His search turned into a viral charity campaign for people with mental illnesses

Jan 15, 2014 07:58 GMT  ·  By

Random acts of kindness are not as random as some may think, and even if they are, they can surely influence and even dramatically change a person's life. Jonny Benjamin is a young man suffering from a schizo-affective disorder, who was ready to commit suicide when a kind stranger persuaded him not to and changed his life.

Benjamin was on the verge of jumping off a bridge into the Thames River, back in 2008, when he was stopped by a stranger and persuaded to change his ways. The man was calm and kind and managed to take the suicidal man off the bridge and on a new life track.

Being just diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder and struggling to cope with the issues that came with the condition, Benjamin believed he had enough with life and attempted to commit suicide by jumping off London's Waterloo Bridge on January 14, six years ago.

Right when he was preparing to end his life, a stranger came and asked him to climb down from the railings. “Please don't do this, I've been where you are and you can get better. Let's have a coffee and we can talk about this,” the stranger, who Jonny named Mike, told him at the time, notes Metro. He couldn't get the man's name so he dubbed him Mike, a kind man in his early twenties at the time.

Mike managed to persuade the suicidal man not only into climbing back over the railings, but he also influenced him to turn his life around and start enjoying every bit of it. Jonny became a mental health campaigner in order to help others like Mike helped him, and has been looking for the stranger ever since.

“His act of kindness changed my outlook on life and I have thought about him ever since. I want to find this man so I can thank him for what he did. If it wasn't for him, I probably wouldn't be here today,” Jonny says in his video FindMike. The campaign to find the kind stranger is becoming viral with the help of Rethink Mental Illness charity.

Jonny's story is also turned into a film, due to be released in April, and meant to help those who see themselves in similar situations and seek refuge in suicidal options.