Two Parkland Survivors have committed suicide.

[_Jersey Girl]

Hey Mak

First, of course this is enormously sad and devastating news.

Please consider that there are many possible personal reasons that people may chose not to post in a thread like this. in my opinion, it's very dangerous to presume the motives of why people do - or do not - post on extremely deep and tragic topics such as these.

That's all I wanted to say.

I started to compose an OP a couple of times. I couldn’t find the words.

I have a son in college. The students in his major are divided into small groups called “cohorts” to work on projects.

A couple months ago, a member of his cohort committed suicide. Since then, his cohort has been spending lots of time together outside of school.

I think it's possible that there are posters here who are unable to compose a post about the topic because they are struggling with and processing something similar, so they come here to get a reprieve from the weight of it by engaging other topical matter. We are all differing personality types, it's difficult for some of us to articulate our thoughts much less to share them publicly and especially when the topic hits uncomfortably close to home.

I'll share that on this thread I've had to edit my posts several times because they started to fill with personal details as I wrote them.

I truly hope that your son and others in the cohort feel supported. Sudden deaths, particularly by suicide, are so damned hard to deal with. I just wish we could do better in addressing mental health and promote awareness. I'm so sorry that your son, and you in turn, are having to manage your way through this process.

I read this phrase online...everyone has a chapter that they don't read out loud. I think that's a partial explanation of why it makes it difficult for some of us to address the topic, we're still trying to deal with the impactful situation at hand in our lives and a topic like this is to damned hard to separate personal circumstances from the discussion. Some part of me thinks...and why should we try to separate?

[_Some Schmo]

I read about the first girl and thought about a post, but figured it would turn into another gun debate and I've had enough of those.

[_Jersey Girl]

I just want to post a link to a CNN story that I found. It contains warnings, cautions, and encouragement for parents of Parkland students. I'm not entirely certain what I think about it yet.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/25/us/parkl ... index.html

One thing that I think they are missing (at least in the article) is that the survivors that suffered trauma, daily return to the environment where the shootings happened and so that leaves them open to repeated and sustained levels of stress, anxiety, and trauma.

Maybe it's mentioned in the article and I missed it. I know that it's not logistically feasible to move a large number of students out of the school. I just hope that adults realize that students (and staff for that matter) are essentially confronted with repeated trauma including flashbacks as they return to the very scene of the trauma every single school day.

In my mind it's basically repeated catastrophic injury with no exit doors through which to escape. Some students may benefit from the exposure. I'm thinking that most would not and might do well to take a year off in favor of online coursework or just take a year long break entirely. It's like being on the Titanic partially submerged and never getting off the boat or getting a chance to swim away.

They need to get them out of the building for at least part of the day. I think it's do-able. More later...