HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Life is a collection of moments.
“Abbi was fiercely independent”, Abbi’s mother, Monica, said.
“She was driven; when she wanted to do something, she did it”, Paul Agosta, her father, said.
For Monica and Paul Agosta, those moments with their daughter Abigail are treasures forever.
“I think Abbi is on my mind every minute of every day,” Monica said. “I think as a parent, the hole that is left when you lose a child, you don’t want to fill it, of course.”
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Abbi was an AP student who loved her dog, mountain climbing, the ocean, and soccer.
“As a goalie, it’s really the only position in soccer that you have fear, but she didn’t”, her father said.
“She wasn’t afraid of the deep water, she wasn’t scared of sharks, she wasn’t scared of a girl kicking a ball 75 miles an hour right at her face.”
She was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder at the age of 12.
“It manifested as an eating disorder first, and then we recognized the underlying component was OCD”, her mother said.
“There is a loop in the brain that they are finding is hyperactive in OCD patients, so it keeps going, and going and going, stuck on this loop to where they can’t think of anything but that.”
She knew her challenges and faced them as best she could, according to her parents.
They said they tried traditional therapies and treatments, which didn’t work or were not available. Abbi’s condition worsened into depression and thoughts of self-harm over time, leading to death by suicide in March of last year at the age of 16.
“For Abbi, it was from the minute she woke up till she went to bed at night, so she was exhausted”, her mom said. “She would often say, ‘Can I get a new brain?’ Her brain was broken.”
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Paul and Monica are using the sport their daughter loved to not only honor her memory but raise awareness of the mental challenges young people face every day with Abbi’s Cup, a four-team friendly tournament with not only soccer, but mental health professionals on hand to educate and normalize the discussions about mental illnesses.
“She didn’t talk about it, and that’s another reason we are doing this tournament for the awareness”, Paul said. “Yeah, it’s not easy for us to talk about our daughter not being here.”
Paul and Monica aim to bring Abbi’s Cup to a national stage, helping young people and parents discuss mental illness and how to address the challenges they face.
The 2nd annual Abbi’s Cup will take place next Saturday, August 9, starting at 8 am at the South Campus fields located at Stella Link and W. Bellfort.
At halftime, the teams will break into small groups where sports psychologists lead group discussions on mental health.
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