Life and Memories of
Jonathan David Saada
December 12, 1998 - June 13, 2020
Jonathan's Story
Jonathan was born in Thousand Oaks, California on Saturday, December 12, 1998. He had the biggest smile and beautiful large green eyes. He was full of energy and joy and loved posing in front of the camera from a very young age!
Jonathan was passionate about Legos! He easily constructed sets with over 4000 pieces and very quickly started to build his own custom Lego sets with tens of thousands of pieces. One of his favorite theme parks was Legoland in California. At one point, it was his dream to become a Lego Master Builder. There are currently only 40 such people in the entire world!
When Jonathan was 7 years old, I (his dad) taught him how to play chess for the first time. I had over 15 years of experience at that time and considered myself an advanced player, but was shocked when he started to beat me within a few weeks! Realizing that he had a special talent for the game, we enrolled him in a local chess club and within a few months he started competing and winning several chess tournaments. He continued to play chess into his adulthood and continued to amaze us with his love and talent for the game!
When Jonathan was 4 years old, his baby brother, Benjamin, was born. Jonathan loved his little brother and always looked after him. Unlike many older brothers, he was always good at sharing and rarely spoke an unkind word to his brother. He was the best brother anyone could ever dream of!
Jonathan loved swimming! When he was 3 years old we took him for his first swimming lesson in Thousand Oaks, California and when he was 10 years old he joined the Riversharks swim team in the Colleyville/Grapevine pool in Texas. He loved competing and excelled in the Breast stroke.
When Jonathan turned 12, he started to study Hebrew on a daily basis in preparation for his Bar Mitzvah. When he turned 13 we traveled to Israel to perform his Bar Mitzvah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Many family members and friends from France and Israel joined us. He did an amazing job and we were all so proud of him!
When Jonathan turned 17, he started training with a local Triathlon team called Tri4Him. Soon afterwards he started competing with his dad in races where he swam, cycled, and ran to the finish line. His dad and him had such a good time competing together!
Jonathan loved to travel with his family and explore the world! By the time he was 21, he got to visit many places including The Caribbean, Hawaii, Mexico, Israel, France, Finland, England, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.
When Jonathan turned 18-years-old, as he turned into a young man, he decided to enlist in the Coast Guard. From a very young age he always loved the military and talked about enlisting some day. With his extensive swimming background, he was planning to become a rescue swimmer. Those are the cool guys that jump out of helicopters and help those stranded at sea due to a hurricane or other calamities. He worked very hard to train for both the physical and ASVAB tests and ultimately aced both of them!
When the big day arrived, on July 18, 2017, we watched proudly as Jonathan was sworn into the Coast Guard, then boarded a bus and headed down to the boot camp at Cape May, NJ.
A week after he started boot camp, we got an unxpected phone call from Jonathan informing us that he is being discharged from the Coast Guard. He told us that while at the boot camp he was confronted by a very tough company commander who was bent on breaking him mentally and physically, and eventually, he succeeded in doing so. Jonathan collapsed after being verbally and physically assaulted by the company commander and other members of the Coast Guard. He was sent to the medical facility where he was diagnosed with an anxiety attack. When our son asked to leave and go home, the company commander told him the only way out is by going to prison. At this point our son became suicidal and was kept in isolation and handcuffed to his bed for days. He was discharged honorably 10 day later but was completely demoralized. He told us that while at the sick bay, while under extreme duress, he heard and saw things that didn’t actually exist. Studies have shown that traumatic incidents, like the one our son experienced at the Coast Guard, could trigger mental illness like schizophrenia or PTSD. This incident was the beginning of a very difficult three-year period!
When Jonathan finally got home he was very depressed and said that he failed us but we told him we don’t care about the Coast Guard and that we’re just happy to have him back home in one piece! We told him he could always re-enlist next year or peruse a civilian job instead. However, he was never the same after the Coast Guard incident.
A few weeks later, in an effort to get back on his feet, Jonathan got a job at Life Time Fitness where he performed life guard duties as well as maintenance and operations tasks. But his struggles with his mental health and drugs have just began.
About a month after Jonathan returned from the Coast Guard, we took him to a local psychiatrist to be evaluated. They concluded that he suffered from anxiety and depression and prescribed him with some mood stabilizing medications. Over the next few months, he tried several medications but none seemed to help. Around the same time our son started experimenting with recreational drugs to help him cope with his mental anguish. Jonathan continued to suffer from depression and anxiety and the doctors suspected he might be suffering from PTSD. They tried several medications that helped initially but ultimately did not get rid of the problem.
Over the next few years Jonathan continued to struggle with drugs and moved from entry-level drugs like marijuana to heavier drugs like cocaine and heroine.
We did everything possible to try to help him by praying for him, consulting with therapists and psychiatrists, sending him to the best drug rehab centers the country has to offer, and trying all sort of medications to ease his pain. We even sent him over to Israel to live with his aunt, Joanna, so he could stay away from drugs and start a new life but his struggles continued there as well. Every time he ran into a challenging life experience like rejection or criticism, he was unable to cope with it, could not control his emotions, and would revert back to drugs.
After an overdose attempt in Israel he came back to California, next to his grandparents in Thousand Oaks, and joined a drug rehab for several months. My parents did everything they could to ensure he gets a good treatment and visited him often to cheer him up. After a prolonged treatment he was released and moved into his first apartment at Grapevine, TX with his best friend Michael Easley. But sadly, the dependency on drugs to deal with his condition continued and another major overdose attempt took place in March 2019. He almost died, but I was able to get the paramedics and police in time and they were able to save him. Following a short hospital stay, Jonathan was admitted to Greenhouse Treatment Center in Arlington where he stayed for two months.
While at Greenhouse Treatment Center Jonathan was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Borderline Personality Disorder is a mental health condition that impacts the way you think and feel about yourself and others, causing problems functioning in everyday life. It includes self-image issues, difficulty managing emotions and behavior, and a pattern of unstable relationships. Individuals that suffer from this condition have difficulty regulating their emotions and often resort to substance abuse, self-harm, and suicide when confronted with emotional pain, rejection, and failure. The suicide rate among those who suffer with BPD is as high as 10 percent! For the first time we understood why Jonathan resorted to drugs so often over situations that the average persons would glance over. After he was released from Greenhouse he was determined to quit and actually stayed free of drugs for over a year! We were all so proud of him!
In August 2019, he moved into a new apartment in Bedford with his new girlfriend, got a new job at a grocery store, and started trading and investing on the side. He did so well with his side job that he more than doubled his investments and was able to pay for his rent on his own. During this time he had several business ideas like starting a new T-shirt company and joining a cybersecurity company with his friend in Austin. But then the COVID-19 pandemic hit and all these dreams had to be put on hold. On the bright side, he proposed to his girlfriend and they got engaged and life seemed to go back normal. Things were getting better. We were all so hopeful. But then in March, 2020, due to ongoing petty arguments, his fiancé left him and he met another girl who he believed was the perfect girl that he will end up marrying. Life seemed good and she moved in with him. We all celebrated and hoped for the best. He described to us his future family and how many children he wanted to have with her. Everything was going so well! But then suddenly, without notice, she told him she lost feelings for him and left him. He couldn’t understand why. The world collapsed around him. He didn’t know how to deal with it emotionally. He sank deeper and deeper into depression in spite of all our efforts to encourage him. His disease was too strong and his tender heart too bruised.
In early June 2020 things started to look better. Jonathan told us he was feeling better and has decided to move on from his girlfriend. He started running with his dad and went to the gym almost every morning to get his mind off the past. He then bought a new car in an effort to become more independent. There was a glimmer of hope!
Then a few days after he got his new car, out of the blue, some guy we never met, came over to his apartment and got high with him on Etizolam and Fentanyl and turned him into a living zombie. From previous experiences, I knew that benzodiazepines such as Xanax or Etizolam made him black out and become aggressive and lose all his inhibitions. On Saturday morning, June 13, 2020, while under the influence of drugs, he got a hold of a gun and threatened to kill himself unless his ex-girlfriend talked to him. He tried calling her multiple times but she wouldn’t pick up the phone. He then had his friend call her up but she refused to speak to him even after she was told he was holding a gun to his head. In her own words, “I don’t give AF about him!” Her cruel, cold, and uncaring heart convinced him that no girl could ever care for him and his life was pointless. He pulled the trigger and ended his life. The “friend” that was with him failed to contact our family, a responsible adult, or the police even after being fully aware that Jonathan was suicidal for over 24 hours prior to his death! Instead, he got high with him and made the situation go from bad to worse.
The night before Jonathan took his life, I, his dad, was with him and asked him to promise me that he would never harm himself no matter what happens. I reminded him how much I and the rest of his family loved him and that if he ever harmed himself we would live the rest of our lives in sorrow! His response was, “Do you really love me this much?” I responded, “of course I do! You’re my first-born son!” He then promised me he wouldn’t harm himself. That same evening he talked to another friend over the phone and told her that he was thinking of seeing a doctor the next day. Then, in the early morning hours before he took his life, he texted one of his best friends and asked him to “come soon!” Furthermore, text messages that we retrieved from his personal phone and computer indicated that Jonathan was incoherent at the time of the shooting. Based on all this evidence we know that Jonathan did not intend to kill himself and only pulled the trigger while under the influence of high doses of benzos and fentanyl. This was further confirmed by the police report and medical examination.
What makes Jonathan’s story so tragic is that it could have been prevented had we had better gun laws in Texas and at the federal level. Jonathan was able to purchase a handgun, legally, at a local retail store, three weeks before his death, in spite of his extensive medical record which included at least one previous suicide attempt, two mental hospital admissions, several prolonged rehab treatments, and a diagnosis of PTSD and Borderline Personality Disorder. All those factors should have prevented him from purchasing a gun but because of absurd laws that only restrict the sale of guns to individuals that were involuntarily admitted to a mental facility by a judge, Jonathan was not placed on the FBI’s radar and was able to pass the background check. Gun laws should be changed to restrict the sale of guns to any individual who attempted suicide and has struggled with substance abuse regardless of a court order. Such restrictions should be in place for at least a year from the time of an incident and the person should be re-evaluated by a psychiatrist and undergo a hair follicle drug test to determine if the restrictions can be lifted or extended for another year. Please see the Resources section to see how you can get involved to prevent future gun-related tragedies.
I have many regrets over my son and what I could have done differently to save his life. One of my biggest regrets is not taking his condition seriously enough and thinking that he can make it on his own without the help of professional help. I now understand how important individual and group therapy is to treat BPD and other mental conditions. If I could go back in time, I would continue to enroll my son in ongoing CBT/DBT therapy and keep him going for as long as necessary. I am rather confident that had he been involved in such therapy and had the skills to cope with emotional pain from a breakup or other struggles, things could have ended up very differently. I would encourage anyone who is struggling with drugs or mental health to continue their treatment for as long as necessary to reduce the chances of a relapse and improving their quality of life.
I will miss my son more than anything and will always remember him as a passionate, kind, and visionary individual. I know that in heaven he is finally free to be his true self, surrounded by the love and peace of God. I pray that all of us will have more compassion for those suffering from mental conditions and struggling with drugs and do our best to help them rather than judge them. If we can save one life as a result of his story, then Jonathan’s death would not have been in vain!
– John 11:25