This is an IHeart podcast.

And we continue here with our American stories, and we love telling stories of redemption,

stories to give you hope amidst your own daily struggles and the noise that's out there each and every day in the news.

And now our own Joey Cortez brings us one of these stories, the story of John and Ashley Marsh.

I was on a trail and a track that I couldn't get off of.

I was just in this, I felt I was in a tug of war and I was the rope.

This pain and suffering just got so great.

I started fantasizing about killing myself, so I figured out where you got this old house with this huge attic fan.

I'm going to pull the attic fan out, set up a huge pulley up in the attic, set up where I could have it, where I knew it wouldn't break,

and I got it all set up where I could hang myself out of that hole.

Our single knives were 14 foot, so never hit the floor. It's going to work. And I went up there to hang myself and had no reservations.

John was born in Albany, Georgia, the parents that were 14 and 17 years old.

He was put up for adoption and taken in by an incredibly loving family.

As a kid, he made good grades and listened to his parents until...

I rebelled.

You know, rebellion's interesting.

It takes you further than you want to go and cost you more than you want to pay.

And so I stepped across the line and slept with a little girl.

I was 13, she was 12, rode my bicycle to her house, and changed our life.

Now in hindsight, I was longing for acceptance.

I was looking to matter, to be valuable.

Two things I found pretty quickly, you didn't have to guess whether you were accepted

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