CINCINNATI (WXIX) – Maybe it’s a sign.
A place where everything nearly ended and a new life began.
Healing takes steps.
Retracing his steps, former local sportscaster Brandon Saho goes back to the bridges spanning Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.
“The bridge here that saved my life,” Saho reflects.
Life is about decisions.
The decision he made to save his own life would become his sign to be a bridge for others.
“If my story saves one life, that’s good enough for me because it saved my life, too,” Saho admits.
Brandon Saho reflects on the many nights he walked across bridges connecting Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.(wxix)
Saho did it.
He landed his dream job in his home city of Cincinnati.
A big smile, big personality, he covered one of the biggest moments in Cincinnati sports, but Saho couldn’t fully cover what he kept hidden behind the camera.
“That – that experience, I don’t want anyone to feel,” Saho explains. “I mean, I remember being suicidal in my hotel room that night after I covered the AFC Championship game. That’s not how it’s supposed to be when you’re living your dream job. It broke me and, like, no one could see those pieces of glass shattered.”
Coping with alcohol and struggling with relationships, Saho felt broken.
“You know, I’ll never forget those so many – I’m talking, like, hundreds of nights, walking home, crying my eyes out, listening to music at three and four in the morning, and just feeling, like, every link as I’m going across the bridge,” Saho describes. “You’re not supposed to talk about means and methods, that’s what I’ve learned, but I just want to be honest about my story, like, you know, there was the bridge, there were nights I laid down in traffic outside of the casino downtown, wrote a goodbye letter, and took pills and prayed not to wake up. You have all those moments happen, and then you finally have the courage to tell your mom and dad what’s going on at 28. I think that’s what was supposed to happen.”
Brandon Saho returns to Cincinnati, where he says he spent countless nights walking this same bridge, thinking about suicide.(wxix)
He needed professional help.
His name tag in hand, Saho checked into the Lindner Center for Hope.
Classes, certificates, and a notebook that would be the first page in his new story.
“It’s not like mental health is fixed like that, but I learned things that I should’ve been learning in school, along with math, English, science – that no one else was being taught anywhere because we were ashamed because of the stigma around mental health,” Saho says. “Like, you should learn, just, you know, along with addition, subtraction, how to deal with grief, how to go through drama, what are those coping mechanisms, what are those red flags, those warning signs to look for.”
A full page, a full year, a fully changed person.
Saho fully committed to changing lives.
He moved to Los Angeles to launch “The Mental Game” podcast.
His interviews with celebrities, athletes, and coaches opened conversations about mental health.
“The coolest thing for me is every time I speak, whether it’s a basketball arena of 5,000 people or an office meeting room of 20 people, every single time at least one person, usually more, say, ‘Hey, Brandon, I’ve never told anyone this, but I’ve been suicidal,’ and they say, ‘I don’t know who else to tell, I don’t know where to go, where to ask for help, but you gave me the courage to say something to you.’ It saves lives, I see it work,” Saho says.
Brandon Saho now hosts “The Mental Game” podcast to talk about mental health with celebrities, athletes, and coaches.(wxix)
In the spring, Saho started putting up suicide prevention signs on bridges across the country.
The first sign, his sign, went up on the Purple People Bridge.
His sign on the bridge he walked on countless nights is now one of more than 500 in 40-plus states.
“The fact that somebody might be thinking about taking their own life, like I was on these bridges two, three years ago, now walks by and they can scan a QR code and can find those resources here in Ohio and Kentucky and ask for help, maybe, for the first time, it’s really, really humbling, inspiring and cool,” Saho describes.
Brandon Saho has helped get mental health awareness and suicide prevention signs up on more than 500 bridges in the United States, including this one on the Purple People Bridge.(wxix)
There is help.
There is someone who can be a bridge to better mental health.
“I mean, I get the question all the time, ‘What do you want to do, what do you want this to become?’ I don’t care if I have Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce or if it’s just me talking, I want this to be the biggest mental health platform in the world because I want to help save lives,” Saho explains.
If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
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