<p>My college son and I were just talking and I mentioned that his younger brother had wanted to see a movie about paranormal experiences. He told me that his girlfriend's roommate has been talking about nightly visits from aliens. She was really alarmed this week because she "levitated" above her bed and saw letters on her ceiling. She told her roommate that her cousin experiences the same thing. Her parents didn't believe her at first, but now they do. She showed son's gf several internet articles about other people being "visited", so now they're actually thinking this could really be happening. I assured son that it wasn't and that this girl could have some type of psychological problem (athlete, plus under a lot of pressure this semester) or maybe it's just a cry for attention. Son thought he saw an episode of House, where it turned out to be neurological problems. (Are those House shows ever real situations?) I don't want to debate extraterrestrial beings, but don't you think the girl should get some help? Unfortunately, her parents live 8 hours away, but I'm sure my son's gf could figure out a way to contact them. Somehow I doubt that they know about these "visits".</p>
<p>I have no idea if this is actually happening to this kid, but I do know that House episodes are based on actual medical cases. A friend of our is head of research of medicine at a major university and watches House as “sport.” My son says it’s the freakiest talent he has ever seen!</p>
<p>Advise s’s gf to get assistance immediately from RA, ask rm to seek help for alien vivsitation if that will work. Schizophrenic breaks happen at this age more than any other - although more commonly in males than in females. What she is describing does sound like paranoid delusions. A student in my d’s dorm described seeing faces in his room - asked dormmate to check it out. Student was found dead a few days later - don’t know the cause however. Look, I’m not a shrink but it does sound very troubling.</p>
<p>Agree with woody – Might be too much for s’s gf to handle on her own. Tell RA at the very least.</p>
<p>GF should move. ASAP</p>
<p>I second woody’s advice VERY VERY strongly.</p>
<p>A very close friend and sometime roommate in college started to hear voices midway through his junior year. He thought God and sometimes angels were talking to him. At first it sounded like a classic conversion experience – of course it did, he had read the same conversion narratives that I had – and we were all in awe at the Mystery of the Universe. Within a few weeks, however, it became clear that it was, indeed, a classic schizophrenic break. I spent most of a Friday evening subduing him and getting him to the hospital, and he spent most of the rest of the term there.</p>
<p>This was waaaaay too much for his friends to handle. If I knew then what I knew a few weeks later, we would have tied him up and carried him to a shrink on Day 2 of the whole episode. I can’t tell you how disruptive this was for his friends – it reverberated for years.</p>
<p>Advise the students you know and talk to that they should get adults involved ASAP, and limit their own involvement to the extent they can.</p>
<p>Yes, JHS makes a very good point. Get adults involved immediately. Sleep in a friends room until it is taken care of. This might even be one of the rare occaisons when it is appropriate for a parent to call the school.</p>
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<p>I couldn’t agree more with this.</p>
<p>Seconding woody and JHS - start with the RA. She or he should have had enough training to know how to begin to get some help in a prompt but sensitive and appropriate way, including knowing who the first contact in the health center and/or administration should be.</p>
<p>Also, in the meantime, stay in a friend’s room.</p>
<p>Yes, go straight to all authorities and get some one involved, another 18-22 year ol dis not equipped to handle a psychotic break and it may be just that. Contacting the parents might be helpful, too, depends on the family response.</p>
<p>I’m not sure that I’d rely on a young RA to handle this appropriately – I’m not sure what their training is and whether he or she would understand this is a potentially serious and urgent situation. Perhaps call someone at Student Health/Psych Counseling? And please, advise your son to convince his gf to stay elsewhere for now – you can not know what someone in the throes of a psychotic break may do – if they hear a voice telling them to kill you or stab you in the eye they may act on that.</p>
<p>Definitely get out. I had a psychotic roommate. The RA wanted me to stay and “help” the girl; she saw demons coming through our windows, and thought everyone was out to get her. The day she said that she had thought she could trust me, but now she knew I “was just like the rest” was the day I moved out.</p>
<p>I would hope that authorities would be more useful these days than they were then.</p>
<p>Wow! You guys are really scaring me. I didn’t realize this type of problem could escalate so quickly. Thanks for your advice. I left a message with the head of counseling at the university. I’m sure my son would be happy to take in his gf until the situation is handled.</p>
<p>It definitely is a matter of how well trained the RA is. </p>
<p>At S1 and D’s school, they’re very thoroughly trained and would absolutely not EVER advocate the sort of thing garland’s RA did (yikes, garland) - they would know that this needed action, they would know whom to reach first and how to reach them at any hour, they would know whom to contact next, and they would know how to begin helping with the gf and the other kids on the hall.</p>
<p>This is something I would encourage people to explore once their kids have chosen a school. It does differ from school to school, and it’s good to know what’s there for your kid in terms of resources.</p>
<p>toledo, even not knowing what kind of role the RAs play at your school, I’d still recommend that the gf tell their RA as soon as humanly possible. The head of counseling will probably have to take some interim steps anyway, to act on a call from a parent. The RA might - again depending on your school - be able to get the ball rolling faster.</p>
<p>I just talked to the head of counseling and he asked if the roommate was agitated or just “matter-of-fact”. Apparently there is a difference between the two. He said that the “matter-of-fact” types aren’t a danger. They truly believe that this is their reality and they deal with it. He said they will talk about her at the next weekly meeting, attended by various campus officials. In the meantime, he will contact the gf to get all the details. He thanked me for calling, but I didn’t detect any sense of urgency.</p>
<p>It was shocking how little support my friend’s friends received from anyone, and how much of a burden we carried. I tend to repress how much it dominated my life at times. Both before he went into the hospital and after he got out, his closest three or four friends (really, all of his friends) would sit around and earnestly debate what kind of duty we owed him as our friend, and what exactly we should do. It was very debilitating. His closest friend wound up stopping out for a year.</p>
<p>He was my suitemate again senior year. That was really tough. Part of his illness was an obsession with a particular girl, who was generally unaware of his existence, but whom the rest of us all knew. As his therapy and drugs started to work more, he began stalking her actively, and she became aware of that and frightened. I was petrified that he would do something to her, and petrified that she would have him locked up. No adult gave us any help at all, none – not his parents (who were too embarrassed even to acknowledge that he was ill), not his therapists (of course, although I did get one of them to tell me what his meds schedule was so we could help him stay on it), not the deans. The Hillel rabbi, to whom I was reasonably close, did help some, and it was he who broke shabbat to drive us to the hospital when my friend really lost it for the first time. (I had to take him to the hospital a couple more times the next year, but never quite so sensationally.)</p>
<p>By the time we graduated, none of us ever wanted to see our friend again, and as far as I know none of us has. In retrospect, we should have done a lot more to protect ourselves, and we should have demanded our own therapist. But we were young and romantic.</p>
<p>Your son’s girlfriend’s family needs to get involved. Colleges are not required to obtain any psychological backround on any students. You are accepted based on your grades and SAT scores. Most schools do require proof of some innoculations but have no clue what anti-depressant meds a kid is on or what problems they are bringing with them to school. My S’s roommate of 3 weeks tried to hang himself in his dorm room just because he believed from movies that every college girl would be throwing themselves at him to have sex. When this wasn’t happening he decided his life wasn’t worth living. You just don’t know what people are thinking…especially when it comes to aliens!</p>
<p>This is where you would be helped by a voice from on the ground, as it were - somebody there, who can speak to exactly what’s going on. You’ve had it reported to you at some remove already, so you can’t convey to the head of counseling exactly how agitated the roommate is or isn’t.</p>
<p>If the RA can talk to both the roommate and the gf, she or he should then be able to convey to the people in counseling a sense of how agitated the kid is or isn’t - and how much it’s upsetting the gf. And that might lead to some faster action. At most schools the RA position is a liaison between students and the administration, and as such should have sufficient credibility, especially with the counseling department, to earn a respectful reception of what he or she says.</p>
<p>The girlfriend’s family isn’t going to be able to get anything moving any faster than toledo. Counseling isn’t really there to listen to what people who are not at the school are saying, at least not as a first step.</p>
<p>JHS - I’ve been there too. I was actually the friend of AND the RA for a girl who had a schizophrenic break on my hall when I was a junior. </p>
<p>I agree with everything you’re saying and would highlight the idea that you and your friends could have used counseling, too. No kid should have to cope with this. It’s beyond confusing trying to figure out how to be a friend to someone who’s going through that - or coming back from it. I was really fortunate to have been well trained and well supported, and I remain thankful to the school for that training. It was still a really scary experience and much as you said, one that’s still with me.</p>