This is not a typical post for this blog. It isn't really a post about God, not really. I would say more that God has put this message on my heart, for those who do not speak for themselves.
You know this bridge I am sure. It's world famous. It might conjure mental images of streetcars, fog, hilly steep streets, great food, or even Rice-A-Roni (which ran many ads featuring San Francisco streetcars when I was younger). It has appeared in many movies. It is an iconic emblem of San Francisco: The Golden Gate Bridge.
What it probably doesn't bring to mind, is that it is the number one location on Planet Earth for suicides. Not just in California, or the United States, but it is the number one location for suicides IN THE WHOLE WORLD. Even the Aokigahara suicide forest in Japan only takes second place to the Golden Gate Bridge.
And yet, despite decades of attempts to have it built, there is still no barrier to prevent people from jumping. The fence at the edge is only 4 feet high. Some argue that anyone who would commit suicide by jumping would do it anyway: they are wrong. Suicide is an acute threat: someone who is prevented from killing themselves in a 72 hour period of their worst risk is actually unlikely to do it at another time. Every minute of delay or inconvenience could save a life. The Golden Gate Bridge is like having a publicly accessible loaded handgun in a public place, where everyone knows it is there and anyone can use it at any time.
Many people who are having a suicidal crisis believe that nobody cares if they live or die. While that is not true of their family and friends, I am afraid it is true of the public at large. The reasons that the barrier has not been put up on the bridge as of yet boil down to issues of money and power. The bridge is a symbol of San Francisco, a contributing factor to the tourist economy. Almost any barrier will be less aesthetically pleasing than no barrier. The appearance of the bridge is a financial asset that people want to protect: lives lost are not really a concern since they are lost "voluntarily". People are also largely very unsympathetic to the depressed, as to the mentally ill in general. People raising funds on the street for a barrier are often accosted by people yelling "Jump! Jump!" and people throw soft drink cans at them. It's sickening.
And in fact there was no problem building a barrier partly on the Oakland side, because it overhung the land and people were dropping objects like bowling balls over the side. It was a public safety issue then. Assisting the emotionally distraught apparently is not a public safety issue.
So the people who think that the world is uncaring, that nobody cares, sadly for the most part they are right. There is still a huge stigma on mental illness in this country. Most people are very unsympathetic to the suicidal, to the point of even encouraging these extremely distraught individuals to end it all. One suicidal man wrote a suicide note saying that if only one person smiled at him as he went up the bridge, he wouldn't kill himself. Apparently, no one smiled. Most of the people who jumped, had a treatable mental illness. If there were a 72 hour virus that could kill you, but which was very much treatable, people would be urging people to get treatment and would be sympathetic to their situation. Towards people with a treatable mental illness that could end their life, however, there is often a great deal of hostility. Even hatred. Even in liberal San Francisco. A city where you can find groups that believe that pets should have human rights, isn't quite as enthusiastic about the human welfare of some human beings. We have removed stigmas about all sorts of things, even stigmas against gays and those with AIDS, but this stigma it seems, too few have the heart to fight to remove.
Anyone who wants to keep up with the barrier project, the link is http://www.ggbsuicidebarrier.org/
For anyone who is suicidal who might stumble across this page, I want to say this:
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DON'T DO IT, PLEASE. THIS IS ONLY A TEMPORARY AND TREATABLE CONDITION. YOU CAN GET HELP.
I know that it might feel like you are nobody and nothing, but that is a lie. You are in fact special. You can in fact make a difference for somebody else, just by being here. Don't buy into the lies that the World tries to sell you, to your detriment. You may not think or feel that there is a God, you may in fact be adamantly opposed to the idea, but I know there is one, and He doesn't want you to leave before you get to know Him. God loves you, and there are people who are sympathetic and know what you are going through. Find them, and Him. The results of suicide are tragic and permanent.
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Suicide Crisis Hotline:
1-800-SUICIDE (1-800-784-2433)
1-800-TALK (1-800-273-8255)
