Dangerous Depression
危险的抑郁症
Adversity introduces a man to himself.
Author Unknown
“Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...” was all I heard while my Spanish teacher lectured the class about verb conjugation or something like that. Someone raised his hand to ask a question. I struggled to keep my eyes open. “You need to listen to this,” I thought to myself. Our teacher went off topic, again, and started telling us a really interesting story that had nothing to do with learning Spanish. I looked at the clock. There were still thirty minutes of class left. But a minute later, the bell rang. It couldn’t possibly be the dismissal bell.
“Is there an earthquake or fire drill today?” I thought to myself. Usually the teachers forewarned students about drills, but this bell rang longer than it should have. There could only be one reason that a bell like that would ring: a lockdown drill.
After locking the classroom door, our teacher immediately called the office to ask them what was going on. They didn’t know, but they did say that the bell was not for a lockdown drill but for an actual lockdown! Everyone in the class got scared. The students began to talk among themselves, including me. One girl, Joyce, had to go to bathroom really bad, but no one was allowed to leave class. An armed gunman could be walking the halls for all we knew. Before I knew it the dismissal bell rang, but we couldn’t go to break because no one could leave class. Joyce just couldn’t hold it anymore. So our teacher asked for an administrator to escort one of her students to the restroom—it was an emergency. It wasn’t too long after Joyce came back that a girl in my class got a cell phone call from her friend, and we found out what was going on.
In Room 309, another classroom just two halls away, a boy stood up with a loaded gun, pointed it at the teacher, and started talking about how horrible his life was and how stupid his family was. While he was speaking one of the teacher aides snuck out of the classroom with about five students and ran to the office. It was then that the lockdown bell rang. The boy with the gun waved it around while the teacher and his friend tried to calm him down. The boy pointed the gun at a student named Greg. His friend saw this and, although terrified, jumped on the boy. Greg, seeing that the boy was distracted, immediately grabbed the gun. An administrator came in, and soon after the police arrested the boy.
I called my parents and left school early that day, along with half of the school. The students from Room 309 went to counseling for the next few weeks, which brought them behind in their classes.
The boy with the gun is now in jail; he will never participate in a graduation ceremony. However bad his life was, it cannot be worse than it is now. I wish he knew there are other ways to cope with trauma than by using a weapon on yourself or others. Help is always there.
Rosie Ojeda
逆境能让人认清自我。
——逸名
我听到，西班牙语老师正在讲台上哇啦哇啦地讲着好像动词变位的内容。有人举手提问，我强迫自己把眼睛睁开。“你必须注意听这部分内容。”我暗自告诫自己。老师又开始跑题了，她在讲一个有趣的故事，但却和西班牙语的学习毫无关系。我看了看表，还有三十分钟下课。然而一分钟之后，铃声却响了起来，这不可能是下课铃。“是地震吗，还是今天有消防演习？”我在琢磨着。通常老师会提前告知大家演习内容。然而这个铃声太长了，不像是消防演习。只有一种演习的铃声是这样响的，那就是紧闭演习。
将教室大门锁上之后，老师立刻打电话给办公室询问发生了什么事情。然而大家都不知道，但是他们确定这次并不是演习，是来真的！教室里每个人都很紧张。大家开始议论纷纷，包括我在内。一个名叫乔伊斯的女生特别想去上厕所，然而大家都被禁止离开教室。人人心里都很明白，现在可能有持枪歹徒正在教室外的走廊上徘徊。还没回过神来，下课铃响了，但是我们却无法下课，因为大家都不能离开教室。乔伊斯实在忍不住了，于是老师找来一位管理员护送她去旁边的卫生间，这也属于紧急情况下的应急措施。乔伊斯回来后不久，班里的一个女生用手机联系上了她的朋友，我们终于明白发生了什么事情。
在距离我们两个教室远的309 教室，一个男生突然站起来拿枪指着老师，然后开始抱怨他的生活有多么糟糕，家人有多么愚蠢。当这个学生正在滔滔不绝地讲着自己的遭遇时，一名助教带着大概五名学生，偷偷溜出教室跑到了办公室。之后紧闭铃声响起。那个男生不停地挥舞着枪，而老师和这个男生的一位朋友努力想让他冷静下来。男生接着将枪指向了一位名叫格雷格的男生。见此情形，他的朋友尽管很恐惧，但依然扑了上去。格雷格看到这个男生被牵制住了，立刻上去抢下了枪。一名管理员进来，之后警察很快逮捕了这个男生。
我给我的家人打了电话，之后和学校大多数同学一样，放弃接下来的课程，早早离开了学校。309 教室的学生们接下来的几周都需要进行心理咨询，而这会影响到他们的课程进度。
那名持枪男生现在仍在羁押中，他再也赶不上毕业典礼了。不管他的人生有多么糟糕，都不会比现在的状况更糟。我希望他能明白，治疗心灵创伤的方式不应该是手持武器朝向自己或他人，而是有许多其他方法，总能够帮助到你。
——罗西·欧杰达
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