Author Jonathan McKee remembers contemplating suicide as a teenager. He was standing on the edge of a cliff, staring all the way to the bottom. One step, and all of his pain would be over.
The pain was caused by incessant bullying. The pinnacle was in eighth grade when a group of classmates started what they called the “Kill John Club.” They made T-shirts with the letters KJC and a caricature of John’s face, complete with enormous buck teeth – a feature braces had fixed, but classmates continued to torment him over – and a gun scope target over his face.