Finding Your Way Out When Despair Takes You Down

My heart sank like a rock when I read the news. Another suicide. Another young life lost to despair.

There was a time, not all that long ago, when I responded stories of suicide with a distant, judging indifference. How could someone do that? How could someone actually end their life?

I didn’t understand it, couldn’t make sense of it. “It’s selfish,” a close friend once remarked. And although his words sounded harsh, I tended to agree. Suicide appeared to be a self-driven decision, made complet...