A journey to the edge

HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah (AFPN) -- Time was passing into the next day, and he was destroyed … just completely gone.

His thoughts lingered on the details.

“Do I want an open or closed casket? Where should I shoot?”

He cocked the gun several times as he laid in bed ready to make his last move.

“Who would care?”

March 23 was the last time Tech. Sgt. Kevin Hainsel planned to see daylight. This would be the last time he would see the early sun peaking through the bottom of his window pane trying to light up the room through heavy blinds shading him from the outside.

“I already made my decision,” Sergeant Hainsel said.

He held the .380 caliber handgun in his left hand and a faded memory in the form of a picture of his wife in the other.

“I could no longer feel … yet my eyes welt up and tears continued to stream down my face,” he said.

He could no longer see, but the images in his head were so clear that the breath was stolen from his chest at every thought, he said.

“So much torture; so much agony; the world would be better without me,” he said.

He wanted to stop the memories.

“I took my last drive to reason with myself, but the trip was only a procrastination of my fate. I even spoke to my mother and said my last goodbye,” he said.

The lamp on his nightstand lit up the paper enough to write his last words to family and friends explaining how sorry he was that he was going to end his existence.

“I also wrote to my 15-year-old son who wanted nothing to do with me. I gave him advice for his future endeavors without me,” Sergeant Hainsel said.

The night faded away and work loomed around the corner.

“I didn’t want to go to work. I made my decision about my last day. Why would I get up and keep facing the demolished world and wasted day I called my life? Why? I need to end this now,” he said.

Maybe through routine, he finally rose out of bed and left for work.

He believes now that he just wanted the pain to go away.

He was late for work -- unusual behavior for the technical sergeant, and a fact noticed by his supervisors.

“I had to buy doughnuts for my shop because it was a tradition to bring them in if you were late,” Sergeant Hainsel said.

One of his supervisors asked if everything was OK. At first, he denied any problems.

“Then they called me into their office and asked me once more,” he said. “Then it all came to a head, and the walls of my inner strength were cracked. Everything I had bottled up inside for so long came spilling out -- raw and painful.

“I broke down,” he said.

He confessed all the emotional torture raging through his soul. He talked about the heartbreak of his wife leaving, the painful estrangement from his son, the anguish of his father’s recent death and the agony of learning his mother had bone cancer.

“They could not believe all the suffering I was going through,” Sergeant Hainsel said. “They just assumed everything was great because I never mentioned anything about having problems.

“But that day was the day my life was back,” he said. “My supervisors stepped into both roles of being supervisors and friends. They didn’t have to care.

“They saved me,” he said.

With help from his supervisors, Sergeant Hainsel was enrolled into a clinic where he received professional counseling to learn to cope with the pressures in his life that led to the suicidal thoughts.

Today, the 388th Equipment Maintenance Squadron munitions system specialist here lives to tell his experience and continues to try and help others who might understand the familiarity of his story.

Sergeant Hainsel’s thoughts of suicide started two months before his “last day.”

“My father just died, my mother was diagnosed with cancer, and she was on the verge of passing away,” he said. “My first wife and I didn’t communicate, and my son didn’t want to hear from me. And, I had found out my second wife was cheating on me.

“My world was shattering right in front of me, and I felt like I had no control,” he said. “The house of cards just fell. The most obvious choice seemed to be suicide.”

But suicide should not be the option, said Chaplain (Capt.) Robin Stephenson-Bratcher, a chaplain here.

“Attempting suicide is not a disease; it’s a state of mind,” she said. “My one piece of advice would be to get help. You are not in this alone. Airmen are struggling by themselves, but there’s no reason to feel that way.”

Sergeant Hainsel talked about reaching the low point in his life followed by an epiphany in the hospital.

“It just came to me that death was permanent, and I can pull through this,” he said. “I’m not alone after all. Listening to and talking about the many stories of others is a realization that bad things do happen to people. There is no cure for sadness. It’s about identifying triggers that make you feel a certain way. It’s also realizing that everything is not your fault and that tends to be a hard concept to grasp.

“I believe now that I didn’t want to die or I would be dead today,” he said.

Even after pulling through his life-terminating thoughts, he explained how depression can return. He equated depression with alcoholism. People are more susceptible to fall in that key state after going through it before, he said.

“People need to come in before suicidal thoughts even come in to play,” Chaplain Stephenson-Bratcher said. “We are here to help. There is nothing stopping (you) from receiving the care you need when you are in that state of mind. It doesn’t affect your military record, and it doesn’t follow you through your career.

“The people at the life skills center, family advocacy, any chaplain and medical professionals are there for you,” she said. “Supervisors and first sergeants can send you down the right path for help.”

“I live with the motto that every day above ground is a good day,” Sergeant Hainsel said. “I tell that to everyone. Nobody can prove me wrong.” (Courtesy of Air Combat Command News Service)