- [Voiceover] We have lost far too many lives
traveling the path to this day.
- Since 1937, over 2,000 people
have died at the Golden Gate Bridge.
I feel lucky to be alive every single day.
(ambient orchestral music)
Of the thousands that have died off the Golden Gate Bridge,
I am of the 1% who have survived.
So I was born on drugs and premature
and then I bounced around from home to home.
Nobody wanted to keep me because I was sick.
And I got lucky.
I landed in the home of Patrick and Debra Hines.
I had a great childhood.
I thought growing up that everything's gonna be great.
And then at 17, it all came crashing down.
If you can imagine feeling that everyone around you
is out to get you, trying to hurt you,
and trying to kill you.
And you believe that to be the truth.
From the extreme paranoia, I exhibited symptoms of mania.
From the mania came the hallucinations,
both auditory and visual.
And so with that and the bipolar disorder,
I just was spiraling out of control.
I vividly remember writing my suicide note.
People don't get it, like I thought I was a burden
to everyone who loved me, because that's what my brain
told me, because that's how powerful your brain is.
I got off the bus.
I walked slowly down the walkway of the Golden Gate Bridge.
People rode by me, drove by me, walked by me.
And a woman approached me and she said,
"Will you take my picture?"
She said "thanks" and she walked away.
It was that moment I just said, "Nobody cares."
The reality was that everybody cared.
I just couldn't see it.
I ran forward and using my two hands
I catapulted myself into freefall.
What I'm about to say is the exact same thing
that 19 Golden Gate Bridge jump survivors have also said.
The millisecond my hands left the rail,
it was an instant regret.
And I remember thinking, "No one's gonna know
"that I didn't wanna die."
In four seconds I fell 75 miles an hour, 25 stories.
And I hit the water.
I was in the most physical pain I had ever experienced,
I have ever experienced.
The Coast Guard was amazing.
He was just so freaked out that I was alive
that he just dove in and brought me on board.
Guy said, "Do you know how many people
"we pull out of this water that are already dead?"
And I said, "No, and I don't wanna know."
The guy put his hand on my forehead, said,
"Kid, you're a miracle."
My father took one step into the hospital room
and I looked up at him and I said,
"Dad, I'm sorry."
And he said, "No, Kevin, I'm sorry."
And if you think about it, both of our immediate reactions
were guilt, guilt that didn't belong to either of us.
And even though I didn't die, I caused people
a great deal of grief and pain.
Just the day of my attempt still sits
within them today.
I asked my father if he still feared my death by suicide.
He said every time the phone goes off
his first inclination, is Kevin alive?
I had that impact on my dad.
So after the jump, the road to recovery was pretty long.
I had seven psych ward stays in the next 11 years.
I still have all the symptoms I ever had:
mania, depression, psychosis, hallucinations,
all that's still there.
I just know how to cope with it
and I know how to beat it.
I built a support network over these years
of treatment so that I wouldn't be fighting this alone.
So, like, it's okay not to be okay.
It's not okay not to ask for someone to back you up.
To the families who live with the loss or losses
of loved ones, they didn't do that to hurt you
or destroy your life.
They took their lives because they were struggling
and in a great deal of emotional, mental pain.
Suicide, mental illness, and addiction are the only diseases
that we blame the person for perpetually.
But people die from suicide just like they die
from any other organ diseased.
Today, no matter the pain I'm in, no matter the struggles
I experience, I do believe that life is the greatest gift
we've ever been given.
And if you're suffering mentally,
don't wait like I did, sitting in denial for so long.
Because recovery happens.
I'm living proof.
(slow-paced violin music)