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[spork]

Since this subject seems to not be of any interest in the VTU shootings thread in Meet and Greet, I thought I'd bring it up here.  Questions:

- what are the signs of student mental instability?

- what are the signs of such mental instability becoming a safety hazard?

- what should faculty do to try to eliminate such safety hazards from campus?

I'll give one example, from a former job: 

A student taking 2 of her 4 classes with me during her final semester had a D/F average in each of them, too low to meet graduation requirements.  She was in denial about her situation until I called her into my office and said getting a C in either class was impossible.  This student had been given undeserved Cs in other classes by other faculty in the department -- they didn't want to have to deal with her again.  This same student was under the care of a psychiatrist, taking prescribed meds in unprescribed ways, making regular trips to the campus counseling center, and broke down sobbing in my office when I finally got through to her about her situation.  She should not have been in college.

This particular student did not seem to be a threat to me or others, but she was certainly mentally unbalanced.  I confronted her,  as I have with other students in trouble -- it's my standard policy.  I have never been verbally threatened when doing so, but if I am, the police will definitely become involved.

[anthroid]

spork, can we leave this until tomorrow?

[sikora]

Since this subject seems to not be of any interest in the VTU shootings thread in Meet and Greet, I thought I'd bring it up here.  Questions:

- what are the signs of student mental instability?

- what are the signs of such mental instability becoming a safety hazard?

- what should faculty do to try to eliminate such safety hazards from campus?

I'll give one example, from a former job: 

A student taking 2 of her 4 classes with me during her final semester had a D/F average in each of them, too low to meet graduation requirements.  She was in denial about her situation until I called her into my office and said getting a C in either class was impossible.  This student had been given undeserved Cs in other classes by other faculty in the department -- they didn't want to have to deal with her again.  This same student was under the care of a psychiatrist, taking prescribed meds in unprescribed ways, making regular trips to the campus counseling center, and broke down sobbing in my office when I finally got through to her about her situation.  She should not have been in college.

This particular student did not seem to be a threat to me or others, but she was certainly mentally unbalanced.  I confronted her,  as I have with other students in trouble -- it's my standard policy.  I have never been verbally threatened when doing so, but if I am, the police will definitely become involved.

Please be careful here!  Most criminals are mentally normal.  This kind of thinking is why it is hard for those of us with mental illnesses (in my case, bipolar disorder) find it hard to find work, keep friends, etc., when we are honest about our condition.  If you have a mental illness, and others know it, you lose the right to a bad day, blues over a relationship, struggles with family, with late teen angst.  MOST MENTALLY ILL KILLERS KILL THEMSELVES.  ONLY.  NEVER THREATEN ANOTHER.  

MOST MURDERERS ARE NOT MENTALLY ILL.

Please, be careful. It's hard enough to deal with the stigma, to have to pass, to have to hide episodes.  To try to make a life.  In some places, it might be easier to be gay.

Obscure, but still the first dog in space

[merce]

It is a good question.

I would really like to know warning signs.

When one of my students had a big change in attitude between last semester and this I talked to her about it.

Turns out others had said she was in need of counseling. Despite this she seemed surprised that I had noticed, surprised that I had called her on it. And I told her to talk to someone, anyone. Call her mom who is very important in her life. Go to counseling, talk to friends, come and see me.
She did and does still.
Another person on my campus slit their wrists last week.

This has made me realize it is actually important to let students know we notice their behavior. They think they are invisible.

We had a shooting incident at my old U that involved someone who was not a student.
We also had a rape and murder-suicide committed by a student on that same campus.
He had apparently left inumerable signs indicating he would be taking his own life. His roommates and friends hadn't noticed. His profs had not been as severe with his behavior problems out of niceness. How could they have known that was a mistake? ANd was it really? Would acting in another way have resulted in something different? How can we know?


of course there is a difference between people with mental illness/instability and people who will allow a mental problem lead to violence.

[spork]

I am not asserting that mental illness equates to violence.  I'm talking about students who are mentally unable to manage their lives and how some respond to this inability by perpetrating violent acts.  I don't want these students in my classroom or on my campus.

[illuminata]

Spork--I answered this on the VTech thread.
And we do have to be very very cautious. There is no "list of warning signs" that would encompass the killers at all of the locations in the past 10-20 years. They were all v. different. The ONLY two commonn denominators: all were men, and all had guns & ammo.

[sikora]

I am not asserting that mental illness equates to violence.  I'm talking about students who are mentally unable to manage their lives and how some respond to this inability by perpetrating violent acts.  I don't want these students in my classroom or on my campus.

Nobody does.  But most really troubled students decompensate in other ways. Like taking an overdose if female, or eating a gun barrel is male. Or drinking too much.  Whatever. As pointed out in another thread, your biggest risk is your drive to and from campus, not we sickos.

I hope you can see how this is a sensitive issue to me.  Can you imagine saying this about other disabilities?  Most of us like me live with mental illness, we are not mental illness We don't go around talking to people who aren't there, begging on the street corner, or shooting people. 

Obscure, but still the first dog in space

[spork]

Yes, I can see how this is a sensitive issue for you.  I also understand the random ways in which people decompensate.

The following is transplanted from another thread:

True, there is no real way of preventing this from happening.  I had the police come to one of my classes because one of my students threatened his classmates with a gun, but until it turned into a viable threat, there was nothing we could do about his increasingly erratic behavior except put the counseling center and the deans on alert.  You cannot arrest someone for being irrational or strange.  Even then, they sent the cops to protect my students because they could not find the young man on campus because it was so large. 

. . . 

Did the rest of campus find out about this one?  No.  They assumed he was just unstable and not going to act on the threat.  (Rightfully, so, as it happened.)

. . . 

Here we have an example of people in positions of authority apparently making some fairly large assumptions about a person acting erratically who had uttered threats to classmates.  I don't care if such a threat is "viable" or not, I don't want such a person on campus.

Here's a thought:  is such a person actually "learning" anything in college?  In the case I originally referenced, the student was wasting her money -- she never performed better than a D level. 

[iomhaigh]

Spork, I think you need to go with your gut.  If your gut tells you that you should not be alone in a room with someone, then listen to your gut.  

For me, it is the people (including some dear friends who struggle with serious mental health issues and finding the right meds) who talk to themselves constantly in a low muttering voice while other people are having dinner with them -- those are the folks who worry me.  Indeed, when my friends who have these issues are in their muttering days, I will not be alone with them because they have both shown themselves to be irrationally violent when in those fuges (there's some word for it.... I'm not sure fuge is right.)  For me, all it takes is one coffee cup chucked at my head during a board game and the recognition that you cannot reason with someone who is having a break from reality.  I call their relatives, and we get them help.  They have been violent with others and themselves.  When on the right meds, all is fine, but when they start decompensating.... well, it is scary to watch your friend cease being recognizable and horrifying to wonder if they might someday get to the point of doing serious harm beyond what has already happened.  What is worse is that both of them have spoken with me about their fears of hurting others while having breaks.  I cannot imagine living in their minds.      

Anyhow, clearly having a dissociative moment = time to worry in general.  But, it is hard to know where a student is at emotionally because you don't have as much time/access to them as I do to my friends.  Hence, go with your gut, and know that signs of cutting or dissociative breaks are never good things, even if they do not indicate impending violence on another.  

As for the people who are going to snap and start hurting others... I'm not sure there are any universal signs. 

[gennimom]

I once had a student who had a mental illness. She did start threatening to shoot people, including other students and the principal. Because I had a classroom full of students, and she obviously did not have weapons on her at the time, I didn't send her out of the room during class. After class was over, I had a free period and went straight to the office and reported her. The other students in the class said they would keep an eye on her until she got to her next class, after which the people in charge could come get her.
She ended up in a mental institution for the next 3 months, until they got her medication balanced.

Would she have done the things she threatened? I don't know.
Was I going to wait to find out? Hell, no.

I do agree that most mentally ill people are no threat to anyone else. It is the ones who are that give the rest a bad rap.

[kaysixteen]

I suppose one could say 'dangerousness' is like porn-- one does not know exactly how to describe it but knows what it is when one sees it.  That said, most profs and other teachers are not psychiatrists or psychologists, and amateur armchair pyschoanalysis is likely to do more harm than good, in most instances at least.

[spork]

I'll go out even farther on a limb -- in the Virginia Tech incident, apparently (I'm going with information that may be proven inaccurate, but it fits with other such killings) there was:

- a male student obsessed with a female student.

- the female student ended a relationship -- real or perceived -- with the male student.

- male student purchases weapons, large amounts of ammunition, and chains.

- male student kills ex-girlfriend and a male student who is perceived by the shooter as the new object of her affection.

- male student then proceeds to the location of his academic major (not confirmed, but let's assume this), in which his performance is not meeting his or others' expectations, and kills numerous people after chaining building doors shut from the inside.

I'm going to guess that the shooter showed signs of not being the "quiet Asian kid who did well in school and never bothered anyone."  Probably he exhibited obsessive behavior toward the female student, maybe made threatening remarks or whathaveyou.  I suspect this behavior had been intensifying for much of the semester.  I bet his academic performance was in a downhill slide as well.

[allbutfoundajob]

I'll go out even farther on a limb -- in the Virginia Tech incident, apparently (I'm going with information that may be proven inaccurate, but it fits with other such killings) there was:

Is there is any reason to do this now?  Why rush to judgement by making up things you do not know? 

I am a VT grad.  I lived in West AJ.  I took classes in Noris.  I know people on the campus.  Making up stuff to fit your hypothesis does no good.  Just wait and and let the evidence come out. 

[sikora]

Here's the problem with the mental illness discussion:  it gives credence to the stigma attached to such disorders.  "Must be sick," "crazy," "nutso," "sicko," "two fries short of a Happy meal," "not running with all four wheels on the track."  Attributing such behavior to mental disorder is a good way of protecting our senses of self.  "I'm not mentally ill, so I could never do such a horrible thing."

Look up the Stanford Prison Experiment. Violent behavior does not necessarily stem from the perpetrator's wiring, but from social context. 

We need to know circumstances before we can understand motive.

Obscure, but still the first dog in space

[spork]

Obscure, I think we're talking about the same thing here.  People who engage in violent acts such as that at Virginia Tech may not have a "mental illness" in the medical definition of the term -- in other words, they may not meet diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia, bipolar, depression, etc.  And the vast vast majority of people who do meet the diagnostic criteria for mental illness are never violent.

What I'm getting at and asking advice about is:  some students find it difficult if not impossible to mentally cope with "life," "reality," or "stress" (choose whichever), and some of these individuals have the potential for violence.  I believe that an astute observer can sometimes identify warning signs of these behaviors, and therefore some violent acts can be prevented.