Time to fly nearest over pass looks like a good launching point | |
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Anonymous Coward User ID: 58532695 United States 08/04/2014 03:46 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | [link to www.psychologytoday.com] At 10 o'clock in the morning, Ken Baldwin walked calmly on to the bridge, and jumped straight over the rail. But as soon as his arms let go, he knew he'd made a mistake. Despite all his years of contemplating suicide, he knew that he didn't want to die after all. As he describes it, ‘I thought, What am I doing? This was the worst thing I could do in my life. I thought of my wife and daughter. I didn't want to die. I wanted to live.' He recalls realizing that ‘everything in my life that I'd thought was unfixable was totally fixable - except for having just jumped.' Luckily, Ken fell feet first into the water, which is the only possible way of surviving. The shattering of the femur bones in the legs can sometimes shield the body's vital organs from the full impact of the fall. With the image of his wife and daughter in his head - and his heart full of regret - Ken blacked out. He came to a few minutes later, on the deck of a rescue boat with the coastguard asking him: ‘Do you know what you did? Do you want to do it again?' Even at that moment, he knew that he wasn't going to try to kill himself again. Lying on the boat, he felt thrilled to be alive, to be given another chance. However, for several hours it wasn't clear whether this second chance would materialise. Although he hadn't broken any bones, there was severe bruising to his lungs, and he spent the night in intensive care, with only a 50% chance of survival. But once he recovered, Ken felt an intense gratitude for his life, which has never left him since. As he describes it: 'Before, I didn't want to get better. I had become consumed by my depression. But after the jump, that changed because now I knew I wanted to live...Most people just have one life that goes from high school to college to marriage, job and kids. I have two lives: one before the jump, one after. I'm almost a completely different person now. I know now that I'm lucky to be alive. I may have had a crummy day at school [Ken is now a high school teacher], but I have my life.' In other words, Ken Baldwin's suicide attempt led to a psychological shift, even a spiritual transformation. And his story is by no means exceptional. In 1975, when only 10 people were known to have survived jumping off the bridge (the figure is now 26), the psychologist David Rosen sought out and interviewed 7 of them. He found that all of them had spiritual experiences during or straight after their jumps. They experienced feelings of intense peace and calm, an awareness of a ‘higher power' and a connection to other human beings or the universe as a whole. And this state never faded. Although, in some cases it was several years since their jump, they had all retained this sense of meaning and well-being. In other words, they had undergone a permanent spiritual transformation. Most jumpers black out on hitting the water, but two of Rosen's interviewees remained conscious, and had profound spiritual experiences right at that moment. As one of them described it: When I hit the water I felt a vacuum feeling and a compression, like my energy displaced the surface energy of the water. At first everything was black, then gray-brown, then light. It opened my mind - like waking up. It was very restful. When I came up above the water, I realized I was alive. I felt reborn. I was treading water and singing - I was happy and it was joyous occasion. It affirmed my belief - there is a higher spiritual world. I experienced a transcendence - in that moment I was refilled with new hope and purpose of being alive. |