• "If I knew that what I know now, well, it probably wouldn't change very much. And it probably wouldn't change very much because sometimes it doesn't matter what you know, what you feel just takes over. And there's so many ways like this, that our perception becomes limited.
• In fact, our perception is it's limits. And these limits are created by our biology, our psychology, by our society. These are the factors which create that bubble which surrounds us that is our perceptual field, our world as we know it.
• Now, this bubble, our perceptual field, has this incredible ability to expand and to contract based on changes in any of those factors which create and inform it. Most of us have experienced the challenges of the contraction of our perception from time to time.
• Think about that time when you got cut off in traffic. In the city, it was probably today, let's face it. When it happened, maybe you felt your heart rate start to quicken, your face flush. You jammed on your brakes in order to avoid a collision. And when you did, you focused in on that one license plate as it sped by. Maybe the only thing to go through your mind at that time was how creative you could be in the words you were about to hurl out the window at that guy. Eventually, your perception would have returned to normal. You would have relaxed, you would have gone on with your day. You probably would have even forgotten about it.
• But imagine you didn't. Imagine you stayed there, stuck there, in that narrow, dark place. Well, that's what it can be like to live with a mental illness. At least, that's what it was like for me, at thee depth of my own mental illness as a teenager. My perception had become constricted, and darkened, and collapsed. I felt like an asthmatic who had lost his glasses in a hurricane.
• So, when I was sitting in that chair,a cross from my eighth-grade guidance counselor, the only thing that I could think was, "You're not good enough... you're not smart enough... you're not enough." And it didn't matter if I was because these were the constricted limits of my perception...
• ...most days I probably seemed just like any other normal kid, if not a little quiet. And because the truth is, I was. In fact I was so normal, most people would have never guessed. They probably would have been surprised to find out how I hate the way the sunlight came into my window every morning when I would wake up.
• ... People seem plenty eager to talk about mental illness and about suicide just as long as it's behind closed doors and in hushed voices.
• ... As I was standing there in that moment, the only thing that I could think from my collapsed perception was, "How far out would I need to jump from this bridge so I wouldn't land on that fence?" Because I just didn't want it to, I just didn't want it to hurt anymore. In that moment, my entire life was completely in my control. And when you're living in a hurricane like this, all the time, that's a really unfamiliar, but really satisfying feeling.
• To feel like you have control over your whole life. So I stayed there for a while. I just stood there in that feeling, experiencing that feeling of agency over my life for a change.
• ... Can suicide really be a choice if it's the only choice available? We ask ourselves, "How can it be the only choice? How can it be a rational choice?" And hopefully we wonder, and we ask ourselves how we can help. Well, we can start to help by better appreciating that our mental health is continent on the state and the flexibility of our perceptions.
• Whether we have a mental illness or not, how expanded or how contracted our perception becomes impacts the choices we make. When I was standing on that bridge, my perception was so collapsed that I only had that one choice. When we encounter the suicide of somebody else, we always seem to try to rationalize it. I hear it all the time. And I think that's because we're uncomfortable with feeling helpless and with not understanding.
• But since we know that our perceptions are created and continually informed by our biology, by our psychology, and by our society, we actually have many entry points for potentially helping and better understanding suicide. One way that we can help is to stop saying that people "commit" suicide.
• ... So, like I said, when I used to plead for people to do something, and that's not acceptable either, well, you're here and you're doing something already, because you're changing the way you think, and that's what changes the world. So, for those of you who might be thinking about suicide today, good. Keep thinking about it.
• And then, start talking about it. And then, start doing something about it, too. And for those of you who might be contemplating suicide, I know that there's a hope somewhere deep inside you. I've felt it, too. Keep that hope alive.
• We need you. We need you to be leaders in this conversation, whether we are ready to have it or not. And trust me, if you're anything like me, it's this conversation that's going to keep you alive, every single day, as though you've got just one more day."

- Mark Hendrick