Trauma Survivor Interview: Drew Kohler

For my trauma survivor interview, I spoke with Drew Kohler, a senior here at Mizzou who is originally from Riverside, IL. He was an interesting individual to interview for this project because there were a handful of people who took their lives within his small community.

He spoke of a boy he played hockey with. Hockey was his life. He loved everything about the sport. But when his grades started slipping, he was removed from the team roster in hopes of giving him more time to spend on academics. No one can ever know or understand the emotional and mental chaos that was occurring inside of him that led him to take his own life, but there was a lot of conversation around the community about the correlation between being cut from the team and his decision to take his life.

Kohler also spoke of a man who he had known since he was little. The gentleman did work on his house for years, and became a close family friend of his. His son went to the rival high school in the town next to his, and discussed how he had been the victim of bullying throughout his life. The bullying had become so difficult to deal with, and decided to take his life. Like I mentioned previously, it can't be known whether or not this was the reason he decided to end his life, but mental illness and bullying are a scary combination. He expressed frustration at the thought of this, because he thought it was incredibly preventable. He said it's about how kids are raised, how kids learn to interact with each other and how to deal with bullying, and that no one should ever have to deal with the emotional destruction that bullying inflicts.

He also told the story of a girl from his high school who's mother took her own life, and that the girl was the one who discovered her mother. There was minimal information about the woman and her situation when her death was reported, which I think was appropriate. As I've learned in my research on how to cover suicide, why someone took their life isn't the story- the story is about the loss of life and reporting on ways to combat suicide and to look for warning signs.

Kohler said that while his small community did cover the deaths of these individuals, there was very little follow-up in regard to how the community is recovering and what the grieving process had been. He said his high school offered resources for support and comfort, but there was minimal coverage about how to move forward, where to seek help, what to look for, etc. 

I think it's even more important, especially in small communities like this, to cover all acts of trauma when reporting on suicide. Each of these deaths hit so close to home for the small population, it's a shame that there wasn't more coverage on how this tight-knit community could work together to recovery and show resilience and support and to understand how to possible combat suicide.