ShareThisBy BRITTANY ANAS
Friday, November 03, 2006
Kristin Cooper, a college sophomore, lay dead in her family's living room. At her side was a spiral notebook that kept her fatal secret.
She was home from Baker College, a small school in Kansas, for the winter break. Earlier that night _ New Year's Eve, 1995 _ Kristin had told her parents she was going out with friends and that she was the designated driver. Instead, her mother says, Kristin shot herself in the head.
Kristin's nearby journal chronicled her first 1 1/2 years of college life, including the five pages of red ink that told about the night she was raped by a man she thought was her friend and the subsequent "blackness" and grief she felt.
Andrea Cooper has traveled to more than 300 college campuses in the past decade to candidly tell her daughter's story and talk to coeds about date rape and depression. On a recent night, she talked to 650 sorority women at the University of Colorado during a presentation.
"For a woman who has been raped, she'll never forget it," Andrea Cooper said.
Andrea Cooper also talked about depression and asked the women in her audience to recognize the classic signs if their friends show them. Those signs, she said, include fatigue, feelings of helplessness, loss of concentration, lack of interest in activities and sleep problems.
Kristin, for example, stayed up all night and slept until noon and missed classes, Andrea Cooper said. When a roommate made a counseling appointment for her, Kristin didn't go. Andrea Cooper advised the women to make appointments for depressed friends and walk with them to the counseling office.
Depression can also be misleading, Andrea Cooper said. Her daughter seemed sad during fall and Thanksgiving breaks, but she seemed at peace during the winter break. The Cooper family skied, shopped, went to movies and to church services and Kristin frequently went out with her friends. But Andrea Cooper said she now knows that by December, her daughter had already decided that she was going to end her life.
"She was happy because she knew the pain was going to be over," Andrea Cooper said.
Andrea Cooper told the women of her feelings upon discovering that her daughter was dead. She and her husband had returned from a small dinner party and saw Kristin lying on her back, seemingly asleep, but there was a loud Alanis Morissette song playing.
When she realized her daughter wasn't breathing and saw the nearby gun, Andrea Cooper said she panicked and felt nauseated. She went into shock while she was on the phone with a 911 dispatcher.
Andrea Cooper says she will never "get over" her daughter's death, but credits her strength to her "faith," a "wonderful husband" and counseling.
"I'm coming to you as a mother, as a mother who lost her only child," she told the women, some tearful.
