<p>Who blows the whistle though?</p>
<p>We’ve seen many students ask about these issues from the depressed student side and it can be hard to near impossible to convince a student to talk to someone. College just goes by so fast and close family is often not around to monitor health issues.</p>
<p>“Blows the whistle”?? As if they’re reporting malfeasance on the part of the suicidally depressed student? Let me start with one suggestion: If a friend is on the roof of a campus building wanting to jump off head first and it takes you an hour and a half to talk him down, you don’t do anything but admonish him not to do it again, I’d suggest this (what I thought would be a common sense alternative): call 911 without the person knowing and stay with him until EMTs or law enforcement gets there! And, again, there are myriad organizations that have been raising awareness of the great prevalence of mental health issues on college campuses. Experts say more could be done to reduce the numbers of students who die by suicide on college campuses. Just because something is difficult, we shouldn’t try? Are you a BC alum? Jesuit trained? I’m surprised to hear this coming from you, if so. St. Ignatius of Loyola talked about fighting the good fight despite the costs–Take it to the microcosm–how would you want your son or daughter, or yourself, treated if you were suicidally depressed? Many who have survived suicide attempts say that an “alien logic” and an unassailable determination that they must die came over them and that when the urge was over, they couldn’t believe they felt that way. Not everyone can be saved. Some people with mental illness are affected so severely that they cannot be saved. But there are many, many success stories and it is unconscionable not to try to help them. The loss of these young people represents an incredibly high cost to society and devastating life-long pain to the families who lose them.</p>
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<p>A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy
based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position.[1] To “attack a
straw man” is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition
by substituting it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent
proposition (the “straw man”), and refuting it, without ever having
actually refuted the original position.[1][2]</p>
<p>– Wikipedia</p>
<p>Calm down. You’re emotional and hitting out at people. And you’re
talking nonsense.</p>
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<p>I am a very pragmatic person. I’ve laid out the problem and it’s
a fairly difficult problem to solve. How would you solve this problem
in the current college environment? Would you like me to poke holes
in all of your solutions too?</p>
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<br>
<p>A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy
based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position.[1] To “attack a
straw man” is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition
by substituting it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent
proposition (the “straw man”), and refuting it, without ever having
actually refuted the original position.[1][2]</p>
<p>An ad hominem (Latin: “to the man”), short for argumentum ad hominem,
is an attempt to link the validity of a premise to a characteristic or
belief of the person advocating the premise.[1] The ad hominem is
normally described as a logical fallacy,[2] but it is not always
fallacious; in some instances, questions of personal conduct,
character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant to the issue.[3]</p>
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<p>Yes, I’ve done a lot of research on psychosis.</p>
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<p>The main issues are identification and then treatment. The college
environment is particularly bad at identification for the reasons
that I previously outlined.</p>
<p>Try to drop the emotional stuff and think about why the college
environment makes identification difficult. To make it easier, you’d
need to restructure college. Are you willing to pay for that?</p>
<p>I know they have “beer goggles” they put on kids in driver’s ed to show them how impaired they are when they’ve had a few drinks. I wish there was the same mechanism to show them how bad they feel without sleep – down, depressed, like their whole world view is covered in a dark wash. Add in a heavy courseload and maybe a relationship that goes bad, and it’s a recipe for some kids to think about hurting themselves. Plus the brain isn’t fully mature until age 26, so they can have an impulse, act on it, and they’re dead.</p>
<p>These stories always make me feel so sad. What is it that happens to some people to make them feel life is not worth living? And the guilt that the survivors feel for not recognizing, or perhaps recognizing a problem, but not being able to prevent a suicide. It’s all very sad.</p>
<p>[YouTube</a> - Stanford’s Sapolsky On Depression in U.S. (Full Lecture)](<a href=“Stanford's Sapolsky On Depression in U.S. (Full Lecture) - YouTube”>Stanford's Sapolsky On Depression in U.S. (Full Lecture) - YouTube)</p>
<p>I saw a post on mydeathspace about one of the caltech students that died two years ago. He had attempted suicide the week before and the school did not let the parents know about it.</p>
<p>Sax is absolutely on the mark. And this is very sad tale is not at all unique to Caltech or other ‘tough schools’. It isn’t about the marking system, it’s about mental illness. Though surely the culture of the school makes a difference, and more has to be done in this arena, for many, the mental illness will have gone wherever they ended up. To blame are forces that begin wayyy before college that lead kids to define themselves, their whole future plan, and their self-worth entirely around their educational performance. </p>
<p>Pushing yourself and being high achieving is one thing, to rest your entire sense of being and life around one’s GPA is another. A quick look on CC and you can see it everywhere. Life is hopeless, I’m a loser, my future has ended…because I got an “x” grade…Gosh, you see it in their parents sometimes too. My heart breaks for such kids. Sure some of that is natural late night rumblings of an adolescent mind or worrier parents, but for many others it runs far deeper and incessantly.</p>
<p>I am so sad for the families and friends of the kids who commit suicide. A family friend was the roommate of a student who committed suicide. The student had just broken up with his gf, and texted her that he was going to end his life. She got our family friend and a bunch of others to try to bust down his dorm door to stop him, but he had propped a chair against the doorknob on the inside, and unfortunately in the urgency of the moment, no one called 911 who may have been able to get into the room. They could hear him working to open the window as they frantically tried to break the door open. He jumped before they could. I can’t even imagine how they must have felt. And of course there were no words for the grief of the parents.</p>
<p>I feel sympathy for the schools, too. They are constrained by law as to what they can do, and the students are in a stressed environment - not to mention they are an age which is vulnerable to relationship problems, family problems, and drug issues. Universities talk about their major risks being the “4 S’s” - Sexual assault, substance abuse, sports, and suicide.</p>
<p>Plus I remember a case a few years ago where a university told a student that he had to go home to his parents because he was too emotionally fragile to be in the university environment, and the family promptly sued the school ! The school’s action was applauded by some on CC, and strongly criticized by others.</p>
<p>bookmarked</p>
<p>“College of the Overwhelmed: The Campus Mental Health Crisis and What to Do About It” by Richard Kadison, M.D. (Chief of the Mental Health Service, Harvard University Health Services) and Theresa Foy DiGeronimo
My son would have been 23 today. I am convinced that had Caltech telephoned us after his suicide attempt, that he would not have died when he did. Many mental illnesses are highly treatable illnesses. To cite a few unsuccessful attempts to save suicidal individuals is deflating. Better to cite the many, many success stories. Should we say that because someone is impaired with a mental illness we shouldn’t try to help them or that we should let them die? Would you prefer a son or daughter alive but with a mental illness diagnosis that can be monitored or would you prefer them dead? Would you be happy that he or she had died knowing that you could have been given a chance to try to save his or her life, but were not given that chance? How about if you knew that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act allows administrators of colleges to notify parents in an emergency (i.e., it will be overlooked as a violation? And nobody can sue for a violation of FERPA. The sanction is a violation and with enough violations, schools can lose federal funding.) Was this the reason they didn’t call? They were afraid of losing money? What was the reason? Why didn’t they call us?</p>
<p>WeAreFive, I am terribly, terribly sorry for your loss.</p>
<p>Four young men I knew–three of them quite well–committed suicide between ages 16 and 20; I knew of another five who committed suicide while students at MIT. So I knew of 9 suicides in my relatively small circle during the years from 1968-1975. I didn’t understand until much much later–my late 30s–that suicide clusters are quite common, that they are related to a lack of counseling after the first suicide (if that suicide is not acknowledged, others may think a suicide doesn’t leave a gaping hole in other people’s lives), and that they can be prevented.</p>
<p>When I started teaching, I discovered that most potentially suicidal students do tell a friend or hint to a teacher or otherwise give an indication that there’s a problem. I remember all too well leaving a student in my classroom (“I’ll be right back, I have to go to the bathroom!”, sprinting down the hall to the counselor’s office, and the two of us running back to my classroom. The student got treatment for his depression and is doing quite well fifteen years later.</p>
<p>My point is: if you see hints of suicide, TAKE IT SERIOUSLY! Depression is a treatable disease. Do not leave a possibly suicidal person alone.</p>
<p>I have a friend that has expressed suicidal thoughts on and off for about three years and he might be one of those types mentioned in the YouTube video (I sent him the link). He is well off, has a good job, material possessions but has lost his social supports and he lost his dog. He finally acquired a new dog and I think that things have improved quite a bit for him. He is out and about socially now and we chat a few times a week, online and in-person.</p>
<p>I’ve read some of the research in this decade on the causes of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder as people with those conditions also commit suicides. Some may, of course, group them in with the folks that have depression. Bipolar is alternating mania and depression. Schizophrenia can be a combination of all of the bad genes. At any rate, there are certain risk factors for the first two categories, such as maternal prenatal influenza and preventing that in those genetically susceptible may help to get rid of the biological precursors to suicide.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.law.suffolk.edu/highlights/stuorgs/lawreview/documents/Gearan_Note_Final.pdf[/url]”>http://www.law.suffolk.edu/highlights/stuorgs/lawreview/documents/Gearan_Note_Final.pdf</a></p>
<p>^^^^
Eleven year old suicide. What’s the point of dredging it up? There have been many more suicides in the last eleven years.</p>
<p>It’s a law review article on the need to change law to clarify FERPA much more rigorously or to change law to require parental notification in the case of a suicide attempt on campus or a credible suicide threat. Highly topical, as 1,100 college students per academic year die by suicide. Who knows,you might be one to be affected this academic year. Chances may be low (as I hope for you), but entirely possible. “Any man’s death diminishes me…therefore, do not send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.” John Donne</p>
<p>Wearefive, thank you for sharing your experience and your knowledge with us. My heart goes out to you. Please don’t let negative posters get to you.</p>
<p>Wearefive, Thank you for sharing your son’s memory and this important information with us. I’m so sorry for your loss.</p>
<p>I understand first that parent1986 was not aware of my particular case, so it’s okay. I only want to say that my intent was not to threaten, just to point out the statistics regarding death by suicide that sickened me to my core after our son died. I recognize, too, in the reply of parent1986 what I have come to sense may be behind many of the (on the surface) extremely callous and hurtful things that have been said to us by some people: fear. Yes, suicide is a very fearsome thing, and it should remain so. But not to discuss it when it is the second leading cause of death on college campuses for me is irresponsible. It is also a very human thing to want to think: “That happens to other people, not me.” (I’m not saying parent1986 thought this, but I’m trying to understand human nature.) But, depression and other mental illnesses are extremely common diseases, and on the rise in our young people, and they are life-threatening if severe enough. Also, parent1986, I really feel that parents sending their children to school for the first time are precisely the ones who need to hear this information. I don’t want to alarm or impugn; I want to advise wise vigilance on the part of parents, and to give a clear indication of what might go on behind the scenes on college campuses if their children have a mental or physical health emergency (i.e., that the best interests of your child may not be paramount to them; rather, preventing litigation for themselves may very well be.) Probably within the year, I will begin to try to change the law to require colleges to notify parents when there is a credible threat of suicide or a suicide attempt on campus. This will be one of my ways of trying to save the lives of our precious young people. In the meantime, if you are sending off a child to college for the first time, you may want to consult a useful book, “College of the Overwhelmed: The Campus Mental Health Crisis and What to Do About It,” in particular the chapter “What Can Parents Do?”</p>