FENTON, MI -- Things could be different for Jenna Bernard.
There could be no dog rolling around on the kitchen floor, jockeying for attention with cats named Binky and Oliver. There could be no molasses cookies cooling in the refrigerator, or kids coming home sick from school.
Someone else, some other family, could be living in this modest brick home on a quiet street in Fenton.
There could be no wooden frame holding a black and white picture of Bernard on her wedding day, her new husband's arms around her.
No honeymoon in the Bahamas. No homemade cherry taffy bubbling on the stove.
If Jenna Bernard hadn't decided to live -- and picked up the phone to call for help the night she tried to kill herself with a prescription drug overdose -- none of this would be here.
Bernard's story, especially its ending, is different than
's, the Linden teen who committed suicide in his family's garage in November. It's different than Jarrod Nickell's story, the Flushing teen who in January
after living only 18 years of it.
It's different because Bernard chose to live.
But in other ways, they are all the same story.
Life felt wrong. The future seemed hopeless. Something powerful had taken hold, something so powerful that life didn't seem worth living.
"I wanted it to stop," said Bernard, who is now 29. "I wasn't thinking I wanted to die, but I wanted it to stop. I wanted this pain to stop. I wanted the struggle to stop."
The spiral
Bernard grew up in Bluffton, Ohio, a small town of about 4,000 about an hour south of Toledo. She did well in school, getting As and Bs and acceptance letters to good colleges.
It was a typical small town upbringing, she said. Like many small towns, it left Bernard and other teenagers feeling like there was nothing to do. They would go to nearby Lima or Findley to catch a movie. A few times she snuck off with friends to drink alcohol, but it was a rarity.
Bernard graduated and went off to College of Mount St. Joseph -- a small, private, Catholic university in Cincinnati, about 140 miles South of Bluffton. Bernard didn't know anyone when she walked onto campus her freshman year.
She was kind of an introvert, she said, used to towns like Bluffton where everyone just knows everyone.
Like many new college students, getting drunk became the standard means of making friends. For Bernard, it quickly became the only way.
Soon, depression also set in.
She started sleeping a lot -- 12-14 hours a night -- and couldn't understand why. She started crying for no reason. Classes she knew she could ace were suddenly a blur of facts and information she couldn't focus on or remember.
And, she drank a lot. To try to feel better.
It was first semester sophomore year when she first cut herself. She had been drinking vodka to prepare for going out that evening.
She wasn't happy with herself. So she cut herself on the arm.
"The way that felt to me was like, awful. Here I am having to pretty much get drunk to go out and just to feel OK."
She didn't seek medical attention, but she didn't end up going out that night. Looking back, she thinks the idea behind it was to mask some of the emotional pain bubbling inside of her.
It worked, sort of. The cutting provided a distraction from the emotional pain, but she knew it wasn't healthy. Soon other emotions followed, like guilt and shame.
She was scared and she sought medical attention, seeing professionals and getting medication for depression.
She transferred to the University of Findley, where she wound up graduating in January 2006 with a degree in nuclear medicine technology. She continued drinking, but the last few years of college were better. The depression seemed under control, she got good grades.
Then came the job opportunity in Nevada. It was a good job. And felt like a fresh start.
But the signs of trouble started early.
Bernard's first paycheck, the biggest she'd ever seen, was gone in one night of gambling and drinking. She began to develop a gambling problem, staying up until early morning and calling in sick to work because she was still drunk from the night before.
One day she stayed home without calling in and, after only three months on the job, was fired.
Thankfully, and unexpectedly, there was a way out, a ticket back to the Midwest. She found a job in a place she never thought she'd be, a place any self-respecting Ohio State fan like herself would avoid: Michigan.
Bernard moved into a one-bedroom apartment in Grand Blanc and began working in Flint. She's thankful that, through all of this, she's been able to keep jobs in her field.
Nuclear medicine involves using radioactivity to diagnose and treat diseases. It's a good fit for Bernard, she said, who likes to help people and has an affinity toward math and science.
It felt like a fresh start, but not for long. She found friends to go to bars with. She kept drinking heavily, took to online gambling.
"I went into the same spiral," she said.
The bottom
It was November of 2006. A Saturday night -- at least Bernard thinks it was. It's hard to remember.
Her gambling debts had piled up. She was feeling miserable. She'd been drinking, but not much. Maybe just one beer.
She still was on medication for depression, so finding pills wasn't a problem. Grabbing a handful and shoving them into her mouth was scary, but Bernard just wanted the pain to stop.
It was setting in. She began feeling cold, slipping from consciousness. Then it hit her.
"I don't want to die," she said she told herself.
She picked up the phone. Her and her boss had become close. Bernard called her up, feeling the pharmaceuticals wash over her as the phone rang and rang.
No answer.
She knew the neighbors across the hall. She checked to see if anyone was home. Nope. And now the drugs were really setting in.
There was one more idea. She had a number for a guy she'd dated. They weren't seeing each other anymore, but she was desperate. He answered. He picked her up. She was in and out of consciousness by now. She vaguely remembers riding to the hospital, stumbling into the emergency room, drinking the activated charcoal mixture the doctors ordered.
She has a hard time remembering the visit because of the drugs. She remember the hospital sending psychiatric evaluators to her and she denied that it was a suicide attempt. It was simply an accident, she told them.
She was allowed to leave the hospital and carried on for a short while trying to ignore the problem. Three months later she realized what she had to do to save her life.
That was when Bernard took her last drink. It was Feb. 14, 2007, Valentine's Day. She was on a date and didn't even intend to drink.
She did though.
Not a lot, just little wine -- but she finally realized she wasn't in control anymore.
The recovery
She started going to alcoholics anonymous meetings. She met people her age, she found a sponsor. Eventually, she started helping others in recovery.
"That's what I grabbed on to was the program and the people I met."
It wasn't easy. It was a bumpy road out, she said. But she found people in recovery to lean on, to help her realize that she wasn't alone. She wants other people to know that they're not alone.
Her life almost ended. The whole life she has now was maybe one phone call away from completely not being here. She's so grateful that it's here.
"There's one thing that I believe that I now know wasn't true," she said. "It's that I always thought I was alone. That's probably one thing I would say to a younger version of myself: You're not alone."
She also met Jorge, the man she would come to marry and become stepmother to his children.
"I'm living the dream," Jorge Bernard said. "I tell people at work that all the time."
This summer, on Aug. 18 in a quiet church in Owosso surrounded by friends and family, the two were married. Thee bride was in charge of putting together the vows. She wore an ivory satin dress, with a blue sash and little flowers down the side.
"He said his first. I was so choked up," she said on a recent afternoon in the home she shares with her husband -- a home stuffed with pictures of friends and family, of vacations and pets, of new babies and high school seniors.
Their vows were simple.
He promised to be her friend, her companion. She promised to do the same, to be there for him forever.
These are the kind of promises she makes now, promises to carry on with life and enjoy it.
Because this is her life now.
Blake Thorne covers K-12 schools and higher education for The Flint Journal. Contact him at bthorne1@mlive.com or 810-347-8194. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook.