Student Making Threats Against My Daughter

Parents Forum
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<p>KMCMOM13-
That diagnosis of associative disorders you mentioned reaked of Wikipidea, it also states the following:</p>

<p>The motivations for self-harm vary as it may be used to fulfill a number of different functions.[12] These functions include self-harm being used as a coping mechanism which provides temporary relief of intense feelings such as anxiety, depression, stress, emotional numbness and a sense of failure or self-loathing. There is also a positive statistical correlation between self-harm and emotional abuse.</p>

<p>and</p>

<p>Avoidance techniques-
Generating alternative behaviours that the sufferer can engage in instead of self-harm is one successful behavioural method that is employed to avoid self-harm.[69] Techniques, aimed at keeping busy, may include journaling, taking a walk, participating in sports or exercise or being around friends when the sufferer has the urge to harm themselves.</p>

<p>Journaling? OMG! You mean that this kid may be Journaling to avoid emotional stress caused by a pack of drama seeking college students that spy on him and report his every move. Quick, get the torches…this kid needs to be taught a lesson.</p>

<p>Sorry for drama, tend to get carried away when seemingly sane adults make insane conjecture, mental diagnosis, assumptions, and then make recommendations such as collect weapons, call the police, and generally assign fault/blame where no evidence of wrong doing exists…well except for a second hand story from some random dude with unknown intentions.</p>

<p>The OP could have driven over there and talked with the daughter objectively…apparantly, that is way to hard.</p>

<p>I find it suprising that I get accused of not being in HS, the kid in question himself or Ivy material because I can look at it from the other side of the coin. This kid may be just an introvert like a lot of intelligent kids are…he goes to college to try to start off fresh with a new perspective and WHAM! The wheels of young adult justice crush him and label him as weird and antisocial…mentally disturbed sociopath.</p>

<p>Ahhh well just another string of assumptions with my own hypothesis to hang on this string/thread…or is it noose?</p>

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<p>BG, I will ask you the same thing. Do you not think that this student/ situation needs the benefit of an assessment by an unbiased 3rd party?</p>

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<p>Brothers: </p>

<p>Just reread your first post in this thread. I think others should too. Nice job.</p>

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<p>I just read the entire thread. </p>

<p>A few years back, I was enrolled in summer school at a different HS than the one I attended. I quickly befriended a girl (let’s call her Maya) and thought she seemed like fun. Things took a turn for the worse when Maya and I spoke over facebook and she revealed some scary $#!+ to me (plans to run away, personal troubles, bad stuff). I took it to our instructor, who took it to the principal of that school. When she found out, I got so afraid of retaliation that I ate lunch in the bathroom. Since it was the last week, my instructor and the principal discussed options with me, and my parents and I decided that I would take my final exam separately. That worked out fine, and I got an A. </p>

<p>I made another friend there (and we can call her Kristen). Kristen attended that school and told me that Maya often made these kinds of threats but “nobody took them seriously.” But about a month into the school year, Kristen called me to tell me that Maya was expelled over some kind of disciplinary violation (I think she stole something? I don’t really remember). A few years later, she resurfaced on facebook, but I blocked her (actually, she had a new account and resurfaced on facebook. I’d blocked her old account after getting all kinds of “why did you do that?” messages, but I blocked her new account to be safe). </p>

<p>Point is, in these cases, I don’t really know that you can ever be too careful. Contrary to what some people in this thread have suggested, calling the police≠arresting the guy. The Dean of Students is looking into the situation, so UMD should probably have some idea of what’s going on with that in the near future. Calling the parents could be futile. I still vote with police contact and informing the police that the Dean is on it, too. </p>

<p>Also, I’d talk to the D again. Get her opinion on how legitimately threatened she feels. Try to give her some safety tips (lock her door at all times–I really don’t get the trend of just leaving doors open–travel in groups, especially at night; stay away from him; try to keep interactions with this group of people confined to public locations), and remind her to have local and campus police numbers programmed into her cell phone (never hurts). </p>

<p>BTW, nit-picking here, but still: 30 miles and 30 minutes are two totally different things! I live in Los Angeles. Trust me when I say that, while the theoretical distance may be the same, traffic and the like makes me much more inclined to take a 30 minute drive than a 30 mile drive!</p>

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<p>It does sound as if this kid is deeply unhappy and in need of some help. To be fair to the OP’s D, do recall that another boy actually came to her to warn her about what the kid was writing on his computer. I think anyone would be somewhat freaked out by that. Given the recent events in which students who were obviously troubled got a gun and shot people, it is really not irrational to want to have someone other than an RA check on a kid in these circumstances.</p>

<p>I’ve consistently been amazed at how many parents tell kids to go directly to the RA without ever attempting to talk to their roommate when there is conflict, or tell them to bypass the RA and go directly to the housing office or the dean or the police.</p>

<p>In this case, at least they went through channels. FWIW, I think the OP was correct to contact the dean, who will take it from there, presumably with the best interests of ALL the students in mind.</p>

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<p>vlines, this was in the very first post of this second thread and I did take time to read the entire thread (and the one before it). It’s moot now what I think since the D has talked to the RA, the community director was involved and now the OP has called the dean, but I suspect both boy and girl will be having conversations fairly quickly with the dean.</p>

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<p>I’m glad the OP called the dean.</p>

<p>You can pile the evidence this way or that way, but in most cases if your instincts are telling you, “This person is dangerous!” or “This person is threatening!”, you should listen to them. Obviously we on the board have not seen this kid for real, but the OP’s daughter apparently feels threatened. This is especially concerning since this guy was a friend for a year, and we tend to give friends the benefit of the doubt–probably that is the reason most assaults are committed by people known to the victim, not strangers (who we are more easily wary of).</p>

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<p>I agree with you, Naturally. This is not something outsider’s can judge.</p>

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<p>I am still thanking of the boy’s parents.</p>

<p>If I were them, I would want someone to call me, to let me know that my child might be having problems coping or other emotional/psychological problems. If another parent cared enough to call, I would not take it badly…even if their concern ended up to be unfounded, I would be grateful that someone cared and was concerned enough to call me.</p>

<p>I can’t imagine how I would feel if it ended up that my child had really needed help, and something bad happened to him, or to someone else because of him, and no one had let me know my child was struggling–even though they knew that he needed help.</p>

<p>When I think back to what happened recently in Aurora Colorado…what if the parents had been able to intervene? To get him off campus and in to intensive treatment? Could tragedy have been averted?</p>

<p>This is not to say that the boy involved here is in the same league…but the fact that people are concerned that he even might do something…as a parent I would want to know.</p>

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<p>We don’t know this. We only know that the D told her mother she thought the boy was odd and reported behaviors that bothered her. We don’t know that the boy doesn’t talk to his parents all the time, has friends, is doing well in school…we don’t know anything. We don’t know what conversations the boy has with his parents, with kids on the hall, with his classmates. We don’t know this and the OP doesn’t know this. The OP only knows what the D is telling her and we only know what the OP is reporting.</p>

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<p>This thread makes my brain hurt. The OP said 3 pages ago that she was done on here, and still you people are focusing on what is “wrong” with this kid, how he is randomly cutting himself in your imaginations, and how he has social anxiety. Then, I see people taking advantage of a forum with a somewhat relation to some event in their lives, and they are using it to retell their life story. This thread is about the OP’s problems, not your lives. Then, when I see a beacon of hope in this over dramatized thread in the form of BrothersGrimmm, practically everyone wants to shut him/her down. Why? I do not know. I agree fully with everything that BG said, except for the attack on Wikipedia. Do not discount Wikipedia because you are “cultured enough” to understand that Wikipedia doesn’t have to be right. Wikipedia will perpetually contain more useful information than any other website and should be used as such, and information database. Besides that little pretentious remark, I from the bottom of my heart love BrothersGrimm. </p>

<p>Conclusion: This thread has blown up with people wanting to get into others’ lives, while the OP has posted only a few updates in 17 pages of pointlessness. I am not going to give advice or criticism to the OP, because she specifically stated that she is done on here. I came on CC to see what people are sharing about college applications this year and looking for some helpful stories or useful advice to help me get through the application process without going crazy, and all I seem to find is self obsessed selfishness and stubbornness. I love what this site has to offer, but it definitely seems astronomically more corrupt than when I was on last year.</p>

<p>TL;DR
This thread has turned useless, and I firmly hate it, but think that the only educational thing here was BrothersGrimm.</p>

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<p>Umd, if you can and feel comfortable doing so, please do keep us updated on the outcome.</p>

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<p>^^ yes, I’ve been on many years, but lately there have been some doozies of threads, this being one of them.</p>

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<p>"…or Ivy material"</p>

<p>No offense BG, but that comment was made in jest. Not that it could not be a possibility.</p>

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<p>First I must say, OP, you cannot diagnose someone’s psychiatric illness unless you are a trained psychiatrist. And secondly, BrothersGrimm makes a tremendous point by offering a highly plausible counter argument. The boy in question doesn’t deserve to be interrogated as a criminal, but rather needs to be told that what he’s doing is wrong and needs to change. No need to treat him like a sociopath at this point. He could just be (oh the horror!) an angsty teenager.</p>

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<p>^
Or psychologist. Or other licensed mental health professional (although some will question the training of non-psychologists or non-psychiatrists in this area.</p>

<p>Regardless, no one can or should make a diagnosis on an online forum using limited third party info. It could be nothing, it could be something dangerous, it could be something in-between. However, given that the OP’s D clearly feels threatened, I think contacting the RA and Dean of Students was probably the right move. If it does turn out to be something not involving violence or threat of violence to others, the young man won’t be thrown in jail or face official institutional action. If it does turn out to be a homicidality or similar situation, it is clearly best to act on it now.</p>

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<p>I’ve been staying away from this thread, but am embarrassed to say that I relented and checked it before going to bed. To young people coming on here for help and inspiration while beginning a college search or applications, I am sure this discussion has been eye-opening, and not in a good way. I wouldn’t blame any newcomers for hesitating to try this forum again, but there can be good advice on CC and I hope you will come back, at least, selectively.</p>

<p>It seems that there have been a number of insightful posters who have moderated the hysteria, and the mom finally contacted the dean. Let’s hope there is a good outcome for everyone.</p>

<p>It occurred to me that this whole scenario would make a good story, play or film. The spirit of 1692 lives on, despite the sophisticated technology of 2012. Maybe BG could write it. Very encouraging to read posts from a high schooler who sees the other side of the coin, as he put it. Maybe human nature is evolving after all.</p>

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<p>Sweetmarie,
You asked early this AM about the boy being a sex offender. No no no…I wasn’t trying to say that (and I guess I was up too late [1:54am?] and tired). </p>

<p>I was simply mentioning the importance of the Dean’s involvement…b/c sometimes there are ways of handling different issues that we sometimes don’t think/know about… Just a “back pocket” suggestion about documenting with an appropriate official.</p>

<p>Fwiw, I am a medical mental health professional, and I do NOT believe I commented on the boy’s behavior…because it’s impossible to tell the extent of ANYTHING from the information presented. Frankly, I find it disrespectful that lists of behaviors (among other things) have been posted, in which mental health problems/diagnoses are thereby suggested. Without training and practice, it’s possible to apply a group of “symptoms” to just about anyone and call it “the problem.” Sorry, but that’s not the way it works in the real world…</p>

<p>QED.</p>

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<p>Very well said. It’s hard enough to make a solid diagnosis with a client/patient that you’re actually evaluating in a clinical situation–it’s impossible to make one via third party online forum information.</p>

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<p>I’ve been reading all along and have kept quiet but I think it is good that the mom called the Dean. None of the people involved (the boy’s roommate, friends, the RA, or the OP) are qualified to evaluate whether there is a real threat here or not. That needs to be turned over to someone else. In calling the Dean, she has turned that over to someone with the authority to do something. It is possible this young man would never act on his thoughts of “revenge” but it is also possible that this could turn into a Columbine/Virginia Tech type of incident. That is for professionals to determine and it is in their hands now.</p>

<p>As for calling the police though, I would also support those types of actions. Police often do wellness checks in situations like this. Every call to the police doesn’t result in criminal charges. More people enter the mental health system because of police intervention than any other method. They are able to take people to the ER for intervention when there is an unstable situation. Additionally, if there is a reason to get a PPO in the future, having a legal record of previous incidents can be useful.</p>