VOLUME 107, ISSUE NO. 26 | STUDENT-RUN SINCE 1916 | RICETHRESHER.ORG | WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 2023
‘The only catharsis that comes to mind’:
Students open up about suicide MORGAN GAGE & RIYA MISRA
“You think that if it was really bad, you would … be crying in the bathroom, and the French depressing music is Editor’s Note: This article contains playing and it’s like black and white, you graphic mentions of suicide attempts. know?” Samarth said. Students interviewed were given the option From suicidal thoughts to attempts of remaining anonymous in the interest on their own lives, the Thresher spoke to of keeping their experiences private. The former and current students about their anonymous students were given false experiences with suicide on campus. names, which have been marked with an Samarth struggled with their mental asterisk on first mention. If you or anyone health throughout high school, but when you know are thinking about suicide they came to Rice, they said they were or experiencing a health crisis, call the doing better than ever. That changed National Suicide in the spring of Prevention Lifeline their freshman at 988. year when campus “The way shut down due I think there was this that people view to COVID-19 and suicidal ideation expectation that I could they returned to is very interesting just ignore, wipe away their high school to me,” Gargi or erase how bad I had bedroom and, in Samarth, a Brown way, their high been feeling and just be aschool College senior, said. mental “You tend to see better now, but …. it was health — which the person who is just a breaking point. didn’t bounce dealing with them back, even after as less of a person, Gargi Samarth campus returned to [like] they’re not BROWN COLLEGE SENIOR “normal.” as capable of “Everything understanding themselves, being self somehow wasn’t fine … We’re putting aware or as possessing rationality.” the worst part of isolation behind us and This translates into heightened fear trying to rebuild a community,” Samarth and stigma of people grappling with said. “I think there was this expectation suicidal ideation, Samarth said. But that I could just ignore, wipe away or it also, they said, encourages people erase how bad I had been feeling and to “write off” their own mental health just be better now, but …. it was just a difficulties when they experience them. breaking point.” EDITOR-IN-CHIEF & FEATURES EDITOR
Alaina Bertram (’21) experienced similar degrees of isolation after being sent home during the pandemic in the middle of her junior year. As she grappled with a change in routine and mounting depression back in her childhood home, she said her suicidal ideation reappeared. “It’s difficult to really talk about suicidal ideation because there’s kind of a line between suicidal ideation and being suicidal. I mostly dealt with the suicidal ideation aspect of it … I was always sort of passively suicidal,” Bertram said. “The fact that I graduated from college was a huge deal to me. Now I’m 24, and I was never supposed to make it to 23. I never had a plan to kill myself. I just always sort of assumed it would happen at some point.”
void through the center of my life.” Avalos said that once, when talking to Veteran Affairs, they asked him if he felt a feeling of hopelessness, and he said yes. “I didn’t feel … like life was worth living,” Avalos said. “We had, not necessarily money problems, but money wasn’t always around, so I remember thinking at one point I’m worth more dead than alive.” With weapons, particularly firearms, in the house, Avalos said it was difficult not to think of suicide. That began to change when he started “reinvesting” in himself by returning to school to earn his degree to focus on “Thomas Avalos, the person, as opposed to Sergeant Avalos, the marine.” However, thoughts of being “better dead than alive” resurfaced in the face of academic stress coupled with a ‘Unique cocktail’ of stressors pressure to excel in his classes. Thomas Avalos, a Lovett College Bertram echoed similar sentiments senior, spent 10 years in the Marine of academic pressure, saying she grew Corps. Suicide in up conflating her the military, he self-worth with said, “has a strong her grades — an presence in the especially difficult I never had a plan to veteran community, thing to separate myself included.” kill myself. I just always after entering He noted that sort of assumed it would college, when her multiple other men happen at some point. happiness hinged he served with died on the subjective by suicide. grading scale Alaina Bertram Avalos said he RICE UNIVERSITY ‘21 of introductory wanted to be a classes. marine his whole life. When he left, he said that it felt like there was “a very big SEE SUICIDE AT RICE PAGE 6
SPECIAL PROJECT Philip Humber revisits a career REASSESSING 2003
What Rice’s only national championship means 20 years later SEE PAGES 7-10
COURTESY RICE ATHLETICS Philip Humber threw a complete game to seal Rice’s 2003 College World Series victory. Humber later threw a perfect game with the Chicago White Sox before struggling and being released.
of ups and downs
“[The streak] is mind boggling to think about now,” Humber said. “Being able to win 30 consecutive games, at any level, is hard to At 9:01 p.m. on June 23, 2003, Philip imagine because things that don’t go your way Humber’s teammates tackled him to the just happen. But I think that just showed how ground. He had just thrown a complete solid we were, since in baseball, pitching and game, allowing two runs on five hits, against defense is really what wins you most of the Stanford University. At the moment the last games.” After coming home as a champion that June, batter grounded out, Humber was awarded his eleventh win of the season and Rice became Humber prepared for another season with many the national champion of a team sport for the of the key components which brought success in first time in school history. So, at the base of the 2003. Things went well for Humber in 2004, as he improved his ERA to 2.27 and set the Rice singledogpile, Humber lay smiling. “The national championship,” Humber game strikeout record, ringing up 17 University of Hawaii hitters. However, said, “is the thing I’m according to Humber, most thankful for that a pattern of ups-andhappened during my downs began to appear baseball life.” The national that year’s NCAA Humber grew up in championship is the thing during tournament that would Carthage, Texas and come to characterize his elected to play ball at I’m most thankful for career. Rice over signing with that happened during my “The last game that the Yankees out of high baseball life. I pitched [that year] was school. He saw success the last game of our under Owls head Philip Humber season,” Humber said. “I coach Wayne Graham, FORMER RICE PITCHER came in relief and ended stepping into the starting rotation as a freshman in 2002. That up giving up, as the last pitch I threw in college, year, the team reached, but exited early from, a grand slam. You went from my last game in the College World Series, losing their first two 2003, where you can’t get any better than that … games and being eliminated before Humber to that incredibly low moment.” Humber entered the Major League Baseball could have his first Omaha start. The next season, the Owls rode a school- draft the next day and was selected by the New record 30-game win streak through the middle York Mets as the third overall pick, immediately of the season to make it back. Throughout, the behind MLB star Justin Verlander and before Owls’ “Big Three” starters — Jeff Niemann, Niemann. Humber’s career, however, remained Wade Townsend and Humber, all sophomores unstable. This article has been cut off for print. Read the — excelled, in Humber’s eyes benefitting from full article at projects.ricethresher.org. the team’s solidity on defense.
LANDRY WOOD
THRESHER STAFF