<p>Thank you for your sympathy. I know there is much suffering in the world and many causes to which we can devote our time and attention. If I have raised the empathy of anyone here, that is a start. Next, maybe consciousness of this suffering (1,100 college-age students die each year from suicide. More could be saved.) will lead some to go to their elected representatives to change the laws in California to require therapists to report credible suicide threats. Encourage them to introduce or support bills that improve mental health services on college campuses and to disseminate to college administrators correct information on allowable parental notification in the event of a mental health emergency. Make sure students with mental illness diagnoses are not discriminated against. Fight stigma within yourself, your family, and in the wider community. Make your children aware, without shame, of any family history of mental illness and consider this information as important as sending them off to their adult lives with knowledge of their physical disease history. And if a roommate or friend attempts suicide, please have your child call 911 or take the friend to the emergency room. Stanford trains their RAs to err on the side of safety: “It is better to have someone angry and alive than dead and dead.” Or as a dean at the University of Illinois said, “I’d rather be sued for saving a kid’s life than for ignoring a kid’s life.” And my son got into Stanford, but decided to go to Caltech. Sigh. Magical thinking and “if only” gets me nowhere. And it’s no problem taking the time to write: I have my entire life to think about what might have been done differently, but I am scared enough for other parents and students to rally people to try harder to reduce the number of suicides on college campuses.
Our college kids are legally adults and many are so accomplished and wonderful and yet at such a vulnerable time in their lives. Helping them through this period is going to require some top-down changes and barring some senator’s child dying from these diseases, it’s going to take concerned ordinary citizens and empathetic people like you to save more of our precious young people. Please try, or contact people who will. Thank you.</p>