My name is Kate and I am 22 years old. I started being bullied in middle school. The boys started getting taller and the girls were getting prettier, apart from me. I was considered overweight for thirteen. I didn’t have many friends, except food. Food was my comfort and the only thing I had control…
On Saturday, Sept. 2, our COPES team joined thousands of fans at ONEOK Field. As the stadium began to fill up, our team was setting up to bring awareness to those attending the Drillers Game. On the concourse, fans were searching for hotdogs, popcorn and cotton candy. What they didn’t realize, is they would also…
As the Associate Chief Program Officer for Family & Children’s Services Crisis Services, I work in suicide prevention and have been filled with concern about the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why since the show began a few weeks ago. The series centers on a high school teenager who takes her own life and explains her…
Most people think about crisis services as telephone intervention, a suicide hotline, and/or mobile response, and they are right. Family & Children’s Service’s Community Outreach Psychiatric Emergency Services (COPES and COPES for Kids) is that, but it’s also so much more. As Oklahoma’s only 24-7 free mobile crisis program serving adults and children in psychiatric…
Marilyn* was 53 years old when we first got to know her. Marilyn was single and unemployed, but her biggest concern was her 32-year-old son, Jason. Jason had a serious medical condition and a mountain of medical bills. Marilyn, though, had a sure-fire plan to get Jason out of debt. She’d kill herself. You see,…
