‘You are loved’: The words of a stranger saved Natasha’s life, now she’s spreading notes of hope
Updated
On a humid night in January 2017, Natasha Young found herself in her pyjamas in the middle of a Brisbane bridge, crying hysterically.
Key points:
- Brisbane City Council has removed notes from the bridge saying they are unauthorised signage
- Mindframe says the notes are powerful messages and should be encouraged
- The ABS shows Queensland recorded the largest increase in suicide deaths, up from 674 in 2016 to 804 in 2017
The events leading up to that point in her life are not part of this story, but the powerful words said to her by a stranger on the bridge that night, are.
“That stranger saved my life, he absolutely did and I don’t even know his name,” Ms Young said.
She said the encounter on the bridge not only turned her life around, but gave her the motivation to try and help others.
“I got all the way to the middle of the bridge, I must have passed 20 or so people who looked me directly in the eye and no-one stopped and said anything … until one man eventually did,” she said.
“I was crying hysterically and ready to do whatever.
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“He said ‘I don’t need to know what’s going on in your life, you are loved, please listen to me’.”
Ms Young said the man managed to get her to sit down and stayed with her until police arrived.
“It was just him blurting these words at me trying to get me out of this horrible headspace,” she said.
“I thought at the time: ‘I get what he’s doing, he’s really just trying his absolute best to show me, that even though he doesn’t know me, he still cared’.”
Two years on, Ms Young is recovering and doing her best to spread words of hope of her own.
Along with two friends, she set up a group called “The Living Project”, attaching laminated “notes of hope” to the railings of the bridge.
“We go to the bridge because that’s where my story came from, and we pop up some little signs of hope — they’re brightly coloured and they just say nice things,” she said.
“We just wanted to let people know that there are people out there that do really care about them.
“For me, it was the looks on the faces of the people that I love.
“I realised that they weren’t going to be better off without me and that’s what we’re trying to do … we want to let people know that every human matters.”
But Ms Young and her friends have become disheartened and frustrated with the Brisbane City Council (BCC), after it started taking the notes down as fast as they were putting them up.
“We started doing it [putting up notes] monthly, but then moved to fortnightly because we realised the signs were being removed,” she said.
“What is so bad about what we’re doing?”
A BCC spokesman said it was standard practice to remove unauthorised signage from council assets.
Marc Bryant from Mindframe, a suicide prevention program, said the notes were powerful messages and needed to be encouraged and validated.
“In places where vulnerable people may be passing, these messages of hope and belonging are a very powerful way to connect with people who are feeling very deep psychological distress,” he said.
“Suicide prevention is a responsibility for councils too.
“They [councils] need to engage in suicide prevention measures, about how we can interact and support people in the community who have despair.”
In 2015, the BCC installed suicide prevention barriers on the bridge at a cost of more than $8 million.
The council declined to comment on the success of the barriers.
Mr Bryant said the barriers were working, but suicide rates in Queensland were defying the national figures.
The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) “cause of death” data showed Queensland recorded the largest increase in suicide deaths, up from 674 in 2016 to 804 in 2017.
“Suicide rates in Australia have gone up by 9.1 per cent in a single year, and the majority of those are in Queensland,” Mr Bryant said.
“There’s a very vulnerable community, particularly in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast.
“The numbers are not just stubbornly high, they’ve been increasing where the rest of Australia has seen a decrease.”
Ms Young said she and her friends would not be deterred and would continue to place messages on the bridge, despite the emotional toll it took on them.
“It does get really draining to put them up there because we’re thinking of the people who might see them and the emotions that they are going through, but obviously it is worth it … we just have to be aware of our own personal mental health,” Ms Young said.
“I think that’s what humans are about — we all need to care about each other, we’re not on an individual journey.
“It’s just letting people know that others, who don’t even know them, love them and want them here.”
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