There's attempted suicide every 38 seconds. This is one of those attempts; and, even though it ends well, it's pretty terrifying. Fair warning.
When we were about halfway through the editorial process on this article a different writer that I'd worked with on-and-off for the past three years took her own life. I didn't know her too closely, but I still have her number in my phone and we had some inside jokes and even had a couple of stalled projects that I had been putting off finishing because other stuff kept coming up. For a while I kept thinking about how maybe if I had checked in with her more often or something she wouldn't have made this mistake.
Which is silly because I was just a tiny part of her life and I can't possibly know what my impact would've been and I can't make this my responsibility, I'm not God, I'm not even particularly strong, I don't control the world and can only barely keep my own life together. But it's also not silly because I know that suicide is usually a split-second decision, and that the difference between a successful and failed suicide can be a fraction of a millimeter, and that people who do survive (like "Jessica," who wrote this article with me) immediately regret their decision and realize they've wanted to live all along. Then they recover and go on to have wonderful lives. Tiny things at the right moment can change your life forever.
I'm really happy with this article and I hope that somewhere out there it'll be a tiny part of someone's life. The suicide hotline number is at the end of the article but it's also right here: 1-800-273-8255











