Masika Smith was embracing a peaceful moment of quiet when she ran into the concerning thought millions of people have faced globally.
“I remember thinking, oh my goodness, I just want to stay in this silence forever, because my life had felt chaotic, she said. “I was busy. I had little kids that I was taking care of, I was working full time, and I was just feeling overwhelmed. … I just remember stopping and asking myself, Masika, what was that thought? What were you really thinking about? And guess what? I wasn’t thinking about sleeping.”
Smith, a counselor on NE Campus, was diagnosed with major depression. She found this surprising considering what she did for a living.
“No matter what your profession is, no matter what your interests are, the one thing we have in common is we are human beings,” she said. “We have emotions. We have feelings. Life happens to all of us.”
September is Suicide Awareness Month. TCC students and staff participated in various ways to combat the stigma surrounding suicidality as they attended the programs on campus.
Students reflected on what can be done to prevent suicide. Many of them concluded that community plays a huge role, including Leslie Garcia and Keland McClanahan.
Garcia said she had gone through a rough period in which she was around people who enabled her addiction.
“I would look at myself and hate myself,” Garcia said.
She said she was able to overcome the situation by surrounding herself with a good support system.
“It was like a breath of fresh air to be around them,” she said. “I realized that those negative thoughts weren’t there anymore.”
McClanahan echoed the sentiment of relying on a community through difficult times.
“It’s really important to have a community on campus who’s there to support you, and also, if need be, to prevent you from having suicidal thoughts or indulging in anything that isn’t beneficial to your life or is detrimental to your safety,” he said.
TCC has a CARE team, a group of individuals from different student affairs departments who come together to offer comprehensive support to students in distress.
Tayren Mangolini-Thomas, the Director of Student Conduct and Preventative Education said the CARE team often sees the issue of students experiencing suicidality around midterms.
“We have a lot of students come in [who] are like, I don’t know if I could do this,” Mangolili-Thomas said. “I don’t know if this is the place for me, because they saw that they failed an exam earlier, or the weight and the load of taking care of their family and trying to do school.”
Janie Ortiz is a full-time student on NE Campus. She said it’s a lot of pressure to keep up with work and other life events on top of school and it can become very draining.
“At some point, I just want to stop and take a break,” Ortiz said.
The CARE team is a place students can go to when in need of some kind of break, according to NE Counselor, Stephen
Howard.
“We take the lid off, so to speak,” he said. “We reduce the pressure and increase connection and decrease loneliness, isolation and the feeling like they are the only one.”
QPR is a method used when deescalating someone who is suicidal. It stands for Question, Persuade, Refer. The first step is to question the individual to pinpoint and understand exactly what they’re thinking.
“If you ask them, it actually brings a sense of relief,” Smith said. “Someone cares. And I can talk about this.”
The next step is to persuade. This step involves listening to the individual in crisis by giving them your full attention and the final step is to refer them to a counselor on campus.
Smith said those struggling with suicidality are looking for purpose.
“People are looking for a meaningful life, having a life that you’re happy with, you’re content or satisfied with, with suicide, most of the time is being tired of the pain,” she said.
She continued to emphasize the importance of community in overcoming suicidality.
“They need the community to help them,” she said. “It’s going to take more than just them by themselves … It takes
a support system and hopefully access to mental health care.”
