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Cory Coakley hasn't added a story.
I am Duncan’s mom. I have three children, two of whom are still teens and one who is out of college. Duncan is 19 years old. As my children reached adolescence, each one of them sank into clinical depression. A combination of medication and counseling helped, but for Duncan, even that didn’t work. As a sensitive teenager, he has been plagued with thoughts of suicide. He is currently under 24-hour residential care to prevent him from taking his own life.
Sadly, Duncan chose friends with the same mental illness. He became involved with a friend who was struggling with depression himself. And one day, a tragedy occurred in which he survived, but his friend did not.
And now Duncan and the rest of us need financial help. Bills for counselors, medications, legal advice, and more are taking a financial toll on this family. All while we try to come to grips with how close we came to losing him.
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Duncan was 9 years old when he first attempted suicide. I had to catch him and untie the noose. He has had three attempts and had to go to the hospital for issues involving suicide twice. He has struggled with severe depression and suicidal thoughts for the past 9 years. He has been receiving continuous professional counseling and medical care that we hoped would protect him from the worst of his mental illness, and give him the coping skills he needed to thrive despite it.
In July 2019, Duncan had been out of touch for several days, and his friends had started to get worried. I frantically started calling hospitals and police stations, terrified the worst had happened. He had been spending time with a friend, who had many of the same mental health struggles he had. Duncan is particularly empathetic, and is easily overwhelmed by others in pain and will do whatever he needs to to help. To them, in the midst of their terrible depression, it seemed like the solution to their pain was to commit suicide together. When he witnessed his friend’s death he was shocked back into reality and dialed 911.
After a harrowing few days, I was able to find out that Duncan was alive. He has been charged with several crimes in connection with his friend’s suicide and his attempt. He is lucky enough to have a good legal team, but I am a student myself and am barely able to make a dent in his fees.
Despite the fact that he has been fighting suicidal thoughts since he was 9, Duncan has managed to accomplish so much: he volunteered at a local church youth theater, played in the orchestra for the school musical, is a supportive friend, worked part time while in high school, was on the school robotics team, and participated in marching, pep, and jazz bands all four years. He earned a full honors scholarship to pursue an engineering degree in college, and on top of his heavy courseload he made time to tutor high school kids in trigonometry. He is a sweet, kind, and compassionate person who loves animals, and while he undeniably made some bad choices, I am thankful every day that he is still alive.
In addition to the trauma this has caused Duncan, my daughter, who has also struggled with mental illness and suicidal thoughts, has been badly shaken by these events and has required medical intervention, hospitalization and specialized care to prevent her from hurting herself as well. We need help. Any money raised here will go towards supporting Duncan’s legal defense and paying for both of the teens’ medical bills relating to this horrible tragedy.
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