When Jay was 22 he describes himself as a loner who’d chosen the wrong crowd. He uses a nickname so he can speak openly about what happened and his mental health. The few people he hung out with “had questionable morals,” he says.
“I chose my friends poorly, and your friends have a tendency to rub off on you. And so I started making poor decisions,” Jay said. One night, after drinking with friends, someone suggested breaking into his college’s chemistry building. Most shrugged it off, but Jay convinced himself he could do it. He planned it and went through with it—and he wasn’t caught in the act but was arrested afterward.
Around 1 a.m., Jay found himself in the county detention center. Sitting alone in a cell, reality hit. “I pretty much thought that my life as I knew it was going to be over, and I had decided that the world would be better off without me in it.” He made a plan to end his life and began to cry.
As he was about to go through with it, a voice came from a small vent in the top left corner of his cell. An inmate in the next cell called out, “Hey, is this your first time?” Jay said yes, and the man asked, “Can I pray for you?” Though Jay had grown up religious and stopped attending church years earlier, he agreed. He doesn’t remember the exact words, but he remembers how they landed. Instead of wanting to die, he suddenly felt hope.
The encounter happened nearly ten years ago but remains pivotal. “Now, I have a good job. I have a girlfriend who loves me. I have a life. But I have a life because somebody who was in the same situation I was in had the courage to talk to a fellow inmate and be kind,” Jay said. He wishes he could find that man to shake his hand, hug him and tell him how a small gesture changed the course of his life.
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].