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Hines Shares Story Of Mental Illness At SUNY Fredonia

FREDONIA — On Sept. 24, 2000, Kevin Hines fell 25 stories in four seconds after jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.

Hines told his story last week to a packed house at the State University of New York at Fredonia as part of Suicide Prevention Week hosted by The Community Alliance for Suicide Prevention, Chautauqua Tapestry, The Resource Center, SUNY Fredonia and Jamestown Community College. Hines, said Ann Rosenthal of the Chautauqua County Department of Mental Hygiene, had been to Chautauqua County before and “we just needed to have him back.”

Hines was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder at the age of 17. At the age of 19, he said, his life had become unmanageable. Although he was seeing a psychiatrist twice a week, and had been prescribed medication to keep his symptoms in check, Hines said that he was in “a massive amount of denial.” He didn’t want to be “the kid with bipolar disorder,” Hines said. He took his medications inconsistently, he began binge drinking on the weekends to numb the auditory command hallucinations that he described as “a voice in my head of a man I’d never even met,” which told him constantly that “eventually I had to die using these two hands.” Most importantly, said Hines, he wasn’t telling the people around him — his father Pat and his mother Debbie — what was going on.

Though the morning of Hines’ suicide attempt, he said, his father offered to do absolutely anything Hines wanted to get his son to stay with him that day, from taking Hines with him to work to going to a movie, to literally anything at all that Hines suggested, Hines said he’d already decided to kill himself and so he made up a math test to get his father to acquiesce. He did, Hines said, and drove him to the City College of San Francisco campus, where Hines said he dropped every class except for English so that his family wouldn’t have to be inconvenienced by going to the campus to do it for him after he was gone.

Why English? “The teacher was gorgeous,” Hines laughed. “I just had to see her one more time.”

Throughout the hour-long presentation Hines gave on Thursday, the narrative of his life from diagnoses to five years after his attempted suicide was woven with information, education, and most importantly, humor. Though the subject was intense, and as Hines said, it was a “heavy day,” there was no shortage of laughter as Hines talked about how he’s learned to live in recovery, and encouraged everyone to be aware of what crisis looks like, how to help those they love who may be in crisis, and what he’d like people in crisis to consider before acting on ideations and impulses to attempt suicide.

“Today is not tomorrow,” Hines said he’d caution anyone currently in crisis. “Just because everything looks dark right now, it doesn’t mean that it won’t get better tomorrow.”

If he’d known that thoughts don’t have to become actions in the moment that he jumped, which he said was followed immediately by regret and a strong desire to survive his jump, he never would have done it. That lesson, however, is one that he’s learned through the process of recovery. “We do not have to give ownership to every thought we have,” said Hines. “If we did, how many of you right now would be in jail for road rage?”

Unfortunately, Hines said, suicidal ideation is by its nature an irrational compulsion. He thought, throughout the day of his jump, that he was everyone’s burden. He thought that his parents would be irritated by having to close out his student account rather than by the fact that their oldest son was dead. “It’s irrational,” he said, adding that even as he sunk 70 feet before surfacing after his four-second, 25-story jump, he was struck by the realization that he could drown. “I never even considered that I could drown,” as a result of jumping off the bridge, said Hines. “That’s how irrational suicide is.”

For anyone currently in crisis, Hines said, he’d ask them to think back to their lives before they ever had their first thought of suicide and remember how happy they’d been then. “Then think about how to get back to that point,” he said. Anyone who’s currently in crisis, Hines said, needs to advocate for themselves first and foremost by educating themselves on their own condition and by stepping back from their pain long enough to research how possible recovery is.

For those with loved ones they suspect might be in crisis, which Hines said can look like changes in eating and sleeping habits among other things, the most helpful thing they can do is listen. Really listen. “Listen intently,” said Hines. “Listen to understand. Not to judge or to reply. But to truly understand what that person is experiencing.”

And for those with lived experience of mental illness or a suicide attempt, “share,” said Hines. “Share the story of your lived experience. And share how you live in recovery every day.”

“Your pain is valid, it is real, and it matters. Because you matter,” Hines said to anyone living with mental health issues.

Hines said that, for him, routine is how he keeps his live manageable. Regular exercise, regular sleep, psychoeducation, eating well, and participating in therapy as well as taking his medications as directed are all integral parts of Hines’ mental well-being. “I live with suicidal thoughts today,” said Hines. But the difference now is that he knows that those thoughts don’t have to become his reality.

Hines’ story was first shared to a wider audience on the 2006 documentary “The Bridge.” Today, Hines is a brain/mental health advocate, award-winning speaker, author and a documentary filmmaker himself. His memoir “Cracked, Not Broken: Surviving and Thriving After a Suicide Attempt” is available on Amazon and his documentary “Suicide: The Ripple Effect” is expected to be released in 2018.

He said that anyone in crisis should text CNQR to 741741 or call the national suicide prevention lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (suicidepreventionlifeline.com).

For more information on Kevin Hines visit kevinhinesstory.com.

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