It Happened To Me: I Was Asked To Identify The Body Of A Suicide Victim

I examined the photo of a dead kid —aka "the body"— and I can tell you right now, what happens in real life is nothing like what happens on the TV shows.

Hello beauties and brains,

If you were sending out It Happened To Me stories to your subscribers, what would you do in this scenario? You have one on an extremely sensitive topic like this one today. (It Happened To Me stories are all sensitive to whoever's writing them, of course - including emotionally laden topics like pooping in the pool, projectile vomiting in First Class, and painting your dad's kitchen on acid - and that deep connection to the subject matter is, I think, part of the nearly-four-decade appeal of that little column idea I had back in Sassy magazine issue one.) When do you send that story out? On a Friday? On a Monday? Later on a Monday as I'm doing now so that it doesn't land on people when they're already getting hit with a lot of Monday work and school stuff most likely? Or would you not post something like this at all?

Let me know your thoughts on that if you wouldn’t mind, and whether you did or didn't read it – and when if you did. I think it's a tough and worthwhile story and a topic that's never been covered in an It Happened To Me before. I also love the way that Andy writes it, clearly with so much ongoing feeling attached. Thank you, Andy. And thank you who read it and you who don’t. I love you all and will be back here with something lighter tomorrow.

I will note also that because my policy has always been to use very straightforward headlines that are intentionally not clever (or punny!), headlines that say exactly what the story is about in as spoken-sounding language as possible, I let the titles like this one serve as their own trigger warnings. Any thoughts pro or con on that policy are welcome also. Anything you want to say to me any time is welcome!

xox

Jane

PS I also have a question I'm dying to ask you, but I think it might be even too inappropriate for me. I'm going to ponder that while I send this out and let me know if you want to hear it, as that will help encourage me to think it's maybe okay to ask here in this company. Boy, am I counting on you for all my moral decisions today! Well, thank you and I love you.

I don't have any pictures of myself at 22. Like, none. I'm 19 here, which is as good as you're going to get. This is, in fact, a reused picture from another AJPT essay because I literally ran out of photos to use.

By Andy Finley

In 1993, nineteen-year-old John Bernhard and a friend were driving through Las Vegas, New Mexico. They were smoking meth and John was feeling poorly, so they went to Northeastern Regional Hospital.

The unnamed friend dropped John off at the emergency room door around noon. Then he found a pay phone to call John’s parents in South Dakota.

When he returned to the ER, John was missing.

On the left is the ER where John got dropped off, and subsequently walked away from. In the background is the athletic center where he killed himself.

Instead of checking himself in, John crossed the street to the college campus and entered the athletic center. He wound his way down to the basement. There, he found the empty training room, entered a supply closet, shut the door, stacked a bunch of boxes, climbed up, tied his belt around a gas pipe in the ceiling, put the other end around his neck, and kicked the boxes away.