Through A Parents Tears
Ep. 1 Thomas Campagnolo
Thomas Campagnolo
by Tom & Denise Campagnolo
Thomas was the oldest of our two children, he has a little sister Emily. He was extremely intelligent, so obvious from a young age. He was kind-hearted and so well liked at school by his friends. They wrote on Facebook after he died, “I knew Thomas since elementary school. To this day I have never met someone with a more genuine, kind heart. He would always wave or say hello whenever we saw each other and was always always always smiling. With a heavy heart, I say he will truly be missed.”
There were so, so many posts like that. I think it was very fatiguing and draining for Thomas to be happy to the outside world when he suffered inwardly. His sensitive nature caused him to feel others’ pain. He was truly an empath.
His aspirations were to go to medical school, become a doctor and help people. Helping others was more important to him than helping himself. His laughter was contagious and uplifting, his friends still comment on his laugh.
Thomas suffered from severe depression. He took his own life on Saturday, July 18th, 2015, while a student at U of A in Tucson, two weeks after his 20th birthday. He took his life with his pistol, but we know that if he didn’t have that gun, he would have found another way. The gun was not the issue, a mental illness that was poorly treated by his psychiatrist and psychologist was the issue.
The most important thing we want people to know is to take mental illness very, very seriously. If the mental health professional you have is not good... find another, don't stop until you find the right one. Further, suicide is not an act of moral weakness, rather it is a loss of hope. Instead of telling people with depression to “buck up”, we need to give them hope. This was a failure of the caregivers he had. No hope.
Exactly one month to the day before his death he was in his psychologist's office and said to his psychologist that suicide was an option. The reason why I know this is that Thomas recorded on his iPhone the entire 59-minute session, unknown to the psychologist. When I found this recording, The Arizona Board of Psychologist Examiners found the psychologist to be grossly negligent, abandoned his client and demonstrated professional misconduct. He was in the position to do something positive for Thomas but he did nothing.
We wish Thomas had made a different decision that day, but we know he loves us and we know he is healed now and we will see him again.
