Here's My Story
In November 2011, I gave myself a dangerous ultimatum—on Christmas Day I would either end my life or never think about suicide again.
I wrote goodbye letters and boxed up my belongings because I believed my life was meaningless and disposable.
No one ever told me that simply being alive could hurt that much. All I wanted was the pain to stop and I believed that suicide was the only way.
When the day finally came, after wrestling with the decision all day, I stood in the mirror counting backward from ten.
At three, I stopped and a question broke through:
Have you really given life
everything you've got?
I ran out of the bathroom as fast as I could. I drove all over downtown Minneapolis until
I watched the clock hit midnight. 11:58...11:59... 12:00.
I had made it. I had decided to stay.
Since that day, I have served in Zimbabwe, Puerto Rico and Haiti. I have been skydiving and whitewater rafting. I finished my Master's Degree and paid off over 90k of debt. I finished a marathon.
In January 2020, I published my first book:
Recklessly Alive: What My Suicide Attempt Taught Me About God and Living Life to the Fullest.
The book became a #1 Amazon Best-Seller and has sat at top best-selling lists in Christian Faith, Depression, Suicide, and Christian Inspiration.
In May 2016, I launched Recklessly Alive, a suicide prevention organization sprinting towards a world with zero deaths from suicide.
I have shared my story at over 100 events all over the U.S. equipping and empowering communities to have real conversations about mental health, depression, and suicide.
