Area native shares message about mental illness, suicide
By Heather Ruenz
SLN staff
Sometimes it takes years for a person to find his or her way, especially if the path they were on turned into one of drug abuse to the point of devising a plan to take their own life.
Travis Pipes grew up in Elkhorn and graduated from Elkhorn Area High School in 1999. He said he grew up in a “fairly broken home, raised by a single mother and we were somewhat low income.”
After graduating from high school, he studied journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
“I had decided early in life I wanted to go out and do things and enrolled at UWM to study journalism. I also immersed myself in the culture there and did some corresponding for publications in that area. It was a great experience and really planted a seed,” Pipes said.
In 2004, he moved to California and eventually worked his way up to being a project manager. Despite being paid well, Pipes said he yearned to do work in sports journalism – and did both, for a while.
“I was a bit disillusioned and had a big workload so began self-medicating. I was experiencing all of these symptoms – I was paranoid and hearing things – so I began drinking a lot and fell into using substances including crystal meth and cocaine, all in an effort to feel normal,” Pipes said.
He went into outpatient treatment around 2007 but said he didn’t take it seriously.
A couple of years later, he had decided he didn’t want to “work in a cube for the rest of my life” so he began covering the Green Bay Packers for Sports Illustrated in an online format.
For the next two to three years, Pipes said, his life took a downward spiral.
“Then my life started to deteriorate due to my addictions – my friendships and relationships with family. In 2012 or 2013, I was in dire straights and ended up homeless, in San Francisco, but usually scraped up enough money to stay in not-so-nice hotels. I was very depressed, living in a world of isolation and desperation,” he said.
Pipes said he was staying in a hotel when a fight broke out down the hall and a guy tried to break down the door to Pipes’ hotel room.
“It scared me and made me realize I was very alone. Even if I called someone, no one would answer because those relationships had been severed,” he said.
He said he reached into his wallet and decided to call someone he didn’t know, Kevin Hines – whose name appeared on one of several cards he’d been given by people trying to help him.
“I had a plan that if Kevin didn’t answer the phone, I would step off the platform in front of a train and end my life,” Pipes said. “It was 4 o’clock in the morning on Feb. 13, 2013. He answered and asked how I was doing. That blew my mind because I didn’t have those kinds of relationships with people.
“I was honest and told him I wasn’t doing great and that was the first time I’d been honest about my feelings in years,” Pipes said.
The two talked on the phone for a couple hours and didn’t end the call until they had come up with a plan.
“The next day I checked myself into Merritt Peralta Institute in Oakland. That was in February 2013 and I was there for 94 days. When I got out the first person I called was Kevin Hines,” Pipes said.
He said the two of them again talked about the importance of having a plan and how Pipes’ attitude had changed.
“He told me he had an organization and asked if I’d be interested in doing some writing for it. I really had to think about that. Did I really want to be candid? Could I provide perspective?” Pipes said.
After a couple of months of waffling, he said he called Hines and told him he was willing to share his experience. Hines then asked him if he would be willing to talk about it in a film called, “Suicide: The Ripple Effect” and Pipes agreed.
“I had an interview and talked about my experience on camera. It was a milestone for me and it’s an honor to be in the film,” he said.
Hines had survived his own suicide attempt in 2000, when he jumped over the railing of the Golden Gate Bridge. Considered miraculous that he survived the 245-foot drop, Hines is now an advocate who has devoted his life to talking about the effects of suicide on family and friends. He’s also devoted to helping others who believe they have no choice other than to kill themselves.
“That call to Kevin a few months earlier had changed my life – saved my life – literally,” Pipes said.
The road to recovery for Pipes wasn’t quite over. Though he was no longer using drugs, he said he was still having symptoms of hearing things and being extremely paranoid.
“I didn’t know what was causing it. But last fall I was diagnosed as being bipolar with manic delusions. In retrospect it made everything make sense,” Pipes, who now lives in Butler, said.
He is taking medication and though he stopped using drugs some time ago, he said he’s now been sober for four months, since about the time of his diagnosis.
Pipes said his life has “definitely been more of a winding road than a straight arrow” but sharing his personal experience opened new doors for him.
He now has a podcast called Wide Open Looks on Mental Health News Radio and interviews athletes, coaches and others about their experiences related to mental health issues.
“I’m able to lend my experience about mental health and being a sports writer to talking to athletes and others in the industry, and it’s really given me purpose and the opportunity to open up,” he said. “It’s important to remind people that it’s OK to open up about their struggles. Stigma thrives in isolation.”
Pipes, who at one time wrote and edited sports, decided to focus on mental health advocacy, his podcast and public speaking, said being able to help others is humbling.
“Having even one person come up to me after and thank me for sharing my story, it’s worth it. I’ve gotten follow-ups from people that have heard me and thanked me for giving them hope. Being able to make that kind of a difference is hard to describe,” he said.
“To use a sports cliché, I was calling audibles all the time. I didn’t have a playbook. But, today is a new day and we have a chance to make choices and to change,” Pipes said.
For more information click here, follow Wide Open Looks on Facebook or email Pipes at travis@mentalhealthnewsradio.com.
For more information about the documentary, “Suicide: The Ripple Effect,” click here.
If you need support now, call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, or to get help from the Crisis Text Line, text “START” to 741-741.
