Suicide

[YankeeFan]

Don't anyone worry. I'm not considering it at all.

The last few days have really sucked though, and tonight I just learned that two students from my old high school have committed suicide in the last two weeks, and both did it in the same manner -- by throwing themselves in front of a commuter train. (There's a station adjacent to the campus, and a lot of kids, as I did, take the train to school. The note I saw said it happened after school, which makes me think it was probably done in front of a group of classmates.)

I don't have any information about the individual kids, or what their motivations might have been, but I still find it incredibly upsetting.

I'm just heartbroken for their families, who I don't even know.

If anyone is ever suicidal, please reach out to someone.

 

[YankeeFan]

Looking now, it looks to be in all the New York papers:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/nyregion/fordham-prep-rattled-by-2-students-suicides.html?_r=0

Fordham Prep confirms sophomore killed by train Monday in Bronx

 

[Donny in his element]

Hate hearing stories like this.

 

[Dick Whitman]

The copycat/contagious nature of this is what is disturbing. There were a rash of them, two or three, at a high school near me a couple years ago.

 

[The Big Ragu]

MTA worker after teen’s suicide: ‘I hope the motherf–ker suffered’ | New York Post

Apparently a conductor was upset that the suicide screwed up the train schedule and made a horrible comment over a hot mic and everyone on the train heard it. They were understandably upset.

 

[LongTimeListener]

The copycat/contagious nature of this is what is disturbing. There were a rash of them, two or three, at a high school near me a couple years ago.

Palo Alto has had a lot of these, especially in two timeframes (2009 and again this year). Most of the theories focus on the extreme pressure students face at one of the highest-achieving districts in the nation.

I know the NYT visited too, but here's what the Atlantic wrote.

The Silicon Valley Suicides

McGee was new to the district that year, but he’d known the history when he took the job. The 10-year suicide rate for the two high schools is between four and five times the national average. Starting in the spring of 2009 and stretching over nine months, three Gunn students, one incoming freshman, and one recent graduate had put themselves in front of an oncoming Caltrain. Another recent graduate had hung himself. While the intervening years had been quieter, they had not been comforting. School counselors remained “overwhelmed and overloaded” with an influx of kids considered high risk, says Roni Gillenson, who has helped oversee Gunn’s mental-health program since 2006. Twelve percent of Palo Alto high-school students surveyed in the 2013–14 school year reported having seriously contemplated suicide in the past 12 months.

In McGee’s third month on the job, about three weeks before Cameron’s death, a girl from a local private school had jumped off an overpass. Then, a day later, a kid who’d graduated from Gunn the year before, Quinn Gens, had killed himself on the tracks.

 

[Ace]

Don't anyone worry. I'm not considering it at all.

The last few days have really sucked though, and tonight I just learned that two students from my old high school have committed suicide in the last two weeks, and both did it in the same manner -- by throwing themselves in front of a commuter train. (There's a station adjacent to the campus, and a lot of kids, as I did, take the train to school. The note I saw said it happened after school, which makes me think it was probably done in front of a group of classmates.)

I don't have any information about the individual kids, or what their motivations might have been, but I still find it incredibly upsetting.

I'm just heartbroken for their families, who I don't even know.

If anyone is ever suicidal, please reach out to someone.

If it is true that they wanted to do it in front of classmates like this, I'm gonna guess they had some issue or interaction with students or staff that led to or contributed to their depression and suicidal thoughts.

 

[YankeeFan]

If it is true that they wanted to do it in front of classmates like this, I'm gonna guess they had some issue or interaction with students or staff that led to or contributed to their depression and suicidal thoughts.

Hard to say.

From the news reports, the first student did it in the morning at a suburban station, in a town that doesn't send a lot of kids to the school. (It's further north than where most kids come from.)

The second kid did it after school, at a stop that serves the school. Classmates surely witnessed this.

But, what role did the first suicide play on the second student.

I am a little upset looking at the schools Facebook feed. They announced the death of the second student, and mentioned grief counselor sand such. Without saying it, it sounded like suicide.

But, the death of the first student went unmentioned. Facebook was all happy talk about sports and such. Makes me worry they didn't take the first suicide seriously enough.

 

[CD Boogie]

I take that train line home from NYC each day and was delayed on Monday getting home bc of the incident. No big deal when you consider the circumstances. That MTA worker should lose their job for saying that about the kid. Sadly, there seems to be two to three suicides per month on that train line.

 

[cranberry]

I'm on the Harlem Line, but I think the New Haven line also goes through Fordham-Botanical Gardens. Service was messed up for hours and Grand Central was as packed as I've seen it in a long time. This is about 6:15. I decided to leave and go grab a bite to eat then came back around 7:30. It was still a bit of a mess but they were running some trains north.

The conductors often communicate to each other publicly (usually about checking a door that doesn't close right), but I can't even fathom that one of them would consider saying something like that on a public channel.

My daughter has lost classmates at both prep school and college to suicide in recent years, too. For whatever reason, it at least seems to be more prevalent than it used to be. I get the impression kids feel a lot more pressure these days.

 

[SnarkShark]

I've actually wrote about suicide a lot when I was covering preps. There were three during a two-month stretch at one point and all were football players of varying prominence. One of the private high schools made a very impassioned case that we shouldn't report on it, because it would inspire more suicides.

Going into those living rooms to interview the families forever changed me.

In the aftermath of each, I got hundreds of messages from all different directions. Everything from "Why aren't you covering this epidemic more?" to "Why are you glorifying such a shameful, selfish act?" to "If these kids wanted to be dead, we should let them die."

It's not a time of my career I look upon fondly.

One of my best friends told me recently that he's had thoughts about it before. Not serious, but things like "What would happen if I just drove my car off the road? What would the reaction be?" and it scared the **** out of me. I immediately told him to call me if he ever has thoughts about that again, but when I really thought about it, I even remember times during my younger years when I had similar strange fantasies in my mind, but never acted on them, of course.

The whole topic is awful and fascinating at the same time.

 

[ChrisLong]

Starting about two years ago, over the course of a year, I was notified of three suicides:
1-The 16-year-old grandson of my cousin.
2-the 35-year old son of a close high school friend.
3- the 30-something brother of a 20-year co-worker.

No. 2 has been especially difficult for my friend, who is a dear, sweet woman and a friend anybody and everybody. Her son was married a little more than a year after a 14-year relationship. The reason for this tragedy is and will always remain a mystery.
And there is a disturbing pattern of suicides in this city in that age group -- not the Silicon Valley version posted above, but not too far away. The local newspaper wrote a lengthy story about it 5-6 years ago. Last year, it updated the story online because there have been four more since then, including my friend's son, who is not mentioned in the original story. The story (link below) provides no answers, just a bunch of theories and possibilities that most likely can't be proven.

SUICIDES: HIGH RATE AMONG CARMEL CLASS LEAVES MANY ASKING 'WHY'

 

[SpreadOffense7]

You never know what people are going through. Be there to lend a helping ear during tough times. It makes ALL the difference. It did for me.

 

[DeskMonkey1]

It's hard to open up about it

 

[Buck]

The approach for local media covering suicides, at least the suicides of young people, seems to have changed significantly since I was a young reporter and even later as an assigning editor.

We always maintained the old 'public person, public place' determination about whether we treated a suicide as news.
Clearly someone stepping off a crowded train platform meets that standard.

However, about a year ago we had a football player take his life around here, and the mid-major a little up the freeway covered it as a news/sports story. This was not a public suicide, and the young man was not a standout player on the football team.
I was really surprised.

When I was still the PIO at the college, we had a young man, a student, take his life, and that was covered by multiple local media outlets.

It is a subject that needs to be discussed and sunshined, in the local and national media and in many other forums; however, I'm still uncomfortable with the treating of a single incident as a news item.

Just showing my age, I guess.

 

[YankeeFan]

Every suicide is a tragedy, but I think we do a disservice -- as a society, not the media per se -- if we sweep it under the rug.

We lose an opportunity to have a conversation, and to destigmatize depression and other mental health issue if we sweep it under the rug.

The conversation that results from one suicide might save someone else's life.

This recent blog post/article pissed me off. It says the subject of the movie "abruptly died" in April. Well, yes, he did. He committed suicide, and it was widely reported. I don't know why you would avoid saying that now:

 

[Alma]

In the last year, lost a friend -- suicide by alcoholism/alcohol poisoning, as the person made it clear they were living out their last days to an addiction they no longer desired to/couldn't stop - and another friend lost his daughter. The latter one was a stunner; she left two kids, no note, finances weren't great but not the worst, plus her parents (my friend + his wife) helped some.

 

[qtlaw]

Somehow my parents and/or grandparents somehow taught me that whatever my situation is, it can always be worse, so I've always been wired to be an optimist. I've had someone in my extended family attempt suicide (about 30 years ago) and discussed the subject to someone close who had such thoughts and I've always had a very hard time understanding it. I've tried over the years to learn to be empathetic and continue to try better every day but its one of the hardest things to understand. Most importantly, I've tried to condition my boys the same way and pass along to them that they are so fortunate and it can always be worse. I know that's hardly comforting advice when anyone has sunken to those depths but I am only hoping that what my family taught me, can help my boys avoid the depths of despair.

 

[User 1019]

A Soldier who was in my company when I commanded in the 101st killed himself the day after Christmas. He was a captain who was about to retire, and the Army was all he knew.

He'd been an instructor pilot for many years, but had gone to school and become a physician's assistant. He was a good Soldier, but a real asshole, and we butted heads many times.

I conducted a monthly urinalysis (as is Army policy) shortly before I came out of command, and his name came up. He called me at about 0900 and told me he'd had an accident. He had been administering a drug to his son, who had leukemia, when a few drops of the liquid pain meds spilled on his thumb. Instead of wiping it off he instinctively licked it off his thumb and was afraid that might show up. Although a fishy story, I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

I've thought about that decision many times since December 26, wondering if I could've prevented his suicide in that 2-minute phone call.

 

[YankeeFan]