More Australian children and young people die from suicide than any other cause. Genevieve Gannon meets a courageous young woman, Molly Koning, who has battled mental health issues all her life and tried to take her own life more than once. For the first time in a long while, she is looking to the future and wants to give others a sense of hope.
As soon as Sue arrived at the business she and her husband Jon owned, she would urgently log into Facebook, her breath catching in her throat.
“I’d have it open on my computer and I’d be looking at it thinking, ‘She’s not on yet, she’s not on yet.’ And then suddenly – thank God – there’s this little light and I’d think, ‘Okay.’ The only way I’d know she was alive was to see if she was on social media ... For a long time there, we thought we were going to lose her.”
Molly Koning is a beautiful 21-year-old with big, inky-blue eyes and a serious, expressive face. She has a warm, open temperament and speaks with conviction about the roles schools can play in helping young people grappling with mental health issues. “That’s when you can catch a lot of the young kids,” she says.
This story is from the July 2018 edition of The Australian Women's Weekly.
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This story is from the July 2018 edition of The Australian Women's Weekly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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