Fuck off.
Mental illness isn't the next talking point that you get to include in your "good-little-progressive" quota for the day. This will not be KONY 2012 because this isn't a problem that you can throw money and "awareness" at until it just goes away or climbs back under a rock. This will require work and it will require shoving yourself face-first into the ugly side of human life and the human mind. If I sound melodramatic, it's because I'm still bristling at the latest bad handling in a long line of poor responses to suicide in my community.
Earlier this week, Mary-Catherine Johnson, a student of Appalachian State, was found dead in her dorm room. She was 19 years old and she was from Raleigh.
Early last semester, a young freshman named Anna Smith went missing. After two weeks of searching, police found her body in the woods near campus. She was 18 years old and from High Point.
These tragedies have rocked Appalachian's campus and caused a great deal of grief and uproar from students and faculty alike. In response, Appalachian State sent an email from Chancellor Sheri Everts with a vague link to a university website dedicated to giving you all sorts of phone numbers....including 911! Have no fear, victims of mental illness and personal strife, Appalachian has its best web designers on the case.
Tongue in cheek aside, I understand that the university is trying. I really do. It's nice that the Chancellor takes time out of her busy day of posing for photographs to write us an email about how much this death has affected her personally. But you guys really aren't trying hard enough. Let's take the counseling center, for example. It's a great resource on paper. Free counseling (occasionally with dogs!) for all Appalachian State students! What a bargain, right? That is, if you wait for several weeks for them to match you up with a counselor who then spends the first meeting talking about the problems they'd like to address in the coming months and sends you packing until two weeks from now.
For those of you that do not understand the toll mental illness takes on the mind, let me put it this way: If you were to walk into the emergency room with a wound that, while not immediately a threat, might become one over time, would you find it reasonable to be told that a doctor will be available to see you in two weeks? Fuck no.
I get it. Hiring enough mental health professionals to accommodate a university of thousands is a daunting task. But it's not an impossible one.
Let me be clear: I am not blaming the university for the suicides of its students. There is no way that people in power could know what each and every student is going through. What I am saying is that there are ways to prevent this in the future that the university is not currently exploring. An idea off the top of my head: Dorm counselors. Because right now the only in-house solution are several confused kids who just happen to have a shiny badge that says "Residence Assistant."
For those of you that do not understand the toll mental illness takes on the mind, let me put it this way: If you were to walk into the emergency room with a wound that, while not immediately a threat, might become one over time, would you find it reasonable to be told that a doctor will be available to see you in two weeks? Fuck no.
I get it. Hiring enough mental health professionals to accommodate a university of thousands is a daunting task. But it's not an impossible one.
Let me be clear: I am not blaming the university for the suicides of its students. There is no way that people in power could know what each and every student is going through. What I am saying is that there are ways to prevent this in the future that the university is not currently exploring. An idea off the top of my head: Dorm counselors. Because right now the only in-house solution are several confused kids who just happen to have a shiny badge that says "Residence Assistant."
I'm not saying I have all the ideas, either. I'm just an angry bystander who finds the amount of effort and passion put into suicide prevention lax and irresponsible.
We don't want phone numbers; we want help.
While I completely respect where you are coming from and could not agree more with the motivations behind this post, I want to address a few of the points you made.
ReplyDeleteFirst, as someone who utilized the Counseling Center services for over two years, I will say from personal experience that if you walk into their office in distress and say so, they will do everything in their power to make sure you can speak with someone before you leave.
Second, one of those phone numbers you don't want actually saves lives of students here on a regular basis. Call (828)262-2150 after Counseling Center hours (say on a Friday night, 3 am) and the campus police will connect you to the counselor on-duty. That counselor will stay on the phone with you for as long as you need (say an hour and a half) to make sure you are safe and to calm you down and talk you through the place you're in. This happens to be a seriously critical phone number if you are having suicidal thoughts or you are with a friend who is. From personal experience, that phone number is more important than nearly any other platitudes or advice you could be given.
And finally, are you aware that this past year the University applied for thousands of dollars in grant money to help sponsor suicide prevention programs on this campus? They know its a problem and they're looking everywhere to try and fix it. As part of this grant, they hired a Suicide Prevention Program Coordinator, her name is Elisabeth Cavallaro, and she hosts Suicide Prevention Gatekeeper Trainings at request and on a schedule to help teach students, faculty, and staff how to recognize and talk to someone in distress and how to get them more help. You can sign up for these here: http://preventsuicide.appstate.edu/pagesmith/9.
This University loves its students and is trying to help. I know you're not trying to blame them, but I think you also should recognize that we as the students need to shoulder some of this responsibility. We have to be the ones caring for our friends and family. It's up to us, the ones closest, who can see the signs the earliest, to help. That's what that "vague website" is trying to communicate. The University can sponsor thousands of programs and try and fund as many counselors as possible, but until we take the initiative to educate ourselves and make this our responsibility, it isn't going to get better. It's Up to Me.
Before I get into anything else: Thank you so much for commenting! As much as I enjoy hearing myself talk, open dialogue is my foremost goal in writing on this blog. I wish everyone took the time to throw in their two cents (or more).
DeleteBut, I digress. To address your points, I think you're absolutely right about the need for us as students to "shoulder some of the responsibility." In fact, I feel remiss for having left it out of my original post. The importance of community and watching out for your peers is critical. Furthermore, education on the subject is vital. As much widespread attention as mental illness is getting, there are still so many people out there who have very little clue about what it entails.
That being said, I don't think that we should necessarily be the buffer between students and potential suicide in the absence of institutional action. Admittedly, there isn't a COMPLETE absence; as we've both noted, there ARE resources available. However, these resources fall short in my eyes and in the eyes of many of my peers. (This is purely anecdotal evidence, obviously)
I think these resources are fantastic and I love that they are there. I honestly, truly do. I think that, without them, things might be even worse. But I also believe that pointing to what we've gotten right does not absolve the university of doing more. Am I being pushy and unreasonable? Perhaps. But I'm willing to be so if it means opening a line of conversation that pesters the university to the point where further changes are made.
Once again, I am no expert in this field and cannot claim to have all (if any) of the answers. But I'd like to think I'm pretty damn good at keeping a conversation going, if only for a short while.
Hey. I just wanted to let you know, I think your blog is fantastic. I posted this article to my facebook page a few days ago along with my own commentary. It was shared by two other friends of mine. Your articles are super witty and very relatable and I can't wait to see what you write in the future!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for reading and sharing! It's reactions like this that drive me to write more. People like you are vital in the process of "wit." Otherwise, I'm just speaking to myself and several annoyed Facebook friends. ;)
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