Reflections on Warning Signs

The tragedy at Virginia Tech has led to some introspection around the blogosphere about warning signs of mental illness in academia. These posts by FemaleScienceProfessor struck me in particular.

We all too often ignore warning signs and threats. I have fortunately never had death threats made against me. But, I have been close to three academic cases involving mental illness. I'd like to discuss two here, because I thing action versus inaction made the difference. One case was that a graduate student in the same research group as me. He seemed to be suffering from some sort of paranoia. For example, he believed people were breaking into his apartment and leaving notes to him in his own handwriting. A second case was a graduate student in my department at my previous institution. She escalated situations whenever possible, left half hour long harassing phone messages for faculty and staff and used reframing and falsehoods to then portray everything as some sort of organized plot to discriminate against her. She was clearly unstable, but had periods of seeming lucidity that would lull everyone into a sense of security.

The thing both of these situations had in common was that people who were in positions of authority to really do something about the situation were reluctant to do so. In each case, there was pressure on the rest of us to pretend like it wasn't happening, or to simply manage the situation. No one wanted to do anything considered "drastic".

In the first case, the fellow graduate student's paranoia increased dramatically and things went downhill fast while our PI was out of town. This prompted several of us in the group to contact the department chair. I indicated I was afraid he was going to do something to hurt himself. One postdoc indicated he was afraid the student would become violent to others. Somehow or another, emergency counseling was arranged. By the time our advisor got back, he and everyone else wanted to consider the matter dealt with. However, it was soon clear that therapy was not ongoing, and we basically demanded our advisor take some action, as the one who had the most sway. He stepped up, and soon the student was in therapy and getting the chemical help he needed.

In the second case, the department went out of its way to smooth out the situation. The student was allowed to shift research groups several times, the department chair drove her to a conference, the department bought specialized equipment for her, and assented to demands for particular office space. Once I was pressured to take her into my group and I refused (this is after three previous situations had degenerated into harassing phone calls). The departmental staff members (all female) were afraid she was going to come to campus armed. Most of the male faculty thought these concerns were overstated and brushed these concerns aside. My feeling was that the department should, if nothing else, support its staff.

Eventually, this case was resolved, at least for the college. A male faculty member who was the graduate chair shouldered much of the burden of dealing with her. He also felt the concerns of the staff were legitimate. He wrote officially to the provost and the union, saying he was being forced to work in an unreasonable stressful environment and asked: "what can you do to help me?" This made things official, leading to an investigation. A number of people (chairs, deans, the associate provost) were mad he had started an official inquiry (and told him so). There is much more to this story, regarding the mental illness and legal issues, but from the institutional perspective, things became quite simple. By refusing to participate in the official process, she was barred from registering. She left our area and last we heard, she was at another institution doing the same thing.

Action (though perhaps late in both cases) ended up resolving both of these cases. However, I think suicide and/or violence against others were possible outcomes if actions were not taken. Often, there is reluctance to go through official channels and do anything drastic, in the mistaken belief that this will complicate matters. In both of these cases, it made things complicated only briefly, and ultimately improved things greatly.