<p>So BrothersGrimm, the OP HAS taken the advice of many on this thread and talked to the dean and to her D.
Any time someone comes on CC with a problem some of the advice will be great, but certainly not all of it, as it will often contradict each other.Still, there was good advice in this thread and advice that may be helpful to the next parent that has a disturbing situation.</p>
<p>I don’t believe for a NY minute that the “new” poster BrothersGrimm is a HS student.</p>
<p>If BG is a HS student, I think he/she is headed for an Ivy.</p>
<p>compmom, you remind me of the Henry Fonda character in “The Ox-Bow Incident.” You are my new hero, but I promise that I won’t stalk you!</p>
<p>The chance that an ex bf, which seems to be what this man believes he was even after just a couple of dates, the likely hood that his schedule would happen to match the young lady’s who he got overly serious with very quickly is at the very least a statistical oddity.</p>
<p>It’s creepy. It wasn’t luck. At takes work. And planning. Is his major the same? He was odd year and has gotten scary this year. </p>
<p>I do not by ph it just happenstance he got into this girls classes. No way.</p>
<p>Seahorserock, the OP has already said, in post #152, that her “D is a CS major. Many of the same students take the same CS and math classes that she does. She will most likely be in classes with this guy until she graduates.” Unless I am mis-reading this, it does not seem that even the OP finds this creepy – just worrisome, because it means her D cannot easily avoid this boy.</p>
<p>So there Re thirty cs majors? It’s not just the same classes, it’s the exact same schedule. And not everyone takes the same classes the same semester. So on this college as sophomores all the cs majors follow each other around to the same classes? </p>
<p>So then it should be the vast majority of students would be the same in all the cs classes? Des the ops daughter have the same kids in all her classes?</p>
<p>When OP stated D and boy had same major and would have to take other classes together I asked if school was so small there were not multiple sections for classes and another poster replied the school is so small there are classes offering only one section, especially upper level courses. So, not creepy at all. Same major, very limited # sections. Now, unless you have some evidence he changed his major to CS…</p>
<p><<facetious comment="">></facetious></p>
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<p>So sorry, umdclass. That sounds truly awful. But do be careful that you aren’t projecting your own fears, based on your own traumatic experiences, onto her.</p>
<p>There’s as much reason to think this boy, if troubled, is harmless as there is to think he poses a grave threat. At least that’s how I am reading this. If this were my own daughter I would be concerned but would not necessarily jump to the worst conclusion without investigating, in person if necessary. </p>
<p>It may be by choice and design that the boy has the same classes as the girl. If so, maybe creepy. Not necessarily criminally so, even if it’s not happenstance. We’ve not heard that the boy has harassed this young woman directly in class or anywhere else for that matter. We know about the file detailing perceived threats and the boy writing that he will get revenge. That could be bravado and that could be real threats. But he hasn’t directly confronted this woman. When he was directly approached by her and her friends, he “ranted” at them. Not necessarily the sign of mental stability but certainly an understandable response to confrontation. It could have been scary, crazy ranting. It could have been “I’m stressed out and lonely” ranting. We do not know enough to assess. Anyone here ever ranted? I have.</p>
<p>Possibly, seahorsesrock. Or there are large classes, or about 30 that are on the same track at the same time. as I said previously, my son is in CS at a large university. There are a handful of the same students that are in a number of classes together.</p>
<p>There was a movie a while back about an actual young Harvard student wanting to get revenge against his girlfriend who dumped him. He created an online website that described all of the young women they knew, and particularly his ex, in less than gentlemanly terms. The guy was sort of crazed. The website went viral, morphed into a different, less objectifying platform, and well, we all know what happened after that. ;)</p>
<p>Huh. I am thinking, with all sincerity, does the tenor of this thread reflect something about mental illness in general? I mean, if this guy had a terrible rash, or a hacking cough, or a pronounced abrupt limp, we wouldn’t ever say “Ask the RA for help” or “wait and see, wwouldn’t want to embarass him”. We’d think he needed qualified help, wouldn’t we? And think that other students would not be qualified. I don’t get questioning the OP’s motives and judgements; if she knew exactly what to do and how to proceed with clarity, she wouldn’t have asked others to validate her viewpoint. That seems okay to me. </p>
<p>I am also thinking, this is how Bad Situations always unfold. Later it’s clear that you’ve done too much and overreacted, or not done enough to avert the tragedies. Whether it’s abuse allegations, domestic disturbance, mental illness, or some other crisis-in-the-making, it’s really really hard to know with absolute certainty what to do. Even if you are blessed with an abundance of caution and common sense, it’s never easy to know. Look at all the differing views/advice/perspectives we’ve offered the OP.</p>
<p>LOL moonchild!</p>
<p>Just curious, what do the parents of the other kids involved think and have they done anything? After all, there are two girls that live right across from the guy who were also involved with the discussion with the RA. Are any of their families concerned enough to get involved?</p>
<p>It’s been posted that there are classes at this small school which offer only one section for some courses. I would give benefit of doubt to boy with that info, even though it’s hard for me to believe coming from a university with 49,000 grad and undergrad students and sometimes dozens of sections per course.</p>
<p>Moonchild, lol. The “stalker’s” product is a data gold mine now of about 950 million users.</p>
<p>I’ve not commented on this before,but I have been following it. I know OP is in the process of dealing with the Dean, so we can hope it gets clarified. I understand that some young women tend to over dramatize, and also may want to rescue a “friend” or acquaintance who seems to be having problems. First priority is for the D to be safe - no contact with the boy in question, and she should be talking to adults who are experienced with evaluating mental health and stalking issues. As her mom, I’d insist that she do so - probably with me present if possible so I can assess what’s going on. It’s really not the OP’s responsibility to call his parents - and in fact with him being paranoid, I’d try to keep our family as distant from him as possible and not do more things he would blame us/her for - but I think the dean should consider doing so if it seems he really IS having serious mental health issues. Most important is for the girls and the mom to follow their intuition and definitely to be careful and not minimize what could be very real risks.</p>
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<p>Something bothers me as well. Now that the OP has taken what I think is the appropriate action (contacting the Dean of Students), I’ve been able to focus on it. Looking back at the original post, I realize what bothers me is that I do think it is possible that there has been a lot of over-reaction and unwarranted assumptions in this thread. (I was guilty of this myself; I am sure I am not the only poster who worried, last night, that we might be reading about this in the paper this morning.) To the OP, I don’t mean this as a criticism. I just think it’s worthwhile to consider the possibility that this may have been kids over-reacting, leading the adults in this thread to over-react as well.</p>
<p>Let’s look at the factual statements in the original thread:</p>
<ul>
<li>The OP’s D and her friends were concerned about a friend, a boy who has been acting strange since returning to school. They spoke with the RA about it. The RA spoke with the boy. There was a follow-up meeting with the Community Director. The OP’s D does not know the outcome of that meeting, which was presumably confidential. </li>
</ul>
<p>Now, the Community Director is an adult employed by the university. We have no idea what happened after that meeting. I think it is very possible that the Community Director took appropriate steps. For all we know, the boy might have been referred to University Counseling Services. I don’t think that is a far-fetched assumption. In any case, there is no real basis that I can see for jumping to the conclusion that nothing has been done, and that the only thing that happened is that the RA became involved. According to the OP, an adult employed by the university – the Community Director – was involved.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>According to another friend of this boy, the boy is keeping a record on his computer of incidents of the things that his friends do that make him angry. I admit that does sound strange, but we know very little about this. As one poster pointed out, the boy may have a therapist who advised him to keep track of things that bother him, to be able to reflect on it and talk about it in therapy. </p></li>
<li><p>The same friend told D that the boy is talking about taking revenge against D and her friends. This is what caught my eye when I first read this thread. It certainly is a matter of concern, and it’s why I think the OP made the right move in contacting the Dean of Students. But we know very little about the nature of the threat – what exactly did the boy say? Has he conveyed these threats to anyone else, and on how many occasions? </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Remember, this is a boy who likely feels very upset that his friends reported him to the RA. They may well have done this out of concern, but from the boy’s point of view, I imagine that is hard to acknowledge. I think it is likely that he was hurt, embarrassed, and angry. None of those things indicate mental illness in and of themselves. But they could have prompted him to say something, in anger, that the other friend interpreted as a threat. Perhaps he said something truly alarming, but we don’t know that. (It may be that the OP knows and has chosen not to share the details of the threats, but I don’t have that impression.)</p>
<ul>
<li><p>In the OP’s words, “My D has discovered that he is stalking her and another girlfriend on Facebook and Tumblr.” I actually can’t figure out what this means. Does he make comments on her facebook? If so, what does he say? </p></li>
<li><p>The boy is in four of D’s classes. According to the OP, this fact is not surprising. I don’t see how, in itself, it is a sign of anything other than the fact that they are in the same major.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In any case, I do think that this warranted being brought to the attention of the Dean of Students. I hope that the boy gets whatever help he needs, and that the OP’s daughter feels safe again. But – well, I did come to feel that perhaps there was some over-reaction here, and a lot of assumptions were made based on very little information. It was never clear to me that some of the advice – such as calling the police – was a good idea, especially given that we know very little about the one key concern, namely the nature and details of the threats that the one friend said the boy had made. </p>
<p>Okay, those are my thoughts, for whatever they are worth.</p>
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<p>Really? Did y’all catch the cutting habit part? Are you going to suggest that someone who cuts is unlikely to make the leap to external violence? Someone distressed enough to be cutting, AND recording, AND uttering threats?</p>
<p>All I can say is WOW.</p>