Inside the Mind of Suicide: A Survivor's Story

According to the World Health Organization, almost seven hundred thousand people attempt suicide every year. Of every one thousand suicide attempts, approximately seventy-two ultimately die of suicide. It is the tenth leading reason of death in the United States and sometimes even higher in other countries. Death by suicide also has no one particular type of victim; it affects everyone from the seemingly happy and successful movie stars, rockstars, country music singers, beauty queens, celebrity children, reality TV actors, promising college athletes, to the veterans returning home from the horrors of war. Unfortunately, the problem is only getting much, much worse.

Medical experts believe that deaths by suicide could be dramatically reduced if the new generation truly understood and embraced the importance of life. My thoughts and experience on the matter go way deeper than just that, which is why I have chosen to share my story. I am a suicide survivor. It is an absolute miracle that I am alive. I survived a gunshot wound to the head. This experience helped me to truly understand what it actually takes for a person to willingly choose to permanently end their life, like the things that drove me to do the unthinkable, and also what happens to their loved ones left behind--the pain, the guilt, the sorrow, the suffering, the inability to move forward, the very same emotions that I saw in my own family immediately following my near-death suicide attempt, even though I had miraculously survived.

My story gives readers a rare glimpse "inside the mind of suicide." My hope is to prevent suicide from happening because the pain does eventually go away, and "bad things happening to good people" is only a temporary condition in a long, happy, prosperous, and meaningful life. I also hope to help all the devastated suicide loss survivors understand why their loved one ultimately chose death over life so that they may eventually heal and feel peace again in time.

I survived to inspire others to live and thrive. This is my own personal journey "inside the mind of suicide."