Earlier this year, Katy Coffin, a student at Eastern Maine Community College, made a video in which she discussed her own suicide attempt three years earlier. The video attracted hundreds of shares and thousands of views.
I spoke with Coffin earlier this week, and she shared some of her reflections.
What rings especially true about what Coffin, 23, has to say is that she didn’t even realize counseling services existed before she hit a crisis point.
When I was 17, I had a nervous breakdown, which prompted me to pursue counseling on my own. Beforehand, I’d thought counseling and psychiatry generally existed in film exclusively. Even after hitting a crisis point, my father, who was well intended but uneducated, took my decision to seek counseling as an affront and expressed his disdain for the idea.
Coffin’s message is a useful one for students at particularly vulnerable points in their lives as well as parents and communities seeking to be more supportive of students in crisis.
The following are Coffin’s words:
“I had attempted suicide in 2012; I decided [to] tell my story and how I didn’t think I would ever see another day. One thousand days later, I am here thanks to help from my mom and various counseling services. Treatment and medication helped me to get to a better place.
“I had to speak publicly about it because a young man from Bangor High School had taken his own life that year [2014]. I was so dumbfounded that it could happen in our community. I’d wondered if it could have been prevented had he been able to get help for what he may have been facing. It lit the fire in me to speak publicly about what I had been facing before my attempt.
“The reaction to the video I made was huge. Thousands of people saw it and hundreds shared. I got these messages that were so moving. One came from a mom of a young teen who had taken his own life. She said that she shared the video so that her son’s friends could see that it’s worth giving life another day — so they don’t see suicide as an option.
“There is a lot of stigma around suicide. For those who are considering it, they might think that seeking help will lead to stigma at school or the workplace because of what it suggests about mental health. People should know that seeking help should not be stigmatized. That’s one way we all can be supportive. People seem a lot more receptive to conversations about mental health today than was the case even a few years ago. But still, finding help can be a hard thing to do because of what we perceive people might think or say.
“In the video, I had said that suicide is selfish in that it removes the self from the earth. But it does not come from a selfish place. It comes from enduring a lot of hurt, a lot of pain, and a lot of damage. People don’t know what other people are going through or what their struggle is.
“If you start to feel desperate, you need to find someone that you can call at the drop of a hat. If you don’t have a person like that, it is important to pursue counseling services. I didn’t even realize that there were several counseling centers in my area, and other people might not realize the same. Also, if it is an option, your doctor can be a good starting point for finding help. Before I found the doctor I am with now, I was fortunate to lean a lot on the counseling services provided by UMaine [where she was enrolled at the time]. They would meet with me any time day or night.
“When I was growing up, I didn’t know any of these services. Counselors were offered as a last resort. If you were having a bad day, you would be told to suck it up. There is still a lot of work to be done when it comes to letting people know that it is important to pursue help before things reach a crisis point.
“Teenage and college years can be a pretty complicated time for students, and especially difficult for their parents to understand or comprehend. It is important to make sure your kids are being communicative with you. Make sure they’re not shutting people out. Make sure that you are talking with your kids and reaching out beyond just making sure they’re finishing their homework. And be open to helping them find support if they need it. Counseling is not only for points of crisis. It should not be seen as weakness.
“And for those who might need help, don’t let it pile up. Don’t let it crush you. Often there is a support system that can be difficult to see when you’re dealing with all of this. I’ve definitely been in this position. The biggest thing, I think, can be finding someone to talk to. If you stop talking, it can be hard to remember your reasons for being here.
“Sometimes, to make it another a day, we need to realize we can’t go it alone.”
Alex Steed has written about and engaged in politics since he was a teenager. He’s an owner-partner of a Portland-based content production company and lives with his family, dogs and garden in Cornish.
