On October 5, 2016 at 8:00pm I attended the Suicide Prevention Week dialogue. This event was sponsored by the active minds mental health club here on campus. The dialogue was a one time event this year at Stockton that featured a special speaker, Pablo Campos, that gave his own personal story of how he tried to commit suicide.
He started his story with background information on his family. His parents came to America from Guatemala in order to give their children better lives. As the youngest child, Pablo’s mother always joked that he was raised by his older sister and they two peas in a pod. However, Pablo said he remembers his childhood very differently. He explained that he remembers always being alone, playing with toys quietly in the corner. Pablo’s older siblings were bright, intelligent people with promising futures and talents. Teachers would always come up to him and compliment his brothers’ accomplishments, saying Pablo was soon bound to be an engineer at Penn State too. However, all comments like these did was burden Pablo with the weight of everyone’s expectations. The aloneness he felt from as young as he can remember, stuck with Pablo throughout his entire childhood, adolescent, and teenage years. He estimated that his depression formally started around seventh grade. Not long after, to combat this feeling, he turned to drugs and alcohol. The only good, positive thing in his life had been soccer, but by freshman year, he quit.
On a complete downward spiral, Pablo finally decided one day he could not take it anymore, and took some pills and went for a drive. He did not want to be alone anymore, he did not want to be a substance abuser anymore, he just wanted it all the stop. Pablo ended up getting spotted by a police officer for his reckless driving and speeding, but continued to drive for a while with the lights on behind him anyway. Finally, exhausted, Pablo decided to pull over, crashing his car into the guardrail. When the cop pulled his gun, Pablo yelled at the officer, “Shoot me please, just end it, please shoot me.” Thus this began years of going in and out of therapy, rehab centers, and advising.
Sitting in that audience and hearing this story from such an attractive, well-dressed, professional looking young man was shocking to me. The man in the story he told did not match up with the person I was looking at, and that’s when it hit me. I really cannot see mental illnesses. Any person, no matter their outwards appearance, can have inner demons no one knows about. Pablo said he never confided in anyone the depression he went through for years, everyday putting on an act of being like any other kid. Pablo’s complete turnaround of his life was so inspiring and gave me such hope that anyone I knew who was struggling would have a better life one day. I absolutely loved this dialogue and it really showed that you never know what is going on in someone’s life.