Often times upon hearing that somebody is sick, we assume that means that they are physically ill with the flu, the common cold, or some other virus going around. What we don’t realize is that people can be sick in the mind as well as in the body. I watched a young girl jump off of the 25th street bridge in the fall of last year, and that’s when I came to understand the true impact that mental illness can have on an individual. Only after witnessing this tragic event did I really start to grasp that mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, and insomnia, to name a few, are just as real and draining as physical illnesses can be.
I was planning on having a fun night out with my sister. It was a couple of weeks after my eighteenth birthday and my older sister Charlotte was going to take me out for a girl’s night. Our plan was to go to Lawrence since I would be able to get into concerts and such after turning eighteen. I was really thrilled, I got ready swiftly, and I headed over to my sister’s house. I was soon disappointed though because once I arrived she didn’t want to go to Lawrence. I was of course bummed but we decided to go get pizza instead. It was on our way back from picking up pizza that we both witnessed this tragic event.
As we drove across the 25th street bridge it was rather dark and I was not paying much attention, however, Charlotte thought that she saw somebody standing on the other side of the bridge. At the time I thought for sure that she was mistaken, but she turned around the car and as we drove slowly back across the bridge, I was horror struck upon seeing that there actually was a young girl probably about my age standing there on the other side, grasping the ledge with a pale face and wide eyes.
My sister stopped the car in the middle of the road and yelled to me, “Autumn, call 911 right now!” It took me a moment to realize what was actually happening. Even as it sunk in, I did not ever imagine that she would really jump. As I fumbled with my phone trying to call 911, I could hear my sister begging and pleading for the girl to come down. At this point I was still not convinced that she would jump so I did not realize the urgency of the situation. I explained to the 911 operator that there was a girl threatening to jump off the bridge. She kept asking what street I was on but I did not know the street and I had become side tracked by listening to my sister try to coax her down. I just remember being very appalled by the girl because she was being extremely rude. I of course did not understand what would cause her to be so rude to people that were trying to save her life. At this point in my life I definitely did not think of depression as something so serious. I of course knew about it but I had never come to understand it before. I knew I had to find out the name of the street so I peeled my eyes and ears away from my sister and the girl and started sprinting down the street. I could feel the cool fall air on my hot flustered face as I was running. I know it sounds crazy but my adrenaline was rushing and I became detached from the situation during those 30 seconds of running. It was such a lovely November night and exhilaration was running through my body like a steady current. I felt like I was in a scene from a movie. I was not really that scared yet because I had already played it all out in my head. The way I pictured it, Charlotte would convince the girl to come down, cops would come and make sure that she would come down safely, we could all go our separate ways and that would be that. I’d never experienced any sort of situation like that one, so of course I had envisioned it would play out just like it would if we were in a movie.
All I remember next was being pulled out of my run by a piercing scream from my sister. I stopped and looked over and the girl was no longer standing on the ledge. It had occurred to me that she had jumped but for some reason I was still convincing myself that she was fine. Even though I knew logically that the likelihood of surviving after that kind of a fall was not of any percent, I couldn’t help but think that she might still be okay. I just had not played out that scenario in my head, so therefore it was unreal to me.
I stood there in complete and utter shock. It was as if everything around me had come to a standstill and all I could hear was the operator on the other line “Ma’am…ma’am? Are you still there? Do you know the street name ma’am?” I simply hung up. It seemed as if in a matter of seconds 12 cars were surrounding me and sirens were going off and people were shouting and I still to this day have no idea how that bridge went from being such a quiet empty place to being filled with dozens of people within seconds. My sister was not in an emotional state to deal with what was happening so I quietly moved her car, called her husband, and talked to the cops.
For some reason I never got emotionally upset about the event. My sister to this day is dealing with PTSD and still has vivid flashbacks and reoccurring nightmares. It was only after witnessing this event and seeing the dramatic effects that it had on my sister and still continues to have on my sister, that I realized the importance of dealing with mental illnesses on the same level of urgency that we deal with physical illnesses. I have never had many mental health problems so therefore I can look at things from a broader more logical perspective. I often times learn a lot just by evaluating other people’s experiences rather than experiencing things on my own.
I can now see that when somebody has a mental illness we need to help them and we need to be patient. I think the most important thing to do is to remain kind and open minded. We need to realize that when somebody is dealing with a mental illness they do not always realize or understand that they may come off as rude or angry. What I have learned is that getting angry with somebody who has a mental illness will only escalate things further. I did a lot of research into mental illness after this event and I think the most important thing to remember is that just because you don’t understand mental illnesses from a personal viewpoint, does not mean that you can’t be knowledgeable about such illnesses and learn to deal with them in a helpful and compassionate way. I think another important thing to mention as I bring this story to a close is that there may not be a logical reason as to why horrible things like these happen, but that doesn’t mean that we have to create one. By this, I mean we should not place the blame on ourselves because that is just as illogical as jumping off of a bridge.