Tried to commit suicide last Wednesday. We were told today, in the Monday morning debrief. I work as Teaching Assistant at an all girl's school. She was another TA that started the job two weeks after me in December last year. She had been a problem in our department and working with the kids in general, wouldn't listen to advice from us, told us everything she did or where she was going, subverted her immediate superiors and went to the deputy head, finance and management, which basically is like spreading lies to a degree. To be fair, she wasn't a good TA we could tell, the kids she worked with could tell, but our boss just didn't sort it out, when numerous complaints on how she worked would arise, not just from us but at least once from every department in school because of how she treated the kids and staff as stupid. Eventually she caused such an uproar that our department was split up officially when someone filed a racism claim against our department, and as such we were told that we would now be working in specific subjects instead of with specific kids. So that was around two months ago, and since then we've ignored eah other pretty much, and she's dodged meetings to not be there I believe, as well as leaving early on some days. She wasn't in all of last week and most of the week before. So she tried to commit suicide by laying on the tracks of the Underground train station at Finchley Road tube station. It was such a shock hear. She is apparently to have likely loss the use of one of her legs. She also has a husband and 2 year old daughter that I've met. I've given her lifts to the station before, worked in the same class as her, would talk and eat lunch with her and so on so forth. It just is such a shock, to not speak to someone for two months, see them about and still have meetings with them, yet she did this. And I never saw it coming. I guess her behaviour was a cry for help in her own way. We don't know why she did this, and we were told that she's had a lot of problems in her life before, and still does, but our boss wouldn't go into details, and none of us asked. My greatest fear this morning was being late for the Monday morning meeting, but now I just feel like an idiot. This woman has decided to try and end her life, with her two year old, a teacher training course planned for next year and having a wealthy husband, a suicide attempt... It just doesn't seem possible. Maybe she didn't care about any of those things, maybe she had deep depression, maybe her husband was abusive, or her family was getting to her, but something deep triggered her to do this, but I'm shocked anyway. It reminds me of people I've lost before, maybe not as close to me, but it's just a reminder and it deeply saddens me. I feel some guilt, maybe, but I know that whatever I've or my other TAs have said to her doesn't cause someone to be suicidal, yet we're all taking it like it's part of us to blame for what happened. I don't know, I just wanted to say something out loud to you guys. And that this is the second tragedy that's happened in the last month of someone I've known who's died. The other was an 18 year old girl I knew last year that died from a brain tumour, and it was only two weeks ago. This woman may never be able to walk properly again. Her daughter may be taken from her since she could be labelled as unfit. Her husband might leave her and take the child. She might be left alone, rejected, and may even try to kill herself again and succeed tha time. Life is just so, unexpected.
Man oh man. That is shocking. She clearly has a lot of issues, and whatever those may be, she will be getting help for them. No doubt about that. I don't think you or your coworkers have to feel at all responsible for it; you were just doing your job and there was no way of knowing she would do it. It just shows that you never really know what is going on inside someone's head, especially someone who you're merely acquainted with through work. Try not to be so negative. For all you know she may have a huge support network who will emerge after this event. It might be a wake up call for her husband and her family. It might be a wake up call for her too.
Dang, that's some news to find out. If I heard someone tried to commit suicide, unfortunately, I wouldn't react at all. I mean, I would be shocked, but I've never been one to get upset over people dying or trying to kill themselves. Sometimes I hate being me. But it's good that you're worried about these sort of things. If she messed up her legs though, that's pretty harsh. Hopefully it gave her a little wake-up call about what she was doing. Not to be harsh, but suicide just is never the answer. I know some people do think that, and I can't change their minds sometimes, but I don't think they realize exactly what they'd be leaving behind if they did that. I hope she was thinking about her daughter. If I were to lose my mom or dad, I'd be devastated. I just hope she can get past this and hopefully work out the things in her life. Unfortunately, from what you described, she seemed to be one of those people that just grew up being told they were right about a lot of stuff, and she might have let it go to her head. If she can understand to listen to other people and take their advice, she's already taken a large step to helping herself. And I'm sure you can do something for her too if you talk to her. Even if it's something small, any amount of help can lead to something bigger in the long run.
Thanks for your reassuring words, Mish. I know it's not our fault, we hadn't really seen her at all in months or talked, so I doubt it was us that pushed her, but but both sides pushed our stress levels a bit, I'm sure. I can't help but think that nothing will look up for her now, she likely will lose her daughter if she is seen as mentally unfit, and wouldn't be allowed to work with kids if she is considered unstable, so the chance to be a teacher is in question now. This was one of the worst things she could have done for herself, and I don't see her realising life will get better. She was pretty open about her past to everyone, she said she had been disowned by her parents for marrying a French guy, she came from a strict Sikhist cult family, which is weird for Sikhs since they are generally not fanatics, and apparently the head of this little sect thing was viewed as a god by their sect. Anyway, she never did anything for herself until she fought her parents to go to Uni, and learned how to do things that a 10 year old would've learned at the time. Then she went into publishing, and 'quit' her job to pursue a career as a teacher. From talks with her and our department, she is in effect an elitist, wants to work at posh and high class schools, send her daughter there since she'll get the best education possible and won't get into trouble with the wrong (which is blind bullshit). She's called the special needs kids we work with dumb, pushes them to do work above their ability, thinking they will get A* if she works with them, has taken over classes from the teachers, said their not teaching right and takes kids out of classes to work with them by herself. Effectively she was **** at her job, and no amount of complaining made our boss do anything to change it, like talk to her, and this went on until (a day I was out) people in our department commented in the middle of an open discussion believing that she wouldn't make a very good teacher. She enquired more, asking 'Why?' and such, one TA said that she didn't think she'd be a good TA because the fact she would ask every TA, Teacher and management official how to do it, and not follow the advice unless it was something she wanted to hear. The woman burst out into tears and left our office. She hadn't gone back in our office again to work on things again, she kept to the Staff room and barely talked to us afterwards. Apparently this is all caused by stuff at home, according to our boss, who apparently has been told more then us. I'm just shocked that it all of a sudden happened, it didn't seem to build up, it just happened.
