Last week, members of the Caltech community received a dreaded piece of email: a student had taken their own life. The tragedy was compounded by the fact that this was the third Caltech student to do so in the last year.
Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among college students. In the aftermath of such an event, there is a feeling of powerlessness; you try to console or sympathize with anyone who might have known the student, but at the end of the day there’s no much you can do. But it is possible to take some steps to try to prevent such tragedies from happening.
It is believed that, in over 80 percent of cases, people who attempt suicide are struggling with some form of mental illness, such as depression, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia. Although there is no way to know for sure whether someone is contemplating such a drastic step, there are certain warning signs, including severe depression and changes in mood or habits. Caltech has set up a website on preventing suicide and violence, which goes over some of the signs and ways that a friend can take steps to help persuade someone from going too far:
I’m sure that many universities (and companies) have similar resources; it’s worth taking a minute to familiarize yourself with what’s available where you work or go to school.
Most importantly, if you’ve ever contemplated suicide yourself: don’t do it. That’s cheap and easy advice, but the crucial point is to make sure you stop, talk to people, and take advantage of counselors. Being a college student can be an extraordinarily stressful and pressure-filled time; if you’re feeling overwhelmed, be assured that it’s not just you, and that it is possible to get through it. You will find people who are willing to listen, understand, and try to be helpful, if you are willing to reach out to them. Tough times can be overcome, but taking a life is irrevocable. Seek help before the pressure gets to be too much.
Presumably part of the problem is losing the social network when one goes to uni – assuming this was an undergrad.
In my case – well, I didn’t commit suicide – the lack of supervision during my post grad made it too easy to isolate myself and lose tuch with … well, everything.
One other piece of advice—when you hear someone talking about killing themselves (e.g. “Sometimes I just feel like ending it all”), take them seriously. It’s all too easy to brush off such talk as unserious (understandably, the people hearing it don’t want to believe it could be true), but in many cases it really is a warning sign that the person who said it is going to attempt suicide, and soon.
Modern society has created so many isolated people who feel alienated and alone with their issues it is a wonder this hasn’t happened more often.
And if we don’t have people who outright destroy themselves, we have millions with maladjusted personalities.
So when and how does this end, or do we just wait for Soylent Green to come along and solve these problems?
I thought you were in favor of euthanasia, Sean. Suicide is just a form of self-induced euthanasia. Besides, if you tell someone not to commit suicide, you might as well tell a pregnant woman not to commit an abortion. Both involve the killing of a human life.
Cheers.
I thought you were in favor of euthanasia, Sean. Suicide is just a form of self-induced euthanasia.
How pathetic. Taking a serious matter that’s wrenched at the hearts of Sean and his colleagues, and attempting to score a cheap political point from it. You should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself.
I am in favor of letting people end their own lives, if it’s done in a responsible way — plenty of consultation, help of a doctor, verification that the person is mentally capable, and so on. Typically that would be relevant for people with terminal medical conditions or living with extreme and incurable pain. Whether you agree with that position or not, it’s very different than a lonely college student killing themselves in their dorm room, as I hope most people would recognize.
Sean,
I think some of the problem, especially among highly competitive people in highly competitive fields is that it becomes so difficult to ask for help. People think it makes them appear weak. They worry about being locked away somewhere, ruining their lives, and then choose death as the better solution.
It’s so hard to get help in those circumstances. I wish there was something I could do.
Also, if I ever have an abortion, I’m naming it Lester.
Sean, lester knows there is a huge difference between suicide and euthanasia (unless he really is as dumb as a rock). As I said, he’s simply trying score a cheap political point (and missing by a mile).
Its very important to educate people about what to look for, especially students, and then take signs seriously. Often people aren’t as together as they appear to be.
Very sad to hear this. At least, however, it was not hidden and Caltech has at least taken steps to make its community aware and informed as to what to look for and what to do. When I was in graduate school at UCSC, sudent deaths from all causes were kept under tight wraps, which I my mind prevented even the chance to learn from them – terribly unfortunate, since many of them were so avoidable.
I do wonder a bit about the timing of this most recent suicide. Caltech would not be in session now, thus many of the peer-support mechanisms, at least, would likely to be absent for those sticking around the campus for summer research jobs.
“It is believed that, in over 80 percent of cases, people who attempt suicide are struggling with some form of mental illness, such as depression, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia”.
Yes it is believed. Isn’t that convenient? Don’t blame the anthropophagous, misanthropic way societies are organized but blame the individuals and call them basically crazy. Who fabricates these statistics anyway?
I’m a grad student at Caltech, and wondered about this a bit. I didn’t know any of the students personally, but it’s still scary when this kind of thing goes on around you. And three in a few months seems like a really high number.
I talked to a good friend of mine who happens to be a counselor, and he said that actually groups of suicides are a decently well understood phenomenon. In any community there is always a certain number of people who are on the edge, and something as emotionally charged as a suicide (or multiple suicides) in the community (especially a small community) is frequently enough to tip more of them over.
I don’t think it helps that this school (in my humble opinion) tends to over-emphasize intellectual development and waaay de-emphasize social and emotional development. Granted it is kind of a self-selected community, so there’s no great way to fix that, except maybe for those of us who think these issues are important to talk about them more. I suspect that if more people understand what’s going on and why we need to make the extra effort to pay attention to those around us for signs of distress (as well as what the signs are), it could do a lot of good. Kudos to Sean for starting the discussion!
“I am in favor of letting people end their own lives, if it’s done in a responsible way ”
Sean, are you in favor of having someone decide whether a little baby who hasn’t been born yet die, instead of giving him/her a chance to live? If you feel that there is value in the life of a lonely college student (as I do too), why don’t you feel that there is value in the life of an unborn child?
Sean,
Thanks for this. As someone who struggled with depression as an undergrad and is now switching schools for grad school, it is important for me to remember there are mental health resources available.
If you feel that there is value in the life of a lonely college student (as I do too), why don’t you feel that there is value in the life of an unborn child?
Simple. A fetus, before it is viable outside the womb, is not a human life.
Are there any harder questions on this quiz?
This thread is not about abortion.
tacitus,
I’m not trying to score a political point. I dislike politics. I’m talking about a moral point.
No, you were derailing a thread about a very serious topic.
You see that yawning precipice? It leads to liberty. You see that flood, that river, that well? Liberty houses within them. You see that stunted, parched and sorry tree? From each branch, liberty hangs. Your neck, your throat, your heart are so many ways of escape from slavery… Do you inquire the road to freedom? You shall find it in every vein of your body.
Seneca, De Ira, 3.15.3-4
Suicide is not always an act of choice! Its imposibile for anybody to imagine whats its like, unless you’ve stood there on that precipice.
I think you’re right, Qubit. I have been depressed, seriously believing I was going to die from ALS. I consider myself to be a rational person, not prone to believing in things without evidence, but nothing my doctors, friends, or family told me could dissuade me of my belief I was going to die a horrible death.
Fortunately I was never suicidal, but I only snapped out of it once it became clear that my health wasn’t deteriorating as it would if I really had ALS (along with some serious counseling).
An acquaintance of mine wasn’t so lucky. He thought he had contracted cancer from a botched X-ray examination, and spent years seeing doctors all around the country trying to get them to diagnose him correctly. In the end he came to believe that they were all conspiring to cover up the truth by saying there was nothing wrong with him, but nothing his friends could say would dissuade him from his delusions. Tragically, he ended up killing his wife and then himself, leaving four little orphaned girls behind.
Nobody chooses to be in these types of situations. It’s not just a case of “bucking up your ideas.” It takes time and a lot of help to get out of it.
Suicide is not common in college students. At 7.5 per 100,000 they only commit suicide at 1/2 the rate of their non-college age mates. Three in a few months in one tiny school (<1000 undergrads) is surely a disproportionate and terrible shock.
I hope somebody in administration is at least looking at the question of whether Caltech's notoriously brutal and sleep anihilating homework schedule is implicated. Lack of sleep is correlated with depression.
Sean- wow — intense topic. i’ll just say very briefly that i appreciate
you opened this up, posted on this. Until a person close to me took her
own life — in a very well-publicized case at Stanford, in 2001 — i was
very distant from what it meant, and had little understanding or
awareness. since then, that has all changed. and the rest of my
framework of life, and death, as well. thx for the post. -M
One of my Astro 101 students took his own life last semester. My community college has a mental health clinic, and a few counselors came in to help me break the news to my class and make the students aware of the options that they have to get assistance on campus. The students were stunned, as the one who had committed suicide was always talkative, vibrant, engaged in the class… not at all fitting the stereotype we carry in our heads about who is at risk.
Best of luck to the Caltech family in recovering from your sad losses.
Suicide is the canary in the coal mine. Many of my college friends left because of the high stress inhumane environment, including more than half of the ones I thought were the most brilliant. When our (unnamed here but major) University came up for accreditation review many student groups attempted to have their voices heard about some of the appalling conditions. They were totally ignored. Failure to diagnose and correct frequent administrative and occasional academic dysfunction results in an enormous loss to the academic community and society in general. This was all many years ago, in a brief “progressive” era. I hear that things have only gotten worse. It’s politically easier to point out the flaws in the most vulnerable individuals suffering within dysfunctional institutions than to seriously address the shortcomings of those institutions.
_Greg
the only thing surprising is how “few” the number of suicides are given the way most of the students are treated by the faculty in big name schools. Most faculty in big name schools have the attitude “if they can’t handle the academic environment, then they don’t belong in it”…nice way to ensure that only assholes continue to get jobs in academia. I have been in such environments more than once to know. We can “blog”, encourage “counseling” and all kinds of other bullshit….but the fact is that nothing really changes. Academia will remain the same: arrogant, awkward, and elitist. More students will continue to commit suicide and more blogs will be written with no real change coming to academia. This is just lip service.