On Tuesday, November 13th, a friend of mine suggested that I attend a lecture with her. She told me that it was on suicide prevention and would occur at 4:30pm in the Alton Auditorium. Since I was free that evening and wanted to accompany her, I decided to attend. When we arrived at the auditorium, I was surprised by the amount of people in attendance. I thought the event would be small, personal, and perhaps to some people therapeutic. However, when the lecture began, it was extremely factual, analytic and seemingly coldhearted. I later found out that it was not a suicide prevention program. It was actually a psychological analysis on suicide titled “The ‘I’ of the Storm: Understanding the Suicidal Mind”. Throughout the event I was rather confused, but the lecture was very informative and interesting
The lecture was given by Dr. David Lester, a psychology professor here at Richard Stockton College. He focused on the analysis of suicide letters and diaries of various people. The objective of the study was to find out similarities between victims of suicide. The victims were of all different backgrounds and no two situations were alike. However, after much analysis by experts, an acronym was formed to describe common signs of the suicidal mind. This acronym is ‘IS PATH WARM’: Ideation, Substance abuse, Purposelessness, Anxiety, Trapped, Hopelessness, Withdrawal, Anger, Recklessness, and Mood change. Dr. Lester explained that while not all people show all of these signs, they are the most frequent.
Dr. Lester spoke of many people, some famous, some average, and some college students like myself. One of which was a girl named Katie, who was the sister of one of his students. She left behind a diary of her thoughts and feelings spanning the last few years of her life up to her death. The diary demonstrated some trends found in victims of suicide and was referred to frequently throughout the lecture.
The event ended with Dr. Lester concluding that there are no straightforward signs of a suicidal mind. Every case was very unique and different. Therefore, no concrete trends could be found. Although this appears to be anticlimactic, it was a reassuring ending. He also left some phone numbers for suicide prevention and conveyed a sympathetic tone throughout the lecture. Understanding the suicidal mind was informative and helpful in coping with such a horrible tragedy.