The student said she had overdosed on something. She had no idea what she had taken. All she knew was she wanted to die two days ago.  Bryson is bound by the rules of the school to tell parents if their child is talking about suicide. If the risk is imminent, students need to go to a hospital emergency room, and Bryson gladly volunteers to take them. In these cases of at-risk kids, she also involves one of the two mental health counselors at the clinic.  That morning, Bryson immediately called the girls’ father and had him meet them at the emergency room.  He stood off to the side, a few feet away, impassive, his face expressionless.

            For the most part, Bryson feels no conflict telling parents when their children reveal suicidal tendencies or other at-risk behavior.  “When I feel a conflict, it is usually when a parent does not take the problem seriously, will not participate in counseling and just won't be involved,” she says.  In that case, the clinic becomes a supportive place to come to for confidential help.

            The consults with students can turn tricky, though, especially with depressed kids who say, “I just drink to feel better,” or students who believe that drugs make them feel better. One student was drinking with her brother and father. Bryson recommended Al-Anon. But the student “blew her off,” she didn’t think it was a problem. Why would she?  Her whole family was involved.

            The health clinic is a series of small rooms laid out along a narrow corridor. There’s the examination room, the office of the nurse practitioner, the office of the psychologist associate, a staff room big enough for a single table, the office of the registered nurse, and the most spacious, but still cramped, Pillow Room. Here a beat-up couch with worn cotton blankets snuggles up to two blue velour pillows as big as go-carts that monopolize the floor. Scattered around the room are outdated magazine and books with titles like Violent No More and Take Care of Yourself.  Students can rest here or call home on the phone sitting on a low, beat-up wooden table. The Pillow Room is also host to a weekly boys’ group, an adventure-based counseling group and, new this fall thanks to a grant secured by Bryson, a girls’ group.

             Elona Gormley, 17, knows the Pillow Room. She is a senior who moved to Eugene from Connecticut and soon discovered why the Willamette Valley is known as the Allergy Capital of the country.  Hit hard by seasonal allergies, she became a regular clinic visitor.  Over time, she’s developed a relationship with Bryson and some of the other staffers.  When her allergies hit and she has bad headaches, she comes in to get ibuprofen, sit in the Pillow Room, relax, get back into focus for school.

            Visits that begin casually may end with Elona getting swabbed for strep or telling about a few “weird” symptoms that might have been infectious mononucleosis, but tests proved were only caused by a viral infection.  The clinic staff is supporting Elona’s efforts to quit a three-and-a-half year smoking habit. She had tried before without success. At the clinic, Elona received more than just the standard “dangers to your health” pamphlet.  She got information on free nicotine patches and various methods of quitting – resources she says she wasn’t aware of. But most important was the daily support.

            “They seem genuinely concerned,” says Elona. “I walk by, and they’ll say, ‘How it’s going? How you are doing today?’ The people who worked at the health center were inspiring.”

            Elona doesn’t live with her mother at the moment, and her father died when she was young. She lives with “friends, more or less.”  The health center has been an important resource to her. She knows how expensive it is to go to the doctor.  It’s money she doesn’t have.

            In the waiting room, a wall of pamphlets greets students. The paper pamphlets bend over a thin band of string that restrains them and prevents them from spilling to the floor.

The Facts: Sexually Transmitted Disease

Touch and Sexual Abuse

Dealing with Conflict

            A male student is hunched in a seat talking with health clerk and receptionist Deborah Sinnott, the checkpoint for all students who funnel through the clinic.  The student, David, talks half to himself, half to Sinnott about his parents, the television they used as a babysitter, how they tried the best they could. How tired he is. He has come to the clinic instead of going to class.

             “Are you avoiding class?” Sinnott asks.  She is straightforward but not uncaring. Personal attention at the health clinic starts with Sinnott.

            “I do not avoid class,” David says loudly. “I have a backache.”

            “That’s what you told me yesterday,” Sinnot says. “That you couldn’t go to class because of that.”

            David starts to take offense.  Then he pauses. “I’ve been through so much lately.” His voice trails off, distracted.  When he starts in again, his voice is a stilted monotone, as if he is unaccustomed to talking to others. “I’m an only child. I’ve gone through so much,” he says.  “There’s a difference between doing nice things for people and having emotional support. I never had anything. I never had anything. They would work all the time. I’m tired of not getting work done. Tired of being tired.”

            Sinnot has called back to the staff psychology associate, who comes to the waiting room to invite David into his office for a consultation.