<p>I think the original poster’s stating that college is not appealing to the kids makes sense. School is supposed to be a safe place and they are leaving home, another safe place to go to college, where support systems will be different. When someone everyone thought was a happy, confident kid com mitts suicide, I think it shakes the kids and their response is to not want to go to school. I am sure there are thoughts of if that happy kid could do this, who else might? I think as people mature, they don’t look at things as being so specifically relating to themselves. Jmho.</p>
<p>I can totally see how it became less appealing overnight. Outgoing, seemed to have his stuff together high school shining star, leaves for college and takes his own life. What caused that? Too much pressure? Social Issues…what? If it can happen to him, can it happen to me? </p>
<p>And as far as what I read as an attack on someone that IMO seems compassionate and caring in regard to her roommate and boyfriend’s depression issues…she is in the right. Since when did caring about people and loving people outside of yourself become such a crime?</p>
<p>My daughter is a freshman at Yale in Davenport College, the same college Zachary was in.
The parents of Yale students received a very heartfelt email from the Dean expressing her and the University’s sadness over his death. A vigil was held today in the college courtyard, and his friends and parents spoke. My daughter said it was a very sad and emotional day for everyone.<br>
She said he was a very nice, funny, and interesting young man. Apparently no one had any idea that he was contemplating this.<br>
As the Dean said in her letter, make sure you contact your kids and let them know you are there for them.</p>
<p>^^ I second that last sentiment. For the kids left behind, one of the things they need most is just to be able to talk. It’s how they wrap their brains around it. When D was a senior, a fellow student suicided, and she looked glazed for a couple of days. Finally, I told her about a student who’d died when I was in high school and I said, “It just didn’t seem real.” For some reason, that opened the floodgates for her. Whatever it takes, they need to let it out.</p>
<p>In my high school graduating class, a classmate committed suicide the night before graduation.
Then, everyone learned about it the morning before graduation.
I’m a freshman in college now.
If someone committed suicide their choice shouldn’t be horrifying … Everyone in life has this option, to take an exit. It’s not to fear, dying is natural. When someone makes this choice, it is part of fate. A sad thing to those who live, but really a neutral thing. Many times, the person does not hold worries about the present life which they leave, yet the others grieve…
At my graduation, I felt it was more disrespectful to the memory of that person to say words that they wouldn’t have spoken or try to glorify it (which it was, to make the graduation still “happy”). If someone means to go, they go. Respect their wish for afterlife… Don’t speculate or put on a face of horror. It is something everyone will feel differently that will be mixed into their experiences, so the best thing I think is to be silent and respectful in this way.</p>
<p>I think it is quite natural for folks to feel sad about the loss of a life, especially in a young person who apparently had a lot of potential living yet to do. Your perspective is another way of viewing things.</p>
<p>One of my HS classmates who attended Brown U suicided when he was home for vacation. It shocked his classmates since he was young and very talented. He had felt special in his HS but not so special at Brown among many other even more talented people (from his perspective).</p>
<p>I had a HS boyfriend who sometimes threatened to jump over the freeway overpass, especially if I mentioned possibly breaking up. Finally I had to go 3000 miles away to college to end the relationship since he refused to get help, despite my pleas and begging. He married someone else shortly after I left town. I still wish I could somehow have gotten him to get help. He was a wonderful, brilliant young man who was facing a lot of issues very young (like being the sole breadwinner for a family of 4 at age 17).</p>
<p>[Campus</a> mourns Brunt ?15 | Yale Daily News](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/apr/20/campus-mourns-brunt-15/]Campus”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/apr/20/campus-mourns-brunt-15/)</p>
<p>“The Yale community came together Thursday to commemorate the life of Zachary Brunt 15, a student who shone as a musician and a scientist, and who engaged all kinds of people.”</p>
<p>Send your collegiate kid a hug.</p>
<p>I didn’t mean to drag attention off of Zachary by bringing in my lengthy personal antecdote, btw… I just meant to bring up that this is SUCH a complicated issue for kids of college age, there are SO many barriers to helping them that are outside of our control and it’s not anybody’s fault… it’s just hard. My own sister attempted suicide when she was a young teen and I know firsthand how easy it is to beat yourself up with “if only I had seen this coming…” sorts of thoughts, and that only scratches the surface of the issue… I hope Zachary’s family knows that.</p>
<p>If only such a person could hear all the nice things said about him at the funeral–while he was alive!</p>
<p>When someone is depressed, I can’t say that support from friends really makes that much difference. (IMO).
It can also just make them feel guilty that they don’t feel better.
If only we could convince them that eventually they won’t hurt so much.
[Debra</a> Ollivier: Aging And Happiness: Why People May Be Happier As They Age](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>Aging And Happiness: Why People May Be Happier As They Age | HuffPost Post 50)</p>
<p>I highly recommend a book by KayRedfield Jamison, a therapist who is bipolar and has been suicidal a lot during her life. It’s called “Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide.” She and a close friend, also a suicidal therapist, made a solemn pact that if either one of them decided to commit suicide, he/she would call the other one first. They talked about this at length and PROMISED to follow through. A couple of years later, she got a call that her friend had committed suicide.</p>
<p>My bipolar son has about a 1 in 6 chance of committing suicide. We’re doing everything we can to help him.</p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide (9780375701474): Kay Redfield Jamison: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Night-Falls-Fast-Understanding-Suicide/dp/0375701478/ref=pd_sim_b_2]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Night-Falls-Fast-Understanding-Suicide/dp/0375701478/ref=pd_sim_b_2)</p>