I always thought it a weird joke the universe was playing on me when I think back on the worst day of my life. It was April 1, 2009 (April Fools Day), and I was planning to kill myself.

I have struggled with mental health most of my life. Growing up I never really felt safe. School was honestly a form of cruel and unusual torture as I was plagued by both students and teachers for most of my grade school and middle school career. And while some people had the blessing of being able to go home and find peace I was not graced with that option. Home was a place of violent emotional outbursts, unrealistic expectations, dishonesty, and religious brainwashing. So when I tell you I grew up in survival mode you can at least have a vague understanding.

When someone grows up in survival mode it’s extremely difficult for them to be present in the moment. Their brains are operating at 110% all the time analyzing every interaction, motion, word, and phrase. Looking for dangers, and planning out how they will react when the inevitable danger appears. It is an exhausting way to live, and one of the most difficult trauma responses to unlearn.

I carried much of this flight or fight hyper-vigilance into adulthood and I will be honest it ruined a lot of relationships, friendships, and opportunities. So when my world came crashing down around me on April 1, 2009 I thought I was done. I was tired, exhausted, and just didn’t see a way out. More importantly, I just didn’t want to live like that anymore. So I pulled out my gun, loaded it, and decided to have one last night before the end. I ordered my favorite Chinese food (sesame chicken with fried rice & a coke), cleaned up my apartment (no idea why), and decided to listen to some music. Now at the time, I had a 500-disc CD player, and it was fully loaded with CDs from 500 different artists. I picked up the remote and hit shuffle…what happened next will forever be one of the biggest surprises of my life!

Suicide rates are something no one really talks about. Out of 100,000 people, 13 will commit suicide. That comes out to 130 suicides per day and men have 69.98% of that statistic. Now that is just how many succeed in committing suicide. In 2020 there were 1.2 million REPORTED attempts, and we can assume that that number is higher because not everyone reports their attempt.

I never reported mine, in fact, I didn’t talk about it or tell anyone about it for years. It took me a while to come to grips with what happened. How it happened, and why it happened. Why me?

So there I was, sitting on the couch, eating sesame chicken and sipping on a coke. I had just hit shuffle on my CD player and the VERY FIRST song to come on was a song called Birthday by The Cruxshadows. Now I won’t quote the entire song to you, but I will quote the lyrics that hit me like a ton of bricks…

I heard those lyrics and realized I did not want this to be my last night on earth. I wanted more, and to live a better life. So I unloaded my gun and put it away.

Now I wish I could tell you that the next day I woke up a changed man…I didn’t. I wish I could tell you the next day was better…It wasn’t…in fact, it was worse. But I knew I wanted to get better, and I had a long journey in front of me. I started going to therapy, reading good books, and making changes in my life. It did not happen all at once. It did not even happen quickly. But eventually, those small changes had a compound effect and my life started to improve.

One of the changes that came into my life a few years later was photography. Social media had introduced me to so many beautiful and stunning images online, and I desperately wanted to create beautiful images myself. I had no idea how, or what I was doing, but photography had sparked something inside me. A fire that was never going to go out. I started taking pictures of anything and everything. Some were good, most were ok, and a few were really bad. But I didn’t care. Picking up a camera was a near meditative experience for me.

See when you grow up in survival mode, and eventually, learn to live in survival mode your brain never stops running. It moves at the speed of a supercomputer always looking for danger and popping out ideas of how to deal with that imagined danger. But when I put a camera in my hand my brain stopped looking for dangers. It took a break and for the first time in my entire life, I could be present 100% in the moment. No what ifs. Just me, my camera, and whatever I was shooting.

After living a lifetime in survival mode this reprieve from my brain was/is an experience I have difficulty describing. I remember trying to explain this to my best friend once and saying “Is this how normal people live?! Because if so they have no idea how wonderful their lives are!!”

So can photography help people suffering from mental health? Yes! It has not only given me a haven to help ease my troubled mind but has allowed me the opportunity to express difficult emotions that I could never express before.