Good evening friends.

Today was Was “World Suicide Prevention Day”  — Sammy & Family’s great friend David Ligon speaks up about “Suicide Prevention”  — Before we hear from him, The Smith Family wants to applaud him and commend him for his first hand knowledge on this topic and his broad based research on “Suicide Prevention worldwide both near and far.  Let’s hear what he has to say below;

Hi. My name is David Ligon. I’m 23 years old and I’m from the Central Coast region of California. Anxiety and depression from loneliness have been recurring negative factors for a good majority of my life so far. I attended a local all-guys Catholic school called Palma, which covers 7th to 12th grades (public and private elementary schools around here cover from Kindergarten to 6th grades), and freshman year of high school was one of the worst years of both high school and my life.

Despite my best friend at the time transferring to another high school, I never thought that loneliness would actually be a huge issue for me, but I was wrong.  During that time, I had a really hot-headed, mean-spirited science teacher who never taught an actual lesson.  Instead, he chose to scream and berate the whole class the entirety of each period, which traumatizes me to this day. I didn’t have any friendships with anyone, and I ended up eating lunch practically every single day in one of the restroom stalls because I had absolutely no one to talk to, and I felt completely ashamed of myself for that.

It was around that time frame when I seriously contemplated on ending my life. The rest of high school, over time, actually got better for me. One of my classmates at the time, Joey DeSilva, actually invited me over to have lunch with his friends, and I actually somewhat felt like I had agroup to hang out with. It bummed me out when he transferred to another school out-of-town, but I didn’t leave empty-handed. I ended up hanging out with my younger brother Scott and his friends. During senior year of high school, I also ended up on having classes that I actually enjoyed and where teachers actually believed in me, which is why senior year of high school actually ended up being the best year of high school and one of the best years of my life.

I ended up going to a local community college in Fall of 2011, mainly because of financial reasons and the fact that my grandmother (dad’s mom) was already sick at the time. I had figured that possibly college might be a bit better than high school, and it somewhat was at first.

The classes were decent, as were the teachers. I actually almost ended up being actual friends with 2 people, but by the end of my 1st semester, those 2 people chose to end what could’ve been friendships with me, and that devastated me, even though I got really great grades. To sum up what happened the following semester, I had another failed attempt at making a friend and I was humiliated both by my classmates and one of my teachers/professors at the time. Grandma’s heath was worsening, and my relationship with my dad  was very low.

I felt that I had no one to talk with and trust again, and I  ended up avoiding anyone and everyone at college. I was truly  convinced that everyone just wants me to fail at everything. On the evening of Friday, May 18, 2012, I intentionally attempted to end my life, and I will not disclose how, only because I don’t want anyone to copy what I did. The next evening, I was hospitalized I spent the next day-and-a-half trying to recuperate. After that, I was transferred over to a psychiatric ward of another hospital that happened to be next to the local prison (it wasn’t in a safe part of town).

I was then evaluated by a therapist/specialist, and after that, I was finally sent home that afternoon. That was Monday, May 21, 2012.  A lot of things have happened since then. My science teacher from freshman year got fired because he actually threatening some student’s  mom. Grandma passed away on September 15, 2012. Our family dog, Sophie, passed away last month (August 10). My relationship with my dad is still very low. Earlier this year, I was diagnosed by my  therapist with having Social Anxiety Disorder. I’ve taken a hiatus from college, but have started my guitar lessons  writer, and I plan on writing more again very soon, because like music, writing has helped me at least make sense of the littlest of things.