Parents of college students - what would you do?
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Anonymous
| OP -- Do you mind saying what college this is? Or at least approximate size, rural/urban, etc.? Scary the college has not notified parents. |
Anonymous
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She needs more help than your daughter can give her; she's in a serious crisis which is affecting your daughter's college. She should not be in a position of caring for the dear friend who is depressed, as much as she wants to. Ask her how this is affecting herself and studying and socializing. Get her to see the reason why she is in college. There is a good website called "Focus on the Family" which can give you some help in dealing with this. Keep talking with your daughter and pray for the Lord to work in this crisis. |
Anonymous
| Your daughter needs to reach out for help for herself from the college and set limits, as tough as that really is. My DS went through something similar his sophomore year of college after his best friend tried to commit suicide. Although the parents knew, they were minimally involved and my DS ended up feeling responsible for his friend's mental health. My DS had to leave college for a semester and get his own counseling as a result. |
Anonymous
She is an adult- the college is under an obligation to keep her medical information private. It is not scary, it is the law. |
Anonymous
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The roommate's daughter is likely still a dependent of her parents. It is likely that her health insurance is based on her parents' employment. The way health insurance is now, I would be surprised if she didn't have to jump through some network or copay, etc. hoops. I am sure some kind of letter from the health insurance company is forthcoming to her home address. At least that is how it would work in my case. I would see that correspondence and wonder what it was. I might call my daughter/son and ask to open it. I might then understand that he/she is not at the dormitory. Etc., etc. Now, if she has health insurance through the school, it might be different. I don't know. In any case, I think the parents are going to know sooner or later. They should be the primary support for her because they are already in that position, not your DD. I would not feel badly about somehow getting this message to them a bit sooner. Maybe through a third party if you feel uncomfortable. Maybe the parents could visit the school, find her absent, be alarmed, and ask where she is. Would the school withhold the information? |
Anonymous
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Your daughter needs to ask herself why the roommate would withhold this critical information from her parents. This is a very dysfunctional situation that your daughter will never be able to fully support. Much less alone. Your daughter is a very nice young lady and it's hard to do this at her age, but she needs to be supported in distancing herself so that the roommate can get the kind of support that your daughter cannot give. |
Anonymous
| It is time for you to intervene. Let your daughter know that you are coming for a visit and to access the situation. Your child has known her roommate for 6 weeks. The parents need to know what's going on. Either the roommate tells them or you will. This is not a healthy situation. |
Anonymous
You don't get to decide things like that. The roommate is an adult who has the right to keep her medical information confidential. Perhaps the parents are a factor in the problem -- how would you know? However, your daughter needs to take a step back. Her behavior is likely not the most helpful course of action and if she has only known the roommate for six weeks all it is is pointless enabling. Tell your DD that the best thing she can do to actually help the roommate is to stop taking responsibility for all this, maybe visit occasionally as a friend if she really feels like it, and otherwise inform the university so that the appropriate processes and authorities can get involved. Not DD's circus, not DD's monkeys. Taking on business that's not your is rarely the best choice for anyone in the long run. |
Anonymous
Okay... weighing in as a current parent of one college student and one recent college graduate, as well as a person who was depressed throughout college and almost suicidal (frequent thoughts/plans but never attempted anything)... this is frightening to read. PLEASE do not be the one, as an outsider in the situation, to decide who needs to know what about the roommate's medical situation. If there's procedures for reporting this at the college, OP's DD needs to follow those because she is not equipped to deal with this nor is it fair to her to expect her to. However, to involve the roommate's parents against her wishes is completely different. That's not just following an established procedure to make sure that the responsibility of dealing with a bad situation falls to someone able to take it on and not on the shoulders of someone who shouldn't have to deal with it, it's active meddling. It could also make the situation much, much worse. Someone telling my parents what was going on would likely have been the straw that pushed me from discreetly getting therapy without going through my parents' insurance that they thought I was still on but which I only ever used for "expected" expenses to hide the fact that I'd obtained my own, and being mostly successful at fighting to resist doing anything active, to attempting self-harm or worse. Them finding out anything about the situation would have been... bad. The roommate might be somewhat safer if she's been hospitalized, but involving the parents was clearly something she was avoiding and possibly for a reason. It could be her worst-case scenario. OP needs to protect their DD and get her out of the situation before she's in over her head, absolutely, but do not do that to someone who's already struggling. |
Anonymous
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OP here. Thanks for all the advice and perspectives.
To answer some questions...the college is in Boston. DD just met roommate in September and they became friends. Roommate is an international student and does not have a good relationship with parents. I never met the parents and have no way to contact them. Roommate is still in mental hospital about 20 miles away. DD has been taking Uber to visit her nearly every day since she's been there (over ten days). No one at the school has offered support to DD. No one at school is visiting her roommate or taking care of anything. It has been up to my DD to visit, bring her things, etc. DD feels she has no choice since there are no family involved. DD does not want to ask anyone for help and says she doesn't have any time. I have already called the head of counseling services as well as residential services and have placed a call into the dean. I have plan to visit in a week, but in the meantime I am very concerned with how this is being handled and the fact that DD is pretty much taking over the role as the parent in this. I am also worried about what happens when roommate returns to school. From my observations, RAs don't seem to be very involved in much. DD says she barely knows her. This is very different from when I was an RA in college |
Anonymous
| PP, I just read your post after posting myself. Interesting that I was thinking about how I SHOULD try to figure out how to contact the parents since I would want to know as a parent myself...and also to relieve my DD of the burden. But I get your point...thanks. |
Anonymous
| 10 day psychiatric hold is very unusual in the US. This serious situation. I would urge your daughter not to get involved any further. |
Anonymous
I'm PP. I understand the impulse, and I'm conflicted about this sort of thing myself too. As a parent, I would ABSOLUTELY want to know and I would do anything, literally anything, to help my kids if they were in that kind of distress. Most parents would, and most parents would genuinely try to do the right things. But unfortunately there's no way to know if the roommate's parents would be helpful, would be genuinely well-meaning but unintentionally harmful in the situation, or are actually a part of the problem and would actively make things worse. There's really no good way to know what the right choice is here. Maybe my personal experience is biasing me against the sensible choice to attempt to contact the parents... I could be the one who's wrong here. Just something to think about. Anyway, I would tell DD to stop visiting except maybe once per week. Just stop, period. Then, inform the RA, the student health center or counseling center, and the dean of students of a) what happened, b) what DD has been doing to support the roommate, c) what other support the roommate seems to have, and d) the fact that DD is now DONE being at all responsible for this. From here on out, school authorities need to deal with it. That's very specific and it leaves no room for anyone to put more pressure on your DD to handle something that's not her responsibility or something she's even equipped to handle. |
Anonymous
| International student. This is an important detail. |
Anonymous
| ^ I agree. If not the parents, then this is the school's issue to handle, not your daughter's. A good friend's child went through a nightmare of a freshman year with an international roommate who thought she could get away with a whole lot since her parents were nowhere nearby (and she had never experienced any such freedom before). The RA/dorm/school left it to my friend's daughter to be in charge and help the roommate whenever she needed anything or lost anything or got sick or came home and passed out (nothing as serious as attempting to harm herself though). Even after my friend's daughter made clear stop the school that she did not want to be put in that position and my friend called the school and complained, it took months for the situation to be resolved (i.e., new roommate). Not a happy first year of college. |