I may not be alive were it not for an interruption.
The day it happened, I was having an art therapy session. This was something which I had been trialling a few years ago and at this point I had attended many weeks of sessions, becoming more and more aware that it was doing more harm to me than good.
On this day, the tipping point was reached.
I left the session in a daze of overload, confusion and complete and utter distress. I was walking and barely aware of the world. Just absorbed by the complete and total suicidal intent and thought. Desperate and alone.
Suddenly, in that moment a cyclist stopped and spoke to me. I was hardly aware at first, unable to see beyond the chaos in my brain. Yet in that disturbance, a realisation. The cyclist was my uncle.
An uncle I hardly ever see.
There he was right there when I was literally a second or less away from something awful. I am not even sure the words he shared - a few niceties were exchanged as he brought me back into the here and now. Brief and inconsequential to him, but for me, I was removed from peril.
His finding me by chance in an unusual location, at that specific time, was utterly bizarre and unexpected. Yet it happened. If it had not, I probably would not be writing this now. He does not know the difference that brief conversation made and how that interruption pulled me back from the brink.
That interaction just shows that we all have the power to potentially save a life. So, if you see someone you are worried about, please make the decision to say something. Anything. I do not remember what my uncle said at first. Nor do I recall the small talk we exchanged. It did not matter. It was the fact he had spoken to me at all. He had done something.
You might know the person that worries you. You may not. If you are concerned, just reach out to them. Say something silly. Say something nice. Pay them a random compliment. Just start a conversation. Do something.
It may well be the difference between a life lost and a life saved.
*Grace is a pseudonym