Tag: suicide

How not to handle a student suicide

(Editorial note: I’m going to try not to rush these, but I’ve got a pretty big backlog to work through. Some of these posts may have lost some of their timeliness, as I have had things to deal with which have taken huge chunks out of the time I would normally use for blogging. Hopefully I’ll be back to “normal” in a few weeks.)

A recent post in a The Stir tells the story of Tyler Nichols, an eighth grader who took his own life in March of this year. According to another article at opposingviews.com, the principal of the school (Davidson Middle School in Michigan) claimed the school didn’t include his picture because they did not have a picture of him. However, his mother says Tyler took a picture earlier in the year and had a picture taken for a new identification card as well.

In a particularly cruel twist, Tyler’s mother was told that a tribute page in the yearbook might have been forthcoming. Then they completely omitted all traces of Tyler’s life at school that year from the yearbook. You shouldn’t need me to tell you just how outrageous and how stupid this is.

At a time in which suicide, and particularly teen suicide, is a growing problem, it reduces awareness and is a huge bet on the side of “ignore the problem and it will go away.”

I believe it will not go away just because it’s ignored. And on that note, I believe the school has chosen to handle the situation in a completely wrong way on just about every level imaginable. I don’t care how much revisionist history goes into it, but there are people who will remember Tyler for the good kid that he was. Those that don’t know he killed himself need to know this, not have it swept under the rug or even given a Noodle Incident treatment.

I found a news story on heritage.com about Tyler’s suicide in which it says Tyler was not bullied. I had originally written a version of this post in which I had mistakenly assumed that he was. This story says everyone thought he was a good kid and the real reason why he took his own life is a mystery to many of the kids and teachers at the school.

Shame on Davidson Middle School for trying to snuff out Tyler’s memory. This is disgraceful and reflects badly on not just the school, but upon our entire school system nationwide in the US.

Suicide barriers and landmarks: my thoughts on the Golden Gate Bridge

A recent entry on bayareaspot.com poses the question of whether or not a suicide barrier should be installed on the Golden Gate Bridge:

I just saw a movie called “The Bridge” about all the suicides that take place at the Golden Gate and it was shocking to watch all those people leaping to their deaths…. Average number of jumpers is 1 every two weeks and the grand total now is well over 1200 people ages ranging from 80 to 14. It is the most popular location to commit suicide in the world. Yet, San Franciscans refuse to build a barrier (ala Eiffel Tower, Empire State building) because it would not look aesthetically pleasing.

The article concludes with an incompletely-attributed quote by Eve Meyer from this SF Chronicle article:

“When suicide becomes difficult,” Meyer says, “people do not switch to another method. They tend to get help.

Now the last part of the article is technically incorrect as the plan to build a barrier has been approved but not yet funded. We’ll get to that in a minute.

I admire art, including architecture. The Golden Gate Bridge is beautiful in its present form. But when a landmark becomes known for its suicides almost as much as its beauty, I feel it is absolutely, positively, patently devoid of good judgment to place the preservation of aesthetics above the preservation of human life.

Moving on…

The SF Chronicle article reveals how this could have been avoided when the Golden Gate Bridge was originally built. The original plans by chief engineer Joseph Strauss called for railings of a specific design at a height of 5&12frac; feet, which he believed would make the bridge suicide-proof.

Enter architect Irving Morrow, who was originally brought in to design the plazas and entryways. For some reason, he reduced the height to 4 feet, a decision with tragic consequences for over a thousand people who have chosen to end their lives at the bridge, and the thousands more surviving friends and family, in the decades since. What the heck could he have been thinking? The only possibility that makes much sense to me is that first, Strauss not clear enough in his original plans why the height was set where it was, and second, the change was made for primarily aesthetic reasons. If this is the case, we’ve found out the hard way in the decades since that looks can indeed kill.

So we’ve identified the problem. How to fix it?

This LA Times article from 2008 October documents that the plan to build steel netting below the bridge was approved, and was chosen as the least expensive alternative. From what I’ve been able to find out, it has yet to be built, assumably due to funding issues as documented in this SF Examiner article. The cost is estimated at $50 million with annual maintenance costs well under $100,000.

To say the least, I’m horrified. Funding issues? Maybe the beancounters standing in the way of a decades overdue fix to a flawed, suicide-friendly bridge should give their excuses to the surviving friends and family every time there’s yet another jumper. I’m pretty sure the money would be found rather hastily thereafter. Is $50 million a lot of money? Yes. But there’s no objective way to place a price tag on human lives. The first suicide prevented will make every dollar spent worth it.

Cyberbullying, suicide, reactions, and moving forward

A recent entry on Jamie Tworkowski’s blog for To Write Love On Her Arms addresses the suicide of Alexis Pilkington, the role of Formspring as the forum for where the bullying leading to her suicide occurred, and the surprising response of a boycott of the site as the reaction.

Jamie is spot-on in her reasoning why the boycott is a bad idea, and her post is the blogosphere’s equivalent of a Wayne Gretzky shot that blazes right past the goalie:

…I don’t believe that boycotting Formspring is any sort of solution. I don’t believe it will prevent suicide. The same problems exist on Facebook and MySpace and Twitter and countless other websites. And with that, it’s worth considering that hate, as well as pain, have been around much longer than the internet. If that’s true, then perhaps the problem is not the internet at all – perhaps the problem is people.

I believe there’s a bigger picture and better solutions to consider. […] [I]f you want to learn to fight for the lives and health of the people around you – my guess is that it won’t have much to do with the strangers on the internet. My guess is that it will happen in the context of real relationships and honest conversations.

This sentiment is echoed by commenters on the post (relevant portions of comments, with identification):

  1. I agree, boycotting Formspring won’t do much. People need to reach out to their community. (a texas girl)
  2. I don’t think Formspring is the problem, its people. Why can’t we all just get along? (Sydney)
  3. I was surprised that anyone would think boycotting Formspring would solve the problem. It’s clear that the problem was the people who sent hateful messages, not the site itself. (Kenna)
  4. I do agree that formspring should NOT be boycotted. It’s not going to help at all, it’s not going to stop suicide, it’s not going to bring Alexis back. (Brigette)

Not surprisingly, I also concur with what Jamie is saying here. Verbal bullying, harassment, and ostracism predate electronic communications media. Blaming Formspring for this is irresponsible and wrong. The responsibility for actions of an online service’s users ultimately lies with the users themselves. There is really only so much an online service can do in cases like this; Formspring includes the ability to block questions from anonymous users, requiring at least that the users register.

No one in Alexis’s position should feel like help is not available to them. We will never know for sure what Alexis was thinking before taking her own life. This is a great chance for teachers and faculty at schools across the country, or even around the world, to remind their students help is available and where they can get it. Nobody–particularly at that young of an age–should feel they are helpless.

Those who drove Alexis to suicide get my strongest contempt, which they deserve. They know who they are and they will have to live with the results of their cold, thoughtless, selfish, hateful, and (perhaps most importantly) deadly conduct for the rest of their lives. That is the real problem we should be attacking here: how can people be this insensitive toward someone? By the time one is of high school age, one is closer to adulthood than kindergarten. Yet bullying, particularly cyberbullying, shows no sign of letting up, and it appears most adults are still catching up on technological literacy when it comes to their children’s interactions over the Internet. But this is only part of the problem. What does it say about us as a society and our school system when so many teenagers in high school are patently devoid of scruples during their final four years prior to adulthood, to the point they would bully another student into suicide?

[Edited 2021-06-23 to update URLs due to link rot]