How a Richland Source letter to the editor has helped save lives

MANSFIELD — Looking back on a day more than 16 years ago, Stan Culler said 99.9% of him wanted to live. He said 0.1% felt exhausted and he thought “I can’t do this anymore.” 

“I think that all those thoughts had been gathering themselves in my subconscious for years and, more than anything external, the chemical balance in my brain was primed that night to act on it,” the Mansfield native said.

“I think the thing what was so insidious about suicidal thoughts was that they presented themselves to me as the most reasonable decisions in the world.”

In 2008, Culler was walking his dog and saw a piece of rope on the sidewalk.

“Without a moment of thought or hesitation, a voice in my head calmly stated ‘Good, this is a long enough piece to do it,’ ” Culler wrote in 2018.

“The thing that still amazes me, just because our brains are so fascinating, is that I had never gamed out how I would end my life — there was never a real plan, that darkness just became an unwanted, but unrelenting companion,” he said.

“From the moment I found that section of rope on the sidewalk, to being on that chair in the garage, was less than an hour.”

“Even in that dark garage, when I was absolutely compelled to step off that chair and end my life in an almost unimaginably grotesque fashion, I DID NOT WANT TO DIE.”

Stan Culler in his 2018 reflection

Culler said a few months after that night, he started medication for depression.

‘It feels completely disconnected from who I have been since getting on medication’

“My wife saved my life,” he said. “We were talking, alone and sans-teenagers for the evening, when I literally said, ‘Honey, I don’t think I have depression; I think I just recognize that the world has become unacceptably awful and things are never going to get better.’

“Yes, that’s nearly verbatim.  At that moment, I was at a desk, across the room from her, and Ange got up, walked over to me and gently said, ‘Honey, if that’s not depression…’  She insisted I see our family physician, which I did, who prescribed for me the same medication I have been on ever since, and I’ve stayed well.”

Culler and his wife Ange met in high school and married in 1988. They have two grown children together and two young granddaughters. 

“They are, of course, exceedingly extraordinary,” Culler said about his grandchildren.

The family lived in Petaluma, California for about 11 years but moved back to Richland County in 2017. Culler managed the music store CD Jungle for a decade.

“In the time since I wrote that piece, the world has only gotten more distressingly insane,” he said. “But, none of it leads me anywhere near a place where I want to take my own life.

“Remarkably, [the letter] feels completely disconnected from who I have been since getting on medication.”

Richland Source CEO and publisher Jay Allred said a Facebook post Culler made in June 2018 made him think about how little strangers and friends know about what people around them are going through.

“I remember first feeling a sense of awe at Stan’s courage and openness when I read his post,” Allred said.

“If it could have this effect on me, I wondered if it could help others. That’s when I reached out to Stan to see if he would consider publishing on Richland Source.”

While working on a project researching the lifespan of interest on posts after they publish, Allred said Culler’s letter was at the top of the list.

In the 2024 calendar year alone, more than 1,200 readers found Culler’s letter, according to the Source’s analytics tool Parse.ly. 

“I dug deeper and saw that people who were searching for terms about self-harm were being served Stan’s story about how he had decided to end his life, but stopped,” Allred said. 

“Unfortunately, that pattern continues today. But it makes me feel hopeful that Stan’s story is sort of metaphorically standing there, pointing a reader to the possibility of a better future.”

“If it could have this effect on me, I wondered if it could help others. That’s when I reached out to Stan to see if he would consider publishing on Richland Source.”

-Jay Allred, Richland Source publisher and CEO 

Culler said he was inspired to make the Facebook post in the wake of Kate Spade’s and Anthony Bourdain’s respective deaths by suicide.

“I had read scores of comments under the articles that expressed, essentially, ‘Their lives were so unbelievably successful!  What reason could they possibly have had to kill themselves?’ ” he said. 

“The thing I really try to tell people is that, even though the thoughts of suicide they may be having probably seem at the moment to be exceedingly reasonable — or worse, inevitable — that their brain is lying to them because their chemistry is in chaos. Second, to be as patient and loving to themselves as they’d be to another loved one. Third, to trust that there is 100% a path to getting back to the light, even if the road to get there is sometimes maddening.”

Culler estimates a dozen readers have reached out personally after finding story

Culler shared with Allred that around a dozen people have found him on Facebook or Instagram in the six years since the post and asked if he wrote the letter they found on Richland Source’s website.

“It’s honestly been a bit harrowing at times,” Culler said.

“What has generally happened is that someone reaches out, I respond and they do not reply. This, needless to say, leaves me horrified that they’ve taken their lives. For the first half-dozen, I found myself Googling their names and locations, worried that I would find an obituary. Thankfully, that has not yet happened.

“It’s taken me a bit of time to finally realize that when someone contacts me — and this is just a guess — that they’re reaching out to see if I’m still here.”

Culler said he feels responsible for and worries about the people who reach out to him after finding his reflection.

“I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that this experience, sharing the darkest chapter of my life, is the most significant thing that has ever happened to me,” he said. “It’s had the same impact on my heart as caring for elderly people and our granddaughters.

“Understanding that I may have helped someone at their darkest moment makes me feel like I’ve honored the miracle of getting to live this life.”

“Be kind to yourself. If you need help, ask. You are loved, cherished, and it’s important that you are here. Please take care of yourselves. Love, from me to you.”

-Stan Culler

“I can say that my gratitude for still having the gift of being in this world has truly deepened over this past decade, in particular, as our grandchildren have come along and, heartbreakingly, we’ve lost so many of our old school friends,” Culler said. 

“It was really extraordinary to spend some time remembering all of this and having another chance to absorb just how fortunate a life I have been given.”