By Margaret Dore
In another life, I talked three young men down from suicide.
What I think happened is that a final exit network type person had given them my phone number by mistake. This was before the age of caller ID.
I was contacted by each of the three young men over a period of time, each one wanting assistance to kill himself.
I called a suicide prevention person to ask what I should do, i.e., with regard to the first one. The person told me to ask the suicidal person why? To engage him.
So that’s what I did. I met each one at a local Seattle park, which I thought would be safe for me and asked him why, and then I tried to expand to other topics.
The last one I got him laughing. He told me that he no longer felt like killing himself.
To the best of my knowledge they all lived, but I don't know for sure.