Suicide struck my school, and by association, it struck me as well. I am emotionally exhausted, and not exactly sure that writing this out is even going to begin to touch on processing this all, but writing has always been extremely therapeutic so I guess I will start here and see where it takes me.
Monday morning we received an e-mail from our principal telling us that a student's parent had called her telling her that her son had tried to commit suicide on Sunday afternoon. My heart immediately sank as I read this e-mail, for various reasons, personal reasons, past experiences, and the thought that our school just went through a suicide prevention program with the kids. We were instructed to keep the information strictly confidential until 5th hour, when each individual teacher would read a letter, that our principal would draft explaining the situation, and we each would read that same letter to our individual classes. How am I supposed to teach, with a straight face, until 5th hour? I was a wreck. I immediately felt guilty because I saw the student's name who had tried to kill himself, and I could not put a face to his name. So I went to a teacher down the hall to look at an old yearbook, to see his face, and then it hit....while I did not have him as a student, I knew him fairly well. Best friends with several of my students, I saw him almost daily after school, and I do believe I even yelled at him a time or two, when he was hanging around in classrooms he wasn't supposed to be in.
I held it together pretty well until 5th hour, when I had to read the letter. We read a letter calmly explaining the situation, that the boy is in critical condition at U of M hospital, and he is there because he attempted suicide. We are all here to support you, our counselors are here to talk etc. So of course, my 5th hour are my wonderfully inquisitive and vibrant 7th graders, and while the young boy who tried to take his life was an 8th grader, the 7th graders weren't as emotionally attached, but they had a million questions. How did he do it? Did he slit his wrists? Will he live? What is critical condition? Can he see? Can he hear? How long till his mom found him? He seemed like a happy kid, I am happy, will this happen to me? Why did no one tell? Let me tell you, the college of education at MSU or at university for that matter, does not prepare you for this as a teacher, I suppose you learn from experience, but I do not wish this experience on any teacher.
We got e-mail updates all night and tonight, and informed students with the new information we had. Of course the rumor mills started, on how he did it, why, who knew, who didn't....all stuff we tried to prevent, middle schoolers are so young to be able to process this. I am struggling to process this. I had students who made jokes because they didn't know what else to do, I had crying students who had to be escorted out of class by a social worker, I had lathargic students, acting out students, questioning students, the loud students were quiet, the quiet ones loud, people trying to start fights, getting angry, jealous, blowing things out of proportion, miscommunicating, all because their emotions had nowhere else to go. We were instructed to give another talk to tell students that the young boy was now in critical condition, and was put in a drug induced coma, part of his brain was cut out to reduce swelling, doctors need 48 hours to determine a prognosis. We were also told that he tried to kill himself my hanging himself, and his mom found him in his room. The principal and counselors went to go visit today, and that is what we know so far....more to come in the next few days.
Apparently some kids knew about it and didn't report it, didn't take him seriously, I have one of the students he told in my class. His face was a sheet of guilt today. How do you even begin to console these kids, how do you even begin to explain, how do you tell kids to conjugate verbs and lets do verb races and study for a test, when their friend may die after he took his own life. My heart breaks, all the teachers just don't know what to do, the kids are just spaced out, lathargic, and some in complete denial. They just don't get it. They sit and ask me when he is coming back to school.....they don't understand that if and when he does wake up, he will not be the same person, his mental state, he may be a vegetable when he wakes up, he is not coming back to school this year, even if my some miracle, he is ok, mentally he cannot come back to school. These 12 and 13 year olds understand death, but they don't.
I cried today, in front of the kids, I guess that makes me human. But I felt awful, my favorite student of all time, bubbly, edgedy, talkative, great student, came in and looked like a train had hit her. She was friends with the boy, and was just beside herself. She came to me quiet at first, then started crying, saying she was good friends with him, and he was just so happy, and she is always happy, is she going to do this too, and I just lost it when I saw how upset she was. The hour ended, and my 5th hour came in, and I had to run next door and have a teacher cover for me for 10 minutes while I pulled myself together. I just felt awful, how do you go on teaching? I did it though, I answered more questions, I updated the students as I got the information, and I made it through another day.
I just cannot unplug from the situation. My head is just spinning, dealing with how I am feeling, and dealing with how the kids are feeling, and how the kids are making me feel. I see how upset his friends are, his family, what this has done to people who know him, knew him, or just saw him in the halls.....he felt like there was no other option, like he could trust no one, no one cared, and look how many people did care. I know what being depressed is like, I know what feeling alone is like, and I certaintly know what is like to question trust among close friends, and I really know what it is like to put up a front like everything is ok.......but this doesn't make it any easier. I am in a very healthy place in my life right now, but I also, now understand, that in that kind of state of mind, you don't realize that people care. And now too, I realize what an important role friends play in this, most just run away when things like this happen, they don't know what to do, they don't question why they are acting this way, they don't tell when they think something is going on....but why? They think they are not serious? The don't know what to do? Kids, please, tell, even if your wrong, it is better to be safe than sorry. Be there for your friends, listen to them, don't run away.
I don't even know. What advice can I give to myself, to them? It's so hard. I feel so awful. I have never been in this role before, I am going into counseling because I have an interest in dealing with these situations, but here I sit, not having a clue what to do or say. I am trying my best, and getting through one day at a time, I am praying for the family of this little boy, and for this little boy, when and if he does come out of this, I hope he can mentally heal safely, I hope he knows that it will get better, I hope he knows that there are people that care about him, and I hope he will learn what to do to prevent this from happening again. I hope the rest of my students learn from him, I hope they grieve in whatever they works best for them, I hope they confide in me knowing that I truly do understand, I hope there are no copy-cat acts, I hope they band together, I hope I can fulfill my role as the teacher and support my students, that is my job now.
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