I don’t think this is mundane or pointless; however, I didn’t know where else to put it.
During the last class of the day today, we were told that we had to stay in our classrooms. No one was allowed in the halls. Our teacher was called outside and came back in with a grim look on his face. He refused to tell us what was going on.
We heard announcements over the loudspeakers informing us that we would be released by bus number. Students who drove would have to stay put. We weren’t allowed to go anywhere near the student parking lot, and there were teachers literally forming a human barricade for that door.
I didn’t see this, but I heard that there were ambulances and police cars in the parking lot. There was wild speculation about what was going on. Some people were even making jokes!
I finally heard what happened. Apparently, some guy from another school whose girlfriend attends my school tried to kill himself in our parking lot.
I don’t know who he was or whether he succeeded yet.
But Oh. My. God. What can possibly make someone feel that they just can’t go on? What would make someone decide that they have to kill themselves? I just don’t understand.
We had a junior high school kid jump from a third story window when I was in my senior year (my high school ran from 6th to 12th grade). He ended up in the school parking lot, right outside the window of my computer class. He did it because his “girlfriend” broke up with him.
As young teenage males are apt to doing, we started making light of the situtation. I got home and told my mom and dad what had happened and started to repeat a few jokes that I had heard. When my younger brother came through the door I started repeating them again. We went to the same school and I didn’t realize that the kid was in some of his classes. He didn’t know him personally but I still felt like an ass for saying the things that I did.
The highs are so high and the lows are so low at that age. Taking a deep breath and looking at things long term is advisable, but admittedly I wasn’t always real good at it then either.
Sorry monica, I know this was disturbing and I hope someday you find the proper place to file the memory.
Monica there are two threads that may help you answer this question. They have been active in the last week.
[ul][li]"Who HASN’T contemplated suicide?"[/li][li]"How does “suicide” work?"[/ul][/li]
I haven’t been to the second one. Just found it searching for the first one listed.
Oh God, poor kid. I hope he did not succeed and that he lives to realize the old adage: “This too shall pass.”
Please keep us posted if you can monica.
The news story is now online. It’s only a short blurb, so I’ll copy/paste it.
[quote]
Virginia Beach, VA, February 21st, 2003, 3:07 p.m.) Virginia Beach Police responded to a call from First Colonial High School this afternoon, concerning an individual that had been shot.
At around 1:30 this afternoon, Virginia Beach 911 received a call that there was a victim of a gunshot wound at <my high school>. Upon arrival at the scene, police found a male inside a car at the school with a gunshot wound. Paramedics also responded to the call.
The investigation indicates that the gunshot may have been self-inflicted. The individual is not a student in the Virginia Beach school system. He is an adult male, and not a resident of Virginia Beach, nor is he a staff member of the Virginia Beach school system. Students were released from the school. The individual was transported to a local hospital and at this time, has not been pronounced dead.
Once again, this person was not a student or a teacher.
For general consumption: Please don’t do this. Even if it’s only a short blurb. We very much frown on posting copyrighted material on these boards. In general, a couple sentences and the URL are sufficient. For longer articles we permit somewhat longer direct quotations. My concern is that if we begin to allow postings of entire “short blurbs,” they’ll become successively longer and longer. That’s somewhere we don’t wanna go. The owner of this message board, The Chicago Reader, as one might assume relies heavily on copyright law and wishes to see it strictly enforced.
Thats a really sad story. But you ask what would make a person do this? Depression. I know because I tried killing myself twice over a breakup. Its really hard to take bad news when you’re depressed. You think the pain will be forever and the only way to get rid of it is death. I feel really bad for that boy. I hope he makes it and gets help.
I’m hoping this was just a “cry for help” attempt rather than an attempt he wanted to succeed. The former involves less damage to the person - any idea where he shot himself? - becuase they don’t really want to die but are dangerously close to that point. I’m thinking if he wanted to really end it all at that moment, he wouldn’t have done it in a public place where someone could easily find him and help him. At least, that’s what I’m hoping happened here. I have a relative who went down that road - took a whole bottle of Tylanol and then called his girlfriend about it. He got physical and (I think, I hope) mental help for this and seems okay now.
I was a senior in high school when a classmate with whom I shared two classes but didn’t know well hanged himself over a weekend. I didn’t know anything about it until a request for a moment of silence in his memory was made at the end of first period Monday morning. I was shocked, of course, and asked a classmate if she knew what happened. She said that he’d killed himself, that he’d jumped from an overpass or something - rumors, y’know.
I know that he hanged himself only because I was very close with a particular teacher; I mentioned the overpass thing & she quietly corrected me, just for my own knowledge.
One of the assistant principals came to each of his classes to speak to us. She said that he’d come to visit her during eighth period that Friday; I recalled that he’d left English class - that must’ve been where he’d gone. She said that they’d talked & that he seemed to be doing allright by the time he left, but I suppose that didn’t stick, sadly. Although this particular principal visited only the classes in which he’d been enrolled, the whole school got grief counseling
Rumors flew around that problems with his girlfriend were to blame - silly high school students running their mouths. Why did he feel that killing himself was the only answer? I don’t know. I know why I’e felt suicidal in the past, but I can’t speak for others.
I do know that I was surprised at how deeply his suicide affected me. If you feel you need to talk to someone to sort out your feelings about this incident, don’t hesitate to do so. Just because the guy isn’t (wasn’t?) a classmate, or just because he survived (hopefully) doesn’t mean that you haven’t been personally affected. If you feel you don’t need to see a counselor, that’s okay as well.
When my daughter died in my arms I really felt how precious life was. I wondered how anyone would want to rod themself of it. I few nights later, I imagined once when Naomi fell down and scraped her knee. I could almost hear her cry. I lost it. I cried like I never had in my life. That is when I felt such a pain that I understood that someone might do anything to end it. Even end their life.
