Everyone has something to say on the tragedy at Virginia Tech. I was trying hard NOT to jump on that bandwagon, but I've succombed. Here's an expanded version of what I posted at Blue Hampshire:
Having worked in Higher Education my entire career (Residential Life, Housing, Orientation, Academic Advising, Career Counseling, Coordinator of Exchanges), I can relate to the pain and anguish of faculty and staff members who tried to take some action when they read disturbing writings authored by the alleged shooter. It's an awful feeling, and I've been there more than once. You did everything you could, I know you did.
Sadly, I've seen so many students like him before--loners, limited family connections or friends, usually smart kids but secretly in more pain internally than imaginable and unable to deal with it appropriately--and I've felt the same way: your hands are tied. It's so obvious that "something must be done," but who?? -what? Unless there is a very specifically articulated threat, nothing can be done to help, nothing can be done to stop it. All you can do is watch & wait, and document. What a horrible feeling, helplessness.
Whether it's officially a mental illness the shooter (or others like him) suffered from or not, our society and our culture seem unable to reach or help people like him. We protect everyone's right to privacy, right to bear arms, and frankly right to be weird or different or even creepy. Until there's a dangerous or threatening action, there is little that can be done. Would we want it any other way, truthfully?
I once had a student involuntarily committed. He suffered from manic-depression, and so enjoyed the manic stage that he found it incomprehensible that anyone would want to medicate this and make it go away. He had those typical feelings of being a deity, or having superpowers. He wondered the halls in his underwear. He never slept. He was having visions. At the hearing to have him committed, I sat in the back with the RA, holding back tears. As the judge read a statement, it became apparent that it was his 25th birthday. What an awful day that was, spent trying to convince myself that this was the right thing to do--take away someone's basic rights and force him into treatment he didn't want or think he needed. And I have no idea what happened after he was released. No idea...and I wonder about him all the time, and that was 1995 I think.
My heart goes out to those who took the brave risk and tried but failed, and those who wanted to help but couldn't or were pushed away. Or who wanted to but just didn't see a way. It's so easy to point fingers after the fact, with "shoulda/coulda."
But it's more productive right now to spend energy on supporting families and the VT community. And finding some compassionate way to make sure it never happens again.
