Growing up in her household, there was no talk of going to college for Gabriela Romo.

She was told once high school was over, she would work at the factory to provide for her family.

In a family that had never gone to college, with a father who never made it past the third grade, Gaby was never allowed to think about going herself.

That was until her junior year of high school, when soccer changed everything.

“The coach came and saw me play and she told me I was going full ride,” Gaby said,  laughing at the thought. “I had absolutely no idea what that meant, but I said yes and here I am.”

Gaby said she never thought she would get to play the sport she loved at such a high level while getting an education at the same time.

When Gaby told her parents she wanted to go to college, she said they didn’t know what that was, but agreed as long as they didn’t have to pay.

“I grew up with a very family oriented perspective,” Gaby said. “I know that if I invest this time and get a good job, then however much time God gives me, I can provide for them for the rest of my life.”

A few years ago, her cousin in Mexico got a bacterial infection. Gaby said that in Mexico people have to pay before treatment, but her cousin couldn’t afford it.

Her health became worse, and she was eventually put on a ventilator.

Gaby said she saved $2000 that summer to send down to her cousin, but it couldn’t save her.

She ended up passing away because no one could afford her treatment.

“That’s what made me want to be a doctor. If you’re a doctor the money shouldn’t matter,” Gaby said. “They should have run more tests. They should have saved her.”

Due to that traumatic experience, and realizing that soccer wouldn’t last forever, she said her new plan is to go to medical school and become a family physician.

Gaby said she has always wanted to help people, which was passed down to her from her mother’s ways. She said her mother is the glue that holds her family together.

Her mother always encouraged her and her siblings to look out for one another and to achieve their dreams.

“But my father, he is the one who divides us. He belittles me and my five siblings,” Gaby said. “He would always say things like, ‘You guys are useless,’ and when I would be doing homework he’d say, ‘School’s not important get your butt up and clean.’”

Gaby said her father never approved of her pursuits of education, her desire to learn, or her love for soccer. He would tell her since she was a girl she was supposed to do the chores, and that soccer was for guys.

She said he would even hit her and her siblings, which led to her having a low self-esteem at a young age.

But soccer was her escape.

Gaby would have to wait until he left for work to go outside and practice. She started at just 6 years old.

“God gave me that man as my father,” Gaby said. “No matter what, this is how my life was supposed to be. That is why I am here today.”

 

Esteban Coria dismissed the loud bang in the night, thinking it was just the dumpsters slamming outside.

After all, it had been a windy day.

But it was far from just wind.

Coria, a college student at IPFW at the time, found an unconscious man in a car the next morning, a gun laying on the seat beside him.

He attempted to take the man’s pulse, but found nothing.

“I just remember thinking, why couldn’t he have gotten help from someone?” Coria said. “Why does someone feel so desperate that there is no one who can help them at all?”

Mary Ross, director of Project COMPASS – Community Project Against Student Suicide – said IPFW lost seven students to suicide last year.

“That was really overwhelming last year,” Ross said. “That is a very high number for the size of our campus.”

Jeannie DiClementi, an associate professor of psychology at IPFW and the principal investigator for Project COMPASS, said suicide is the second leading cause of death among the ages of 15 to 24.

Prior to Project COMPASS’ founding in 2012, the university did not have a suicide prevention program.

DiClementi said Project COMPASS focuses on reducing the stigma surrounding mental health and educating students on suicide in order to prevent it on campus.

She said certain groups are more vulnerable to suicide. This includes LGBTQ students, ethnically diverse students, and students in the military.

The National Center for Health Statistics recently reported the overall suicide rate for Americans increased by 24 percent from 1999 to 2014.

Project Director Ross herself attended a high-pressure, private college 300 miles away from home. She said there were a number of suicides, but it was during a time when people didn’t talk about suicide.

Ross said she remembered a student who committed suicide by jumping from a dorm window.

“Blood stains don’t come up that easy,” Ross said.

Carrie Romines, a wellness specialist at the university, said the hardest part of her job is fighting the stigma against mental health.

“Not only do people not want to admit there’s something wrong,” Romines said, “but other people just don’t know how to handle it, and they don’t want to hear about it.”

MaryAnne Skora, a former communications student at IPFW, said she was affected by the stigma.

Skora first started feeling depressed her senior year of high school. During her freshman year of college in 2013, she began to have suicidal thoughts.

“I remember, actually, being at IPFW in the library, I think on the fifth floor. That’s kind of when the suicidal thoughts started at first,” Skora said. “I felt so much pressure to be perfect. I didn’t really know how to express myself, so I completely isolated.”

She hid her self-harm scars from her parents because she thought they would be ashamed. She would attempt suicide the following year.

Skora thought she could make a quick recovery and return home. Instead, she would later be readmitted for attempting suicide again in August of 2015.

Knowing something had to change, Skora began to share her experience, something she feels is important for those with depression.

“I started realizing I have to talk about this, because think of how many other people are struggling and they don’t have anyone to talk to,” Skora said. “I definitely think it’s important to at least tell someone how you are feeling and find the right person to do it, that you trust.”

On the IPFW campus, Project COMPASS also offers Gatekeeper training, a three-hour class on the signs of suicide and how to approach students who are being affected by depression.

“We’re not training mental health professionals, we’re training the average student and the average faculty member,” Principal Investigator DiClementi said. “When they’ve got a student or roommate talking about being depressed, they will know what to do.”

Ross said one of the challenges COMPASS is facing is figuring out how to get information out through different mediums.

She said COMPASS is looking to create a hybrid Gatekeeper training program, with both online and in-person sessions.

Coria, now a continuing lecturer in Spanish at IPFW, would later learn of a new suicide prevention tool, Telemental Health.

Telemental Health uses telecommunications such as videoconferencing and texting to provide behavioral health services, including access to counselors.

One of the various programs, Crisis Text Line, allows someone experiencing depression or suicidal thoughts to anonymously text a trained professional.

Two of Coria’s students committed suicide in 2016, and he said he can’t help but wonder what would happen if there more options like Telemental Health for students.

“I think it’s a feeling of guilt, shock and sadness,” Coria said. “The next step is asking how can I change this, how can I make this better, how can I prevent future suicides?”

 

IPFW Health and Counseling Resources:

IPFW Parkview Assistance Program: https://www.ipfw.edu/counseling/

IPFW Community Counseling Center: www.ipfw.edu/counseling-center

Project COMPASS: 260-481-6778, Kettler Hall Room G82

 

A year ago, when Fort Wayne native Liz Turkette was in Maryland with her boyfriend Chris, they saw a woman walking her dog while topless.

The woman was simply exercising her right, at least in 36 states, to expose her breasts in public. But it made Liz feel uncomfortable.

Liz said it made her think about why she was uncomfortable, and she realized it was because of how society has portrayed women and how it has sexualized female breasts.

“It’s so obvious that women are treated as pieces of meat,” Turkette said. “You see it in advertising, and men throw dollars at us because we’re taking our tops off.”

Liz said she now recognizes that people feel uncomfortable because of how female breasts are portrayed and is working to bring awareness to it.

“A male’s chest can look sexy, just like my chest,” Turkette said. “And I can be turned on by a male’s chest, just like they can be turned on by mine. But I have to control my mind and they don’t? That’s not okay.”

In Indiana and 13 other states, only men are allowed to go topless in public.

But things weren’t always this way. According to the Go Topless organization website, men were not legally allowed to be topless until 1936 in America.

Women were not allowed to sport bare breasts in any state until 1992, when a law was passed in New York, and 35 other states followed.

Fourteen other states have more ambiguous laws. In three, Indiana, Utah and Tennessee, it is completely illegal for a woman to expose their nipples in public. If she is topless, her nipples must be covered.

But local women are working to change that, by bringing the Free The Nipple movement to Fort Wayne.

Lauren Conklin, a 23-year-old Fort Wayne native, helped organize her first Free The Nipple rally on Aug. 14, along with Turkette.

They held the protests in front of the Fort Wayne Courthouse holding signs and going topless, while wearing pasties or covering their nipples as Indiana law dictates they must.

“What better way to bring on awareness and have people actually start asking you questions about why these women are doing this than doing something a little edgier?” Conklin said.

Conklin said there were only about 20 people at the first rally. But with the help of Facebook, they were able to raise more awareness for the next one.

120 people showed up to the second Free The Nipple rally on Sept. 12.

“We had this turn out of really excited and really ambitious women,” Conklin said. “And even men were showing up and saying ‘How can I support you guys?’”

The Free The Nipple Facebook page said that men were encouraged to come wearing bras or bikini tops to highlight gender inequality.

Both Conklin and Turkette said that Indiana passing the law for women to go topless legally would be a step toward gender equality.

Fort Wayne activist Vijaya Birkes-Adams said she works alongside Conklin and Turkette to fight for their right to make the same choices men do.

“In order for us to fully embody equality, we really need to be able to do be viewed in the same way as a man, and just being human in a human body,” Birkes-Adams said. “A big part of this is combatting the notion that women’s bodies are for men’s pleasure.”

Birkes-Adams said she likes to go topless sometimes, like when it’s hot and she’s working in the garden. Her fiancé takes his shirt off.

“For me to make myself uncomfortable just because someone thinks my body is inappropriate is not fair,” Birkes-Adams said. “It just needs to change.”

Birkes-Adams and Conklin said this anxiety is perpetuated by the negative comments that the women involved with this movement receive.

They said much of the criticism they receive is from comments online, mostly on their Free The Nipple Facebook page.

“When you’re not face to face, people feel more comfortable saying horrible things about us,” Birkes-Adams said. “Like calling us sluts or saying that we’re just out there for attention.”

But the rude comments aren’t stopping these women.

A third rally was held on Oct. 10, and Turkette said they are planning to have a fourth rally on April 10.

Conklin said they plan on holding these rallies until women can go topless legally in Indiana.

“You’ve got to plant the seeds,” Conklin said. “And you may not sit in the shade of that tree, but you have to plant it.”

McKayla Atkinson (front row, far left) and Lauren Sanderson (front row, second from left) participated in Fort Wayne’s Free the Nipple Rally on September 12. Photo by Liz Turkette.

 

 

 

It’s James Ramsey and his wife Dee’s 15^th-annual vacation down in Florida.

A cool summer breeze blows over the beach softly, mingling with the ocean. The water ripples. The sand shines under the sun. Life is peaceful.

But suddenly, James cannot breathe. He feels a pain in his arms run up his neck. A man in a golf cart drive him back to his condo, and after taking the nitroglycerin, James feels better.

James thought this heart attack was just angina, which would improve with treatment. However, later that night, he had another heart attack, and this time, the nitroglycerin did not fix anything.

“Okay, we’re going to the hospital cause we have done it so many times,” James said, “but this time, the doctor says you’re not going home.”

So James had two choices: Stay, or die.

He would have to have the bypass surgery on the first day of his vacation.

Yet, James said he was neither afraid of the surgery nor death. The only thing he fretted was the impact of this surgery on his part-time career, that of a reserve police officer.

James, at the age of 54, wondered if he would have to give up the job he loved.

He didn’t want to. He said he still remembers the moment he decided to be a police officer for the rest of his life.

It was 24 years ago. The 30-years-old James was volunteering at the police department.

One afternoon, James and another officer were working on a crash. The accident blocked the road. People driving by were looking at what was going on while James was directing traffic. At that moment, it hit him – he was making a positive contribution.

“I wanted to be part of the solution, not part of the problem,” James said, “and as a police officer, I was part of the solution, and that was what drove me.”

James finished the police officer training academy at the age of 48 with outstanding performance, and he started work as a reserve police officer in the same year.

He said he looks after his gun and his uniform as his child. He hangs all his badges and his award certificates on his wall.

But what about his health? Is it worth his life to continue his work?

James remembers his father, who he said influenced him the most.

His father had him at the age of 17, and James jokes that children raised him up. Through his childhood, his father played with him, took him to different places, and did many fantastic things. His father taught him how to hunt, James remembered, they were like best friends.

James was even named after his dad, James, and he considers himself the extended version of him, the guy who will get up and go to work no matter how sick he was.

“I watched him hacking and throwing up and he would go to work,” James recalled. “There was a running joke where he worked in, ‘If Ramsey did not show up, he was dead.’”

Since his father could stick it out, why couldn’t he?

After all, he has Dee, the caring wife who always supports him. James says Dee is around whenever he needs help, and Dee packed a lunch for him every single day he was on duty.

Even during the unexpected surgery, Dee said she tried to be organized.

She recalls getting up to walk the beach before going to the hospital every day, sitting in his room even if James was sleeping from his medication. She asked friends to pray for them, and found help from her sister to fly down to Florida.

Even after the surgery, Dee still supported her husband being a reserve police officer, because she knows he just wanted to help.

She says it’s the reason she married him 40 years ago.

Eight years after bypass surgery, James retired in 2015 at the age of 63. He feels much healthier than before, and has started the new challenge of learning Chinese.

So if someone asked James, “Is doing what you love worth your health?”

His answer would still be yes.