Counseling

On Tuesday night, I got a call from a colleague via the math department phone chain. A student was found dead in his room - an apparent suicide - and faculty and administrators were being notified of a brief meeting the next morning. This is the second such incident this year, the first coming in the late fall - a junior just like this newest victim.

One thing that was particularly creepy about the next morning was how clear it was that the students, for once, didn't know as much as the faculty. Between the auditorium and my room, I saw many students' expressions changing as a friend passed on the tragic news - I was suddenly aware of how morose my expression must have been.

The day passed as expected, though. Early attendance was relatively high, and an occaisional class spent the period discussing issues related to the event, and by the afternoon nearly everyone had been dismissed by their parents, was convening to grieve collectively in the gym, or had simply gone AWOL. The remaining students were either the hardier ones, emotionally, or those with few connections to the events.

It's the days afterwards that I find the most difficult. There are more widely varied reactions from students as the intense emotions created by the turmoil rise and fall on their own whim. I myself am divided between my professional duty to maintain the classroom routines and my apathy-mixed-with-deep-concern for the students. It's not that I don't respect how intensely and unpredictably a teenage death effects these youngsters, it's that I find I have little patience for those students who are still drawing attention to themselves through melodramatic behavior or anger and envy at the deceased student for pulling so much publicity.

My personal reaction is also angry, though. I'm not so much angry at the student for their selfish act, or the parents and counselors for not intervening more effectively, or the student body for contributing to an environment toxic enough to drive one to the ultimate end, but angry at the fact that someone was so convinced that there was no other solution that they made such a dramatic and irrevocable decision. I am also mildly angered by the encouragement from contemporary psychiatry to avoid serious discussion with the students of suicide and related issues. Not only are many of the students craving some kind of discourse or forum, if only to spectate, but they are often offended by the perception that the school is ignoring the importance of the event and their own feelings. For the most part I have mildly encouraged a discussion, prompting open discourse by sharing my own personal reactions - my frustration and undirected anger. I am most certainly not a trained counseling professional, but I play one at work.