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<p class="MsoNormal">Sharing the story for those who were unable to access the article from the link:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">INSPIRED LIFE – The Washington Post<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">A stranger asked me to take her photograph. It saved my life.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">Today, I am alive because a pink-haired stranger stopped me for a picture<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">Perspective by Billy Lezra<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">November 19, 2023 at 8:00 a.m. EST<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">The day I decided to die, I watched the sun disappear into the San Francisco Bay.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">As the orange ripples spread through the water, I made my way to a subway station, sat on a blue steel bench and waited for the eastbound train
to Oakland. I’d been drinking whiskey mixed with flat Coke all afternoon to work up the nerve to jump in front of the train, and I was drunk enough that my plan felt within reach. I was 23. Two months earlier, my mother had tried to take her life, and I had
interrupted her attempt. This experience, compounded by years of depression and addiction, made me long to stop feeling. It’s not that I wanted to die, exactly, it’s that I didn’t want to live.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">I stood, and took a few steps toward the platform’s edge.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">The incoming train screeched. A gust of air blew up my sleeves.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">“Excuse me,” said a voice to my right, “but would you mind taking my picture?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">I turned toward the voice. A wiry woman with pink hair and a titanium lip ring stood a few feet away from me, smiling and offering her phone. Her
nails were painted silver. She couldn’t have been older than nineteen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">“I literally just arrived in San Francisco,” she said. “And I’m so excited to be here.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">It didn’t occur to me that I could have said no, that I was busy, that I had to catch a train.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">I nodded and took her phone.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">She skipped toward the blue steel bench where I’d been sitting, stood on it, flashed a peace sign, and grinned.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">I took a few pictures. For the next ten seconds my attention was glued to her poses. By the time our interaction was over, the train I was going
to jump in front of had slowed into the station, and I’d missed my chance. I could have stayed and waited for another train, but the interruption had thrown me off just enough to lose my nerve.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">I left the station and walked uphill until I reached a park. Below me, clusters of people gathered on the grass, playing the guitar, drinking wine.
I sat down, lit a cigarette and stared at the dark water behind San Francisco’s glittering skyline. I pulled out my phone and took a picture of a husky’s backlit silhouette. My hands shook so hard the image blurred.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">Seven years have passed since the day I almost jumped in front of the train, and I know a lot more about suicide now than I did at 23.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">The process of gathering data and information has helped me understand what almost happened to me. The child of a parent who has attempted suicide
is almost five times more likely to become suicidal than the child of a parent with no history of self-harm. People with an alcohol misuse disorder are up to 120 times more likely to attempt suicide than those who are not dependent on alcohol. Roughly one
in four people who complete suicide are intoxicated. (My mother and I were both drunk during our close calls.) What this means is that the completion of suicide often occurs when ideation, opportunity and a lack of interruption converge into a single unretractable
moment.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">Today, my mother is alive because I found her. Today, I am alive because a pink-haired stranger stopped me for a picture.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">I call this woman my “interrupter.” Interrupters exist everywhere — there’s a man who has seized more than 400 people off the railings of the Nanjing
Yangtze River Bridge in China. There’s a retired police officer who has walked more than 600 people back from the ledges of the Tojinbo cliffs in Japan. And then there are accidental interrupters — the people who approach desolate strangers in subway stations.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">Sometimes I wonder whether my interrupter saw my suffering rise from my body like steam. But even if the interruption was a coincidence, she saved
me that night and gave me a tool that continues to save me to this day.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">As I write this, I am in recovery, sober and in therapy. The combination of these factors has curbed my suicidal impulses, but I still have days
when my despair threatens to burn through me like a wildfire. On these days, I take myself outside and ask strangers whether they’d like me to take their picture.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">I tend to approach folks who are already in the process of photographing one another — couples, friends, families, people taking selfies. I also
approach people who look sad, lonely, lost in thought. Often, I don’t have to say anything: I’ll hold up my hands and curl my right index finger as if I am pressing the button on an invisible camera, and they’ll hand me their phones with a smile.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">To date, no one has turned me down. Thanks to this practice, I have a catalogue of sweet snapshots embedded in my memory: the teenage couple sitting
on a bench enveloped in yellow daisies in a garden in Mendocino, a group of women with purple feather boas wrapped around their necks in the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, a pair of redheaded friends sipping iced chai on a wooden bench in a tiny town in Northern
California, a man standing in front of a weeping willow, arms outstretched like wings.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">I will never see these photos or these people ever again. And if I did, I probably wouldn’t recognize them — nor would they remember me. Our entire
relationship lives and dies in the amount of time required to take a picture. My temporal existence collides with their temporary experience to create a frozen frame that will outlive us all — a sliver of visual proof that says “we were here, smiling.” Then,
we go our separate ways — I leave them with a tangible reminder that our paths crossed, briefly, even if they forget about me. And they leave me with a jolt of connection that interrupts my hopelessness and makes me feel that being alive matters, just a little
bit.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">Sometimes I close my eyes and try to recall the picture I took of my interrupter, seven years ago: how she stood on the blue bench in the subway
station, how her pink hair stuck out in every direction, the way her grin was so wide it looked like it might fall off her face. The more time passes the harder it is for me to remember her expression, but what has stayed with me is a feeling of sharp, profound
gratitude. Maybe one day someone will feel this way about me, too.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">If you or someone you know needs help, call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. You can also visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%"><span style="mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">Billy Lezra is a freelance writer who is working on a book about intergenerational addiction.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b>From:</b> Bhat, Christine <bhatc@ohio.edu> <br>
<b>Sent:</b> Sunday, November 19, 2023 10:59 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> counselor_educ@listserv.ohio.edu<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Perspective | A stranger asked me to take her photograph. It saved my life. -
<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Perspective | A stranger asked me to take her photograph. It saved my life. - The Washington Post<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapple.news%2FAjns6PneWQDCFZp2EHAxSoQ&data=05%7C01%7Ccounselor_educ%40listserv.ohio.edu%7Cd2cdfa870218468feb4208dbe92e0985%7Cf3308007477c4a70888934611817c55a%7C0%7C0%7C638360156166213690%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=DJMjGTTNS%2BhF0Qchz7ytW7f6b0j5ibugmO1a%2BTG8qvw%3D&reserved=0" originalsrc="https://apple.news/Ajns6PneWQDCFZp2EHAxSoQ" shash="DuMG0DmoIjn/lm8PtlF0detqIRt/9ygk5p1q8ACK6A51GZuJOh4TtVmKt+c1Q7HaQAd5LH1ei8pAenHi91kps+h9ALsadeTojcOdQVLk2UGToO0ofKlMurMbkodTMhSz9DmxEBywZYNYnzVh0Wq65k5hZ9pfsctP8HbKJ3w6Enc=">https://apple.news/Ajns6PneWQDCFZp2EHAxSoQ</a><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">I read this story today and wanted to share as we think about gratitude this week. Small acts of kindness are important and may have far reaching effects.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Be well!<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Csb<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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