’t afraid of. He and another nice guy named Tommy set up next to each other every day and could always scoot over just a little to make room for me. William always treated me politely, respectfully, as a friend.

William struggled with alcoholism during the more than five years I knew him. His mother thought he was doing ok if he only drank beer. She pretended his drinking 18 cans of Bud Light nearly every day was no cause for concern. If he was only drinking beer with a low alcohol content, she could believe the amount he drank wasn’t an issue.

Some days I got really annoyed with William. When he was drunk, he’d lie to the tourists at the Bridge. If visitors saw him with beer can in hand or at lip, he’d tell them it was his birthday, which he thought would make it ok to be drinking alcohol in public, at work. If the birthday fib let to a sale, all the better. He told potential buyers that he collected all the rocks on his tables and polished them too, even though I knew all his rocks came from other vendors. He even bragged about collecting rocks from other people’s mining claims; I was almost positive he’d never done any such things and was only repeating stories he’d heard from unscrupulous rock guys. I suppose he thought claim jumping sounded exciting and was a good story for the tourists. In the end, I realized it wasn’t my place to get upset by William’s lies; he was only doing what he thought he had to do to earn the money he needed to live.

William had been elected vice-president of the Bridge vendors association and was so proud of his position, even though in reality it meant very little to anyone else. I’m the president of all of this, he’d tell tourists while gesturing broadly. Sometimes he’d boast I’m the president of this whole bridge.

He was also proud of the times he’d stopped people from jumping off the Bridge. I never witnessed him doing such a thing, but William had stories about stopping people from jumping by hugging them or tackling them or ushering them back to solid ground. Even if none of these events actually occurred, in his heart, William wanted to save everyone who was sad, distraught, suicidal. In his heart, William surely wanted to be a hero.

William had a daughter. He’d become a father when he was just 18. The girl grew up in California with her mother who William said had a drug problem. The daughter was barely an adult when William died, but at least she had a dad throughout her childhood. I think of that girl and my heart aches for her. How difficult it must have been for her to grow up with a father suffering from alcoholism and a mother suffering from drug addition. I wonder if she’s following in her family traditions or if she thinks it best to remain a teetotaler.

When I was around, friends would occasionally try to talk to William about his drinking. Of course, he didn’t want to discuss the problem. I’m just me! William would proclaim, or he’d say loudly I do what I do! He didn’t think he could be anyone other than who he already was. He didn’t think he could do anything other than what he already did.

Sometimes when I saw and heard William interacting with tourists, I wondered uncharitably how he could stand to be a stereotype. I guess like many of us, he just wasn’t ready to be someone else or do anything different.

I’m not sure exactly how William died. I was in California when it happened, working on top of a mountain. I learned about William’s death from Facebook, that twenty-first century town crier. William had been sent to live with his aunt in the city. In the past, this aunt had been able to impose discipline (and sobriety, I suppose) on William when his mother could not. I don’t know if his aunt cut off his supply of beer entirely and the cold turkey sobering up killed him, or if it was just too late for him to benefit from ceasing to drink alcohol because his liver was already shot. In any case, the family is proud to say William was sober when he died.

William was a father and a son and a nephew and a brother and a friend. Like the rest of us, he had his faults and his stumbling blocks, but he was a good man. He loved the Denver Broncos and his daughter and selling at the Bridge. In his way, he really was the president of the whole place. He cared about the other vendors and the tourists who visited there too. He only wanted to love everyone. He only wanted everyone to get along.

By way of farewell, he’d tell vendors and tourists alike, Love, peace, and hair grease. When I remember William, I picture him standing in front of me, sunglasses on, swaying slightly, and I can hear him say, Love, peace, and hair grease.

William was a good man, and he is missed.

Love, peace, and hair grease, William. I hope you are healthy and whole and free now, soaring above us all, an eagle in the sky.

Bald Eagle Flying Under Blue Sky during Daytime

Photo courtesy of https://www.pexels.com/photo/bald-eagle-flying-under-blue-sky-during-daytime-60086/.


Oct22

More About the Man Who Died

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On my last Saturday on the mountain, I was working at the parking lot when Mr. Jack, one of the sheriff’s department volunteers, pulled in. Mr. Jack is about eighty years old, has totally white hair, and likes to talk…a lot. I don’t exactly cultivate friendships with cops (even volunteer cops), but I try to stay on friendly terms with Mr. Jack.

We chatted for a few minutes about it being the end of the season before I asked him if he had heard anything else about the dead man I’d found in a pickup truck the week before. At first he said no, but then he said something, something, suicide.

I said something aloud, maybe oh, no! or maybe even damn!

Mr. Jack said, Oh, you didn’t know… I could tell he felt pretty bad about blurting the news out that way. Obviously, he thought I’d already heard.

He told me a note had been found in the truck. He didn’t say where. He didn’t tell me exactly what the note said, either (maybe he didn’t know), but whatever the note said, the sheriff’s department decided it meant the man had lit a charcoal fire in his tightly closed truck with the intent to kill himself. I suppose he succeeded, although I bet to his family, it felt like a failure.

Mr. Jack said the young man was only twenty-four.

I teared up. I couldn’t help it. I felt so sad for the young man and his family.

I’ve dealt with depression since I was a child. I’ve had suicidal thoughts at various times throughout my life. I know depression can be immobilizing. I know depression has kept me from achieving goals. I know times of suicidal thoughts are dark and scary times. So when I say I feel sad for the young man and his family, I don’t mean I feel sad in some abstract or theoretical way. I’ve felt like I couldn’t get out of bed, couldn’t put one foot in front of the other, felt like I couldn’t go on. I’ve longed for oblivion. I don’t know what exactly this fellow was facing, but I have a pretty good idea of how he felt when he decided he just couldn’t make it through another day in this world.

To me, in most circumstances, folks who chooses suicide are not in their right mind. Barring terminal illness, I can’t see a mentally healthy person making such a choice. Many people have negative things to say about individuals who have ended their own lives. Because I’ve felt hopeless and useless and low myself, I have great compassion for people who’ve had suicidal thoughts, people who’ve attempted suicide, and people who’ve completed this desperate final task.

I keep thinking about IF I had crossed paths with the young man at some point before his death, would I have known he was in crisis? Would I have been able to say or do anything to help? Could I have stopped him from killing himself or at least helped him live one more day, maybe one day long enough to get over being suicidal? What could I have possibly done or said?

I wonder why I was the one who found the dead man. I know someone had to find him, and I was the logical person, since no one had been staying in that campground and I was the camp host on patrol. But was the Universe sending me a message? I know we humans tend to want to find meaning even where there is none, or maybe we simply overlay our own meaning where none was intended.

I’ve found a meaning in this experience. Whether the Universe sent the man to me to teach me this lesson, I don’t know. But if the Universe is saying something to me here, this is what I think it is: Don’t do that suicide shit, because someone is going to have to find you, and why would you wish that on anyone?

Point taken, Universe. Point taken.

If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. The Lifeline’s website (http://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/#) says,

The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, [as well as] prevention and crisis resources…

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a national network of local crisis centers that provides free and confidential emotional support to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

On the website, folks can click on the phone number in blue to Skype or on the word “CHAT” on the top left of the page to instant message with someone. I added the phone number to the contacts in my phone.

 

 

 

Dec13

Tourists and the Crisis Hotline Call Boxes

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IMG_3870

Within the last year, the DOT installed crisis hotline call boxes on the Bridge. It was a long time coming. Every time someone committed suicide by jumping from the Bridge, there was an outcry that something needed to be done. One idea offered was to install nets to catch anyone who jumped. Another idea offered was to install phones to connect people with suicidal thoughts to the suicide prevention hotline.

I think people who truly want to end their lives will find a way to do so. However, I also think we (as a society) should do whatever we can to help people who are thinking about committing suicide. Many people having suicidal thoughts need counseling or other assistance, but don’t truly want to die. I’m not opposed to the crisis hotline phones, although I’m not sure they will actually keep anybody from jumping. Until statistics on how many lives were saved through the use of the phones are published in the local paper, we’ll probably never know if they are successful.

In any case, I am glad the phones provide an immediate way for folks who are considering jumping from the Bridge to get counseling from someone with training.

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This call box is out on the Bridge. In addition to the message “YOU ARE LOVED,” someone has also written on it, “Somewhere in the world someone is drinking coffee and smiling.”

When I left the Bridge over a year ago, the phones were in the process of being installed. Since I’ve been back, I’ve watched tourists notice and react to the phones.

Some people are confused by the phones, probably because they don’t much look like telephones. There’s no receiver and no keypad. There’s simply a button to push to connect to a counselor, and a series of holes which make up the speaker. I see people noticed the phone across from the vending area, do a double take, then stop and exam the phone while trying to figure out its purpose before moving on. I guess “call box” is a more accurate term for this equipment, but most of us vendors still call them “phones.”

Some people think the call boxes are pretty funny. When these folks realize what the call boxes are for, I hear them laughing, see them pretend to press the call button. Some of these jokesters (usually older-than-middle-age, ostensibly white men) pose in front of the call box and have someone in his party take a photo.

I don’t think the call boxes are funny. I don’t think suicide or attempted suicide is funny. As someone who’s struggled with (lived with, fought against) depression and suicidal thoughts for over 30 years, I don’t think anything associated with jumping off the Bridge is funny. I’ve been at the Bridge in the hours after someone has jumped, and it’s awful—sad, depressing, demoralizing, sobering. There’s nothing silly or lighthearted or funny about it.

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This call box is the one closest to the vendors. Friends of someone who jumped wrote their words of love and grief on it.

One Sunday at the end of November, the call button on the phone directly across the highway from the vendors was pressed twice.

Business was excruciatingly slow that day. It was cold and overcast, with few tourists and fewer shoppers. I was still at the Bridge less because I actually hoped to sell anything and more because I wanted to spend time with my vendor friends.

Out of the quiet of the day, I heard what I thought was a cell phone set on speaker ringing. The sound was louder than it would have been if someone nearby had actually had their phone set on speaker and was waiting for the person called to answer. I looked around to try to find the source of the sound.

No one else seemed to notice it.

I continued to look for the source of the sound. I glanced across the road and saw an Asian tourist family—a mom with two kids under ten years old—hanging around the crisis hotline call box. The mom looked confused, but the kids were giggling. I realized the ringing was coming from the call box.

I began screeching, They dialed the suicide phone! They dialed the suicide phone!

Vendors turned to look at me. I was pointing at the tourist family and still screeching, They dialed the suicide phone!

The crisis counselor came on the line and asked how she could help. The tourist mom said, Wrong number! quite loudly, and we all had to wonder how one could dial the wrong number on a phone that only connects to one place.

Hours later, only three vendors were left, and two of us were packing to leave. As Tea helped me fold my tablecloths, the other vendor told us that some kids had pushed the call button on the crisis hotline call box as they walked by. Sure enough, I could hear the ringing, then the counselor’s voice. The other vendor said the cops would be sent out if no one responded to the counselor.

What a waste of time and money and human emotion it would be if first responders were dispatched to look for a potential jumper or a body that wasn’t even out there. So I hurried across the street to talk to the counselor on the other end of the line.

When I walked up to the phone, the counselor was saying, Are you there?

I explained I was a vendor and one of us had seen some kids press the call button, but everything was ok. She thanked me, and I went back to finish packing before the snow started.

Wouldn’t you know, the car full of kids (teenage boys) who’d pressed the call button stopped on the highway right in front of the call box. One young man got out of the car and stood next to the call box.

I started screeching, Don’t press that button! as I stalked across the road. The boy looked confused and a little frightened.

I forget what I look like to other people. Here I was, this short little woman with fleecy, black sweatpants peeking from beneath a light summer skirt that didn’t match my heavy, multicolored wool sweater, the hood of the jacket under the sweater pulled up over my handmade wool hat that didn’t match anything I was wearing. And not only was I wearing weird clothes, I was also yelling and walking toward the kid. No wonder the young man looked concerned.

As I was repeating, Don’t push that button! the young man said, They (his friends, I presume) wanted me to hear what it said.

By that time I was standing in the road in front of the car so the boys couldn’t drive away until I was finished with them.

Do you know what that it? I asked him as he climbed back into the passenger seat.

He said he didn’t know. I told him it was a suicide hotline phone and if someone pushed the button, the cops would come out.

About then, I saw a truck hauling wood approaching in the lane behind the car full of young men. Tea saw the truck too and started shrieking at me, Blaize! Get out of the road! Get out of the road!

I yelled across the street to her, I see it! It (meaning the truck) can stop!

Then I turned back to the car full of young men and said, Don’t fuck with it! (meaning the crisis hotline phone.) I stepped up on the sidewalk and let the car full of young men drive away, then waved at the confused people in the truck as they slowly went past me.

I don’t have a job description at the Bridge, but if I did, I guess I’d have to add “crisis hotline call box monitor” to it.

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This is the call box that was getting all the attention.

Oct11

Happiness and Bighorn Sheep

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On the morning after the first suicide of the year, I walked out on the Bridge.

It was just after six o’clock in the morning. The air was cool enough for legwarmers under my long skirt and flannel over my tank top, and the sky was the fresh pink of daybreak.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I wanted to pray for the man who had jumped 18 hours before, but I feel silly when I pray because I don’t believe an old guy with a beard and a long robe sits in the sky listening to what I have to say. Maybe I wanted to meditate, but “contemplate” was probably closer to what was on my mind. I wanted to ask for rest for his soul. I wanted him to be at peace. I wanted my energy to touch his energy in a way we had missed in life, but thinking that made me feel too woo-woo and new age-y. I wanted some connection with the man, something I didn’t know how to express even to myself.

I wanted to give thanks for my own life too, to express gratitude that I haven’t succumbed to the darkness I sometimes feel near the Gorge, usually at night, when I’m alone in my van, wondering what I’ve really accomplished in my life, wondering why I do what I do day after day, wondering why I’m even walking the earth.

My new friend Zack was an angel to me two nights before, the night before the first suicide of the year. I was walking to the restroom to brush my teeth, and suddenly he was there, for no logical reason. I didn’t recognize him at first. The light was fading and he was skulking around looking for snipes. I walked into the restroom and heard footsteps following me. I was thinking oh shit when he spoke my name, and I realized I had met him and his lady the day before. We talked a bit, and just before we went our own ways, he said that happiness has to come from our hearts, that we have to decide to be happy.

Thank you for that, I said as I hugged him.

Maybe we fight the darkness by deciding to be happy. Deciding isn’t a magical antidote that guarantees everything will be happily ever after. Deciding won’t make all the negatives disappear. But deciding not to dwell, not to wallow, on the negatives seems like a step away from the darkness.

As I walked out on the Bridge, I let the beauty of the Gorge wash over me. I’m always surprised and delighted by that beauty, no matter how many times I see it. Seeing the Gorge never feels routine.

I felt a sense of peace slide over me as I walked. I hoped the man who jumped knew peace too.

As I neared the end of the Bridge, I looked across the street to the south and saw something my brain at first couldn’t understand. I could only make sense of what I saw by thinking someone had set out life-size, three dimensional target practice dummies that looked like rams in what had been a parking area before it was blocked off by the Department of Transportation. Then I realized the creatures looking up at me were moving, alive. Six bighorn sheep were right next to the road, watching me, wondering what I would do next.

I was afraid they would try to cross the road and one would get hit. I walked across the highway slowly and softly told the sheep they shouldn’t be so close to speeding cars. They moved back as I approached, but didn’t leave the empty lot. I perched on the barrier blocking vehicles from entering, and five of the sheep moved closer to the fence separating the empty lot from miles of the Pueblo’s sage. The one sheep that stayed in place kept eating from small patches of lush green grass that had shot up after the monsoon rains. Its mouth moved fast, as if film were being played at high speed. The sheep seemed to be goofing around, trying to make me laugh, but really, that’s just the way its mouth moved when it ate.

One by one, the other five sheep bounded gracefully over the low barbed wire fence and were back in the safety of the sage. Finally, the last one quit munching grass, walked to the fence, hesitated, then jumped across. I had barely breathed a sigh of relief when it hopped the fence again and moved back into the former parking lot to get more of the delicious grass. I continued to sit in silent awe, watching sheep on both sides of the fence, feeling blessed to witness their breakfast.

The sheep in the sage slowly made their way closer to the Gorge. The lone sheep in the parking lot seemed oblivious as the rest of the herd moved farther away. I could no longer see the other five sheep when number six decided it was time to get back to the group. It didn’t seem to want to jump the low fence, but looked for some other way to get to the other side. It approached the tall hurricane fence on the west side of the empty lot and trotted back and forth along it, getting visibly agitated and stamping its feet. It was cut off from its family and not sure how to join them.

I considered getting closer and trying to point the sheep in the right direction, but quickly realized the idea was ridiculous. This creature was not a Disney cutie or barnyard friend. This animal was wild, strong, and a least a little pissed. It might not realize I wanted to help, might instead feel cornered and attacked. While I wanted to have a magical, spiritual moment saving a wild beast, I was more likely to be kicked in the gut by a being living just fine before I can along. I stayed where I was.

The sheep walked over to the lower fence and hesitated, then sailed over into the sage. Go! Go! I silently cheered. There was another low barbed wire fence to clear before following the other sheep into Gorge, but a foot caught in the wire and the sheep crashed to the ground. I gasped, but there seemed to be no serious damage. The sheep was on its feet in moments, then disappeared under the Bridge and into the Gorge.

What connection do I make between these big horn sheep who travel in the Gorge and the man who gave up his life there the day before? I have just the vaguest idea, an idea I can barely grasp and can’t articulate. I feel like the answer is somehow connected to my understanding of my own state of grace.

Someone once told me that grace is a gift we don’t deserve, something given to us for no reason we can understand. I walked back to my van in a state of grace, blessed with a life I’m not sure I deserve, a life that on this day included a moment with bighorn sheep.

(The bulk of this post was written in late summer of 2013, edited in August 2015.)