On a brother’s suicide: ‘I wish I had never told him to go to counseling’
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
> He goes to the counselling centre but instead of offering any help, they call my mom to come down and then at 5 p.m. that day, hold a meeting with a dean and five other staff where they promptly dismiss my brother from William and Mary and ban him from College grounds.
> and ban him from College grounds
is ridiculous.
And had they not dismissed him and he continued on and something to that effect were to happen would we not see stories about friends and families of victims asking about why they would have allowed an obviously deeply disturbed person to remain on campus?
Maybe the counselor thought (erroneously?) this particular problem was too big to handle?
How can you understand this that way? I can't.
I can't understand it because I know lots of people with depression, and I've experienced it once myself, never once did anybody I know or myself or for that matter, a reported case, ever think "I know, lets go and kill a bunch of people."
I don't understand it...
The number of dehumanizing things that have been done in the name of "health and safety" is staggering. Life begins with birth and ends with death, use compassionate reasoning in between, there's always a rule or formalism to hide behind.
1: I don't get why they would bar him from campus.
-Unless the councilor thought that he was also a danger to others.
I’m saying that I agree but that maybe they (erroneously) saw something more than depression or something different from your situation. Given that what exactly is the issue?
(I hope you did not read me as objecting to your comment, just "expanding the picture")
To understand how someone could exclude someone from campus with depression, I'd have to start positing the existence of events / information we don't have. Usually if a health care professional decides they are a danger to others, that is when people get sectioned. This is common place stuff. Virginia Tech is not common place stuff.
Maybe the people at Virginia Tech were depressed or something, I don't know. But, so what?
Hitler was an artist.
There's always the "historical psycho" exception to every rule.
Mathematics causes Unabombers?
These events are in the popular imagination, but it's a reaction coming from fear. In cases like depression it's particularly important for people around a person to act from compassion, open-ness etc. Just "being there" is enough.
Saying "I'm here..." is enough, you have no idea how a small thing like that can make a world of difference without you feeling like it's even a thing you had to give.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/germanwings-crash-i-have...
It's really weird seeing such obviously fallacious thinking on HN but it happens everytime mental illness and violence comes up.
When you want to predict if a person poses a risk of violence to other people knowing whether that person has a mental illness or not gives you very little predictive power. Knowing if that person is addicted to alcohol, or has had a previous episode of violence, gives you much more predictive power. And if you combine those, or either or both of them with mental illness you get a better predictor. But mental illness itself is not a predictor.
(Or, lets say, it is another parameter to watch for when discussing with new people, to help understand their point of view and ponder all the arguments, even the ones with more than sufficient counter arguments to outright dismiss them; this excercise might have to be shown to some discussion partners as well so they can see where I am coming from.)
The guy who plunged his plane into a mountain had depression.
The Unabomber was a mathematician.
Hitler was an artist.
But we're talking about a college student. Sure, maybe he shouldn't be allowed in the chemistry lab or given roof access, but what does banning him from college grounds prevent that he can't do outside of it?
Besides, if he was so dangerous to warrant banning him from college grounds just so he couldn't get a chance to harm or kill others (e.g. strap bombs to himself and blow people up), he was probably too dangerous to rely on him to respect the ban. This is the point where you involve the police instead of risking to provoke him further -- and then this isn't just a mental issue, it's a direct threat. But as it seems, this wasn't what happened, even remotely.
From the time they first identify the risk, all further actions seem to focus on washing their hands and distancing themselves from that risk. Rather than helping him themselves, they rush him out the door to a dedicated facility; they forbid him from being on campus, thus ensuring that if things go wrong it'll be on somebody else's watch; and they drag their feet about letting him back into the system.
Just my opinion, but the appearance is that their primary concern was to stay out of liability's way; the actual danger to a student was secondary at best.
The final response of the school to Cassie is also saddening and revealing of a culture devoid of any empathy.
In theory yes, in practice it's easy to make something up, here it's mostly "company internal reasons", which they don't have to justify.
The formal reason will never be that someone sucked at their job.
If so that is crazy..Cheating on a test is not "illegal." There are a whole host of things that are "against school policy" but not illegal.
I find this very hard to believe....
It's a blatant breach of privacy and medical confidentiality. Comparing it to "cheating" is actually fairly despicable. We're not talking about malicious or manipulative behaviour, we're talking about someone suffering from an illness who took action to find treatment.
I would highly encourage anyone feeling depressed to seek counseling, and for the most part school mental health services are a safe and welcoming place to find help. With that being said, DO NOT share information about your mental health status with non-medical staff at school, as they are not bound by the same rules as physicians and can act on that information. My (unsubstantiated and hopeful) guess is that this is likely what actually led to this student's dismissal.
It's a terrible loophole that needs to be closed. In the meantime, it seems we can't in good conscience encourage people to use their on-campus counselors for mental health crises. (And the off-campus counselors are going to be more expensive, such that people you warn off the on-campus ones might just get no help at all.) :/
Here's an example of a college administration obtaining therapist records to use in their legal defense, under FERPA after the student sued them: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/03/09/391876192/college...
In this day and age, I would be very, very careful about who you talk to about any kind of mental health issues. Get a reference from somebody you know and trust who has received direct care from the professional in question. Preferably more than one and never from a school. Make sure it's someone you pay directly, NOT a school counsellor. I appreciate you wanting depressed people to seek help, but sometimes dealing with it yourself is better than dealing with the system.
http://www.splc.org/blog/splc/2013/04/transparency-tuesday-c...
Virginia is no hero for mentally ill people. Some people are homeless and without income because of mental illness, and until this year, the only "medicaid" available for those people (who did not care for children) were sterilization services (see "Plan First" at VA DMAS.) This means that the eugenics program against mentally ill people that Virginia is known for is still ongoing - it's merely only optional now. Virginia has closed the majority of their state mental institutions and leave these cases to be dealt with by the criminal justice system: basically the theory is to let them devolve into criminal activity then send them to prison.
I think that some mental illness is the result of child abuse. Although child abuse and neglect have been statutorily defined as criminal acts, they are not meaningfully prosecuted in practice. Since the mid-1970's, it has been the law that a wide classification of government employees, from school employees to police officers, are bound by law to report any suspicions of child abuse, but in practice none of them do that, and until several years ago, these employees were liable to no criminal penalties for ignoring that law. I have tried to find cases of people prosecuted for violating this, and have found none.
I think that WMU's influence over the state government is ridiculous and the results of it are disgusting. The school does not deserve its stellar reputation. I would not feel the least bit of sorrow if it were dissolved.
If so you can't really blame them.
Our college handled this differently and perhaps it was due to my strong advocate since my brother took his own life when I was a kid. We required hospitalization for the hospital to evaluate and than we would work one on one to make sure they were following doctor's orders in terms of counseling and medications. This all had to be done secretly so that students privacy wasn't stolen and that students would know it was a safe place.
As a Resident Director we would directly contact the professors and arrange a way for the student to make up their work and to complete the classes. usually the students would have a lot of abstinence and this would cause an issue, but we would always try our best and set up things in place for the next semester if need be and with financial assistance (AKA not charge them for the class credits a second time).
Likely there was something extremely dramatic about this case that made the college believe he was a clear threat to himself and/or others if he stayed at the college.
In what world is banning someone from college the right approach to handle someone with obvious mental issues disclosing his problems in a counseling center?
If his situation was "more extreme", the first course of action should be to escalate the situation to more qualified, not the college administration (who are neither qualified nor relevant). You can still kick someone out after they're in professional treatment.
It's extreme irresponsible to not just refuse treatment but actually measurably make their situation worse. You might as well hand them a razor and tell them "yes, you're right, take this and go kill yourself" while you're at it.
Any potential threat of negative repercussions only serves to destroy trust between a potential client and any therapist.
Imagine what would happen if people with AIDs had their info put into a public database (especially back when fear of the disease was much higher)? It would have destroyed not only the trust of those with or who might have AIDs, but of many people with other health concerns as well.
On the other hand, assuming he went to the counselling center first thing in the morning, that's roughly nine hours minus travel time, scheduling, and all the other steps involved in this kind of decision. I find it difficult to believe that a counsellor met with him for more than an hour.
Further: "My brother is then taken home and the next day starts at our local mental health facility. He voluntarily enters a residential program, which is very hard ordeal for both him and my parents. However, he does well and is released to out-patient status on Monday, March 30, 2010." The residential program released him after less than two weeks. I suspect they would not do so if they believed him to be a threat.
So, why did the College initially deny him re-admittance?
And they may have protected the other students at the cost of selling out the integrity of therapy in general. Think of a judge, given the smoking gun needed to convict a murderer that was obtained by unconstitutional means. He must let the murderer go because, while releasing the murder introduces risks to the public, the risk of not upholding the Constitution is even greater.
As it stands, I would no more advise someone to see a therapist than I would advise them to tell everything to a defense lawyer in a country where the defense lawyer tells everything to the prosecutor and it is all admissible in court.
My brother killed himself 35 years ago last week. GO GET HELP! Go speak with someone and go to a doctor or counselor. I love my brother and miss him everyday, but suicide is the biggest middle finger to everyone you know and love. It hurts the people you never wanted to hurt. Please get help not just for yourself but for those who love you.
But don't go down that road alone. let someone in your life know you are having these problems and are getting help. Being alone on that journey is difficult. The big thing is taking that risk with being vulnerable with someone.
I've had two different close family members admitted to a hospital for suicidal intentions. In both cases the treatment at the hospital made matters worse, not better. One was 5150'd (in the state of California a patient can be taken by force to a mental health facility and held there against their will for an unspecified period of time if they are determined to be a threat to themselves or others), the other was nearly 5150'd. They were heavily sedated and given a bed at one facility or the other, medicated further, and then released without follow-up.
In both cases the takeaway for the people involved was that they never wanted to go through that again -- so next time (and there was a next time, and a time after...) they would hide it from other family members or threaten themselves or others if anyone contacted law enforcement or tried to take them to a hospital.
"Go get help" is extraordinarily difficult to actually do. The help available is almost always more concerned about short-term liability instead of long-term health.
My brother went missing more than six years ago, presumably committed suicide. Going back through his emails and chat history, he constantly expressed the fact he was depressed and considered suicide. Instead, all his friends turned their backs on him and told him to talk to someone else. What they should have said instead is, how can I help?
If normal people can't afford professional help, there's something extremely wrong with your healthcare system. Then again, this is the United States we're talking about -- and socialised health care still seems to be a new idea to them.
But I think the answer is to seek help off-campus. Not to avoid getting help.
The real point is that the policies of William and Mary might lack a certain degree of humanity, and that, as a human being, Ian Smith-Christmas was utterly unsupported by an institution whose mission is helping young adults develop into well-rounded individuals.
After reading the reply from the VP of student affairs, I am fairly willing to believe it. Rather than acknowledge the core point of the narrative, the VP replies with "people are complicated; here are some numbers" that might or might not mean anything.
Expelling depressed students is a publicly nationwide "best practice" in higher ed administration apparently.
Something I've always wondered though is where this stemmed from. I find it unusual that both children from this one family happened to have problems with depression. Perhaps it's a coincidence but I often times wonder if depression really stems from hardship or if it's something less complicated than that. Many of the people who talked about having mental health issues in our fraternity were VERY well off. In fact, between all the people I've known in my life to struggle with mental health the most common attribute I remember was having two parents that worked despite having the means for one of them to stay home. Perhaps my observations are entirely coincidental but it's always seemed that these people needed more attention than anything else. As a result, just having a place for people to talk openly was immensely valuable. Our university had something called "A Place to Talk" where they were trained to be active listeners and not give advice. It's hard to actively participate in conversation without expressing your opinion but that's what they did. I really think they saved lives and probably money on a regular basis.
Firing someone, banning them from campus, chasing them for masses of debt, and so on and so forth are things that make people desperate. Until we can fix that, this is just going to happen again and again.
And no, that doesn't mean living in some sort of happy joy world in which everyone keeps their job forever and passes all of their exams.
It means living in a world in which failure doesn't mean complete loss of everything. A world which isn't 'get rich or die trying'.
I'm at a loss for how to help, beyond just being there as much as possible. They are doing all they can to get better, seeing a psychiatrist, taking medications etc -- but they are still having suicidal thoughts on a daily basis.
I hope things work out for both of you. And please understand, whatever decision your friend makes is theirs. You can only help them so much.
>whatever decision your friend makes is theirs
That's the hardest part. I know that logically but they are alive now. And I know there is a real chance they could wind up taking their own life at some point. I want to fucking prevent that from happening. It's a helpless feeling knowing that I can't. At least not with any degree of certainty.
HR, Health & Safety officers, etc
But of course analogies are sub-optimal.
I overlooked it when I first read the article, but after the family member's story is a response by the vice president for student affairs. Read it to see their perspective.
> with all the people saying that W&M are just 'covering their asses', do you believe that they should be held liable for the intentional actions of their adult students?
I don't understand what you are saying here. I suspect that W&M's actions (like immediately banning the student from campus, and resisting having him return even after receiving a doctor's bill of good mental health) were motivated by "covering their asses". Of course I do not believe that W&M should be held liable for the actions of their students... nor have I seen anyone suggesting that. Did I misunderstand what you were trying to say?
But even if they're not liable, they're still, to some extent, responsible for the students at their university. 18-22 year olds are adults, but many are still developing emotionally and have just moved from living at home and the K-12 educational model into an environment where they're expected to be independent and fully self-responsible, and the academic work is likely far harder and more stressful than anything they've ever experienced before. It's a transition period and the university is, rightly or wrongly, viewed as a pseudo-guardian during this time. If they don't provide the image of performing this role, then they'll be viewed poorly.
Edit{snip}
"Capacity" is variable. Someone may have capacity to feed themselves but not to make financial decisions. They might have capacity to give assent, but not consent, for surgery, but have capacity to give consent for other medical treatment.
When you remove capacity you should restrict that to the minimum actions you need to take to protect that person from harm.
Of course, that's all England which operates to European human rights laws which operates to international human rights treaties. Things might be different in the US.
The school didn't call to see how he was doing? I have never heard any school doing that. He was only out of school for less than 2 months.
The last suggestion that he killed himself because he was not readmitted in a timely matter. Remember, de was admitted less than a month later. This wasn't some year long process.
It is a very sad story and the sister is looking for someone to blame, but I see the school did nothing wrong here. The implication that you shouldn't seek college counseling for fear of taking time off is very dangerous. It is important for people to seek counseling as soon as they feel they need it.
Such precautions are neither inherently wrong nor right. But if they have a strong side effect of hurting the student, without protecting the college from anything real, they are wrong.
>Let's say they stepped up and went beyond their responsibilities to help
Beyond? I strongly disagree that it's beyond their responsibilities to refrain from banning a student in good standing from campus.
>How exactly does that help the rest of the student body
I can make the same argument about every group. Now nobody will help. We're definitely not better of in that world. NIMBY is a bad motivator.
I agree banning a student can be heavy-handed unless he was deemed a danger to other students or maybe other things warranted such a response. But I would imagine a university has the right to remove anyone from campus and ask that they not return.
I disagree, there will almost always be someone offering to help, it's human nature. But why is it the university's responsibility to help in a case where they choose not to do so? Just because one group decides to help in certain situations doesn't mean everyone else has to help. If the university decides they don't want to help in these situations then they have that right. Some people may not like that. Some people think it makes for a better world to force others to do things they don't want to do. Force them because it's been predetermined it's for the greater good, but I see that as going too far and a huge potential for abuse.
No, I'll try to be clearer. The very idea of precautions is neutral. Specific precautions are good or bad based on whether they are likely to harm the student and/or prevent harm.
> I would imagine a university has the right to remove anyone from campus and ask that they not return.
Once someone has started a degree program at a university, I would very much hope that cause is required to remove them.
> But why is it the university's responsibility to help in a case where they choose not to do so?
They don't have to 'help', per se, but I expect them to not hinder. They are already giving away counseling, all they have to do is not interfere. Keep to the existing agreement. (Without using any "cancel at any time" loopholes they put into their contract of adhesion.)
People who are banished are cut off from social support structures and have a lot of time available to dwell on their situation which involves increased costs and delayed graduation. That increases their risk of attempted or completed suicide. Other students see the distruption and are reluctant to seek help, and that again increases their risk.