#FindMike campaigner Jonny Benjamin featured on Channel 4 documentary
A man who successfully campaigned to find a man who saved him from jumping to his death is the subject of a Channel 4 documentary.
Jonathan Benjamin started the FindMike campaign, which aims to raise awareness of suicide and provide a message of hope to anyone who may be struggling.
After a viral campaign, he was eventually reunited with the man who saved his life, Neil, back in January. Neil had stopped him from jumping to his death from Waterloo Bridge in London some years earlier.
Then 20, Benjamin said at the time he had hit “rock bottom” after being diagnosed with schizophrenia, and sought to end his life.
He has since become an activist speaking out on mental health issues.
The Stranger on the Bridge, featured on Channel 4 this evening, focusses on Benjamin’s search for the man who saved him from suicide in 2008.
He said: “I’ve been making plans for my suicide and as a result I am going back into hospital.
“I’m really not doing very well. Just when I think I can’t get any worse, it somehow seems to.
“I really am at rock bottom and I see my suicide as the only escape from it.
“I can’t be around anyone any more. When I am, I am shaking, trembling … even around the people that I love.
“That’s how bad the anxiety’s got – I can’t even be around the people that I love and so I see my only way out of that is to take my life because I don’t think I’m going to get better.
“I absolutely cannot stand myself, being in my skin, doing this – hearing my voice. I hate, hate myself. How do you recover from that? I don’t know if I can.
“So, yeah – I’m going into hospital. I don’t want to go – I desperately don’t want to go, but I don’t have a choice.”
He later tweeted thanking followers for their support.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article and need to talk to someone, visit samaritans.org or call 08457 90 90 90.
