When Jay was 22 he describes himself as a loner who fell in with the wrong crowd. He asks to be identified by a nickname so he can speak openly about the night and about his mental health. The few people he spent time with, he says, had questionable morals.
Jay acknowledges that his friends influenced him. After drinking one night, someone suggested breaking into the chemistry building at his college. Most of the group dismissed the idea, but Jay convinced himself he could do it. He planned it and carried it out. He wasn’t caught in the act, but he was arrested afterward.
Around 1 a.m., Jay sat alone in a cell at the county detention center. The reality of what he’d done and what might follow overwhelmed him, and he decided the world would be better off without him. He began to cry and made a plan to end his life.
As he was about to go through with it, a voice came through a small vent near the top of his cell. An inmate in the neighboring cell asked if it was Jay’s first time and then asked if he could pray for him. Jay, who had grown up in a religious home but had stopped attending church years earlier, said yes. He doesn’t remember the exact words the other man used, only how they landed: the urge to die faded and hope took its place.
That moment happened nearly ten years ago and remains pivotal. Today Jay has a steady job, a loving girlfriend, and a life he values. He credits that turn to a brief act of kindness from someone who shared his situation. He wishes he could find that man to thank him, to shake his hand and tell him how a simple prayer changed his path.
My Unsung Hero is also a podcast—new episodes are released every Tuesday. To share the story of your unsung hero with the Hidden Brain team, record a voice memo on your phone and send it to [email protected].