First, the important part

My name is Mike. I’m not a doctor, psychiatrist, psychologist, counsellor, or crisis professional.

I’m simply someone who has lived through many years of depression and suicidal thoughts, came frighteningly close to ending my life, and eventually found reasons to stay.

I also happen to know quite a bit about websites and search engines.

That combination is why SuicideHelpline.net exists.

This site is not intended to replace professional help. Where possible, I provide links and information from qualified organizations and professionals. What I can provide personally is something different: the perspective of someone who once genuinely wanted to die and is very glad today that he didn’t.

If that’s all you wanted to know about me, you can stop here.

If you want to know why this site matters so much to me, this is the longer story.

My Story

My problems with depression and suicide began when I was about 15 years old.

At the time, I didn’t understand what was happening. I became increasingly withdrawn from my family and other people. I spent much of my time alone, working on electronics, photography and whatever else could occupy my mind.

One day while walking across an overpass, I looked down at the highway and suddenly thought about jumping in front of a transport truck.

I didn’t understand why I had thought it.

Over the following years, thoughts about dying became a recurring part of my life. Sometimes they were distant thoughts. At other times, they were much more serious.

For years I mostly existed rather than lived.

Then, in March 1987, something changed.

My brother had started attending church and convinced me to go with him. I originally went mainly because I wanted to see what they were “brainwashing” him with.

Instead, I kept going.

I met a woman there, we started dating, and for the first time in about eight years I was genuinely happy to be alive. Things became serious very quickly. After about five months I asked her to marry me, and she said yes.

Not long afterward, the relationship ended.

For me, it wasn’t simply heartbreak. I crashed.

I decided to die.

The night I nearly didn’t come home

I drove onto a divided highway intending to deliberately crash my car into a concrete support at high speed.

I approached it at about 90 mph and tried to turn the car toward it.

I couldn’t.

I stopped and tried to understand what had happened. Then I went back and tried again.

Again, I couldn’t do it. I felt like God wasn't letting me, but I wasn't going to stop him. I grabbed the steering wheel with both hands and pulled down. I lifted myself off the seat, but it didn't turn.

God stopped me.

I know not everyone reading this believes in God, and that’s okay. I’m not asking you to believe my explanation. I’m simply telling you what I believe happened to me.

But I was still determined to die.

I went home intending to end my life another way. Instead, something inside me told me that things could get better, but that I had to give them a chance.

My birthday was November 1. I made a deal with God: I would wait until then.

If nothing changed, I wasn’t going to see another birthday.

Something changed.

Two kids who had no idea what they were doing

Some relatives attended the same church. One Sunday evening, a cousin asked if I could help one of her children with math.

I agreed.

Then they asked me back.

Soon I was helping three kids with homework. After a few days, they weren’t asking me to stay because they needed help anymore. They simply wanted me there.

I was still planning to die.

Then Halloween arrived.

It was October 31, 1987—the day I had decided would be my last.

I went to my cousin’s house one final time. The kids convinced me to go trick-or-treating with them. Later that evening, two of the girls climbed onto my lap.

Eventually they both fell asleep in my arms.

Most of me still wanted to go home and carry out my plan.

But a tiny part of me was saying something else:

They love you.

I decided to stay a little longer.

Then somehow, although I hadn’t felt tired, I fell asleep.

When I woke up, I looked at the time.

12:02 a.m.

November 1.

My birthday had arrived.

The deadline I had given myself had passed.

The next morning my cousin called and asked me to come over. When I walked through the door, the two girls who had fallen asleep in my arms the night before came running toward me yelling, “Happy Birthday!”

They jumped into my arms.

I cried.

They didn’t know what had almost happened the night before.

They didn’t know they had just helped save a life.

Life afterward

That night didn’t magically cure everything.

I continued to struggle with periods of depression and suicidal thinking for many years. There were good periods and terrible ones. Eventually I sought professional help, and for the first time I began to understand that what had been happening to me wasn’t simply a matter of being weak, unhappy or unable to handle life. I was prescribed anti-depressants and I was feeling different a few days later.

Over time I learned more about myself, my moods and the patterns in my depression.

Most importantly, I learned that a person can be absolutely convinced that life isn’t worth continuing—and still be wrong about what the future holds.

Those kids gave me something I hadn’t been able to give myself at the time:

a reason to stay.

Young people continued to become an important part of my life. I tutored kids, babysat, helped families, fixed and gave away bicycles, taught things I knew, and tried in various small ways to make life a little better for kids who crossed my path.

For years I used to say that being involved in those children’s lives was probably the closest I would ever come to being a dad.

I was wrong about that too.

The part the original website never got to tell

Many years later, another young person came into my life.

Her name is Dessiree.

I had known her since she was a child. Life wasn’t always easy for her, and over time I became someone she could depend on.

On February 1, 2022, I finally asked her a question I’d been thinking about for a long time:

Could I be her dad?

She said yes.

Unofficially perhaps, but that doesn’t matter much to either of us.

She’s my daughter.

Something else happened after that.

For most of my life, depression had returned in cycles. Sometimes it was mild. Sometimes it was severe. I had become so familiar with the pattern that I could often tell people when another period was coming.

After Dessiree accepted me as her dad, I eventually noticed something strange.

The depression wasn’t coming back.

Years passed.

As I write this in 2026, it has been more than four years since I’ve experienced the recurring depression that followed me through most of my life.

I can’t tell you scientifically why that happened, and I won’t pretend that what worked for me is a treatment that will work for somebody else.

I can only tell you what happened in my life.

In 1987, children gave me a reason not to die.

Decades later, one of those things I thought I would never have—a daughter—gave my life another purpose I couldn’t have imagined when I was standing on that highway.

Why this website exists

I first created SuicideHelpline.net because I understood websites and search engines and thought I could use those skills to help people find information.

But underneath all of that was a much simpler reason.

I know what it feels like to believe there is no future worth waiting for.

And I also know how completely wrong that belief can turn out to be.

If I had died when I intended to, I would have missed almost four decades of people, experiences, accomplishments, mistakes, laughter and love.

I would never have met some of the people who became most important to me.

I would never have heard someone say yes when I asked if I could be her dad.

There was absolutely no way the suicidal 23-year-old version of me could have known any of that was coming.

That’s one reason I want this website to exist.

If you’re here because you’re thinking about suicide, I won’t tell you that I know exactly how you feel. Nobody can know exactly what another person is experiencing.

But I do know what it is like to want life to end.

And I’m asking you to leave room for one possibility:

You don’t know the rest of your story yet.

I didn’t know mine.

I’m glad I stayed around to find out.