I remember the morning of February 22, 2010 very well--I checked my email, like I normally do when I wake up, and my dad sent me an email via Facebook that Andrew Koenig was reported missing earlier that day, more than a week after last being seen alive a week earlier, on February 14, 2010.

My instant gut reaction--SHOCK! Koenig, age 41, did not seem like the kind of person who would go missing, but just 3 days later, on February 25, 2010, Andrew's father, Walter, with wife (and Andrew's mother) Judy standing by his side, made a 6-word tearful announcement via press conference he thought he would NEVER have to make as a parent--"My son took his own life."

Though I've never had the honor of meeting Koenig, in retrospect, I can understand why someone would take their own lives, because I myself attempted suicide by hanging my right foot onto telephone wires.

Back then, I was 19 years old, 7 years ago. I was then a devout Atheist, going through a rough patch, with my mom's hospitalization combined with my own personal demons I had after discovering through the annual high-school yearbook with ZERO prior knowledge my then-crush was both seeing (AND having sex) with a guy she's since gone on to marry and have a baby with.

Flash forward 2 years later--I meet this other young lady in college who basically helped me change my life for the better, just by being there for me as needed--a real-world scenario that eventually turned my life to Christ.

You see, a lot of times, suicide is the easy way out of a negative environment, but there are other options, as in psychiatric treatment, individual therapy, group therapy, or all of the above combined.

If you know someone who tells you he's contemplating suicide, please, don't ignore it. Convince your friend to seek help. He/she may not like it for a short while, but he/she will thank you in the long run.