After I Pulled the Trigger: Surviving Suicides Lie by Clinging to Hopes Truth

Each year in the United States, according to the CDC, approximately 34,000 people die from suicide. On average there are 94 deaths per day or one every fifteen minutes, and it is the 11th leading cause of death in our country. Over half of these deaths are attributed to self-inflicted gun shots. I understand the pull suicide has on a person's life because I found myself one evening at the base of a wall. Our will to live builds a strong wall around our lives to protect us from danger. On January 24th, 1986, when I was 16 years-old, I was about to climb over that wall. For seven months I had considered suicide as a way to release myself from years of despair and depression. My plan was to hide myself away from sight and sound in a secluded patch of woods and turn a rifle on myself. The suicidal thoughts had desensitized me so much to what I was doing it marginalized the actual killing process. Loading the rifle and pulling the trigger was a mere formality to reach the promised land of a life change through suicide. When I pulled the trigger, I knew I had made a mistake. Suicide had offered me a hand up and over the wall, and as I passed over the top, what I saw waiting for me on the other side made me regret ever pulling the trigger. It was too late for regrets; because once I pulled the trigger the bullet was gone forever. I was spared that night through an intervention but not an intervention of this world. If you are considering going over the same wall I did, please sit and allow me to tell you my story.