Mike was a prizewinning student: why did he die?

Fear of failure drives some students to suicide. Sarah Strickland looks at the pressures that can lead to tragedy and meets counsellors trying to help

Abandoning sleep, drinking gallons of black coffee and even popping pills to keep awake are the most common methods students resort to when faced with crucial exams.

This year one student went a step further and, tragically, it cost him his life. Iain Fraser, a third-year chemist at Edinburgh University, was found dead by one of his flatmates in March. According to three of his close friends, he had been using chloroform to control his sleeping patterns while revising for his end-of-term exams. The idea was to fall asleep straight after his afternoon lectures, wake up refreshed and study through the night, but it went terribly wrong. "He wanted to excel," they told the student newspaper later. "He thought he knew what he was doing, he thought his method was foolproof."

Iain's death, though accidental, is a poignant reminder of the sorts of pressures students are under at this time of year. Craig McDevitt, head of the student counselling service at Edinburgh, says that the number of students seeking counselling always increases just before exams. "Every year we see this terrible tragedy of people going to pieces in the midst of finals," he says. "Unfortunately, teaching how to manage anxiety takes time, and there's not a lot you can do when someone turns up in a panic on the eve of an exam, although just admitting for the first time that you are scared out of your mind can be a relief."

Some students have had problems throughout the year that are heightened at exam time. Others come with a real fear of failure that manifests itself only before exams. For some the fear is unjustified, while others genuinely face failure. Elsa Bell, head of counselling at Oxford University, says counsellors work in two ways, "helping them to calm down, get back their capacity to think and some realism about what they know and have to do. And addressing their fears, looking at what the exam represents for them. The fear might be that they are going to be more successful than somebody at home and they might be sabotaging their results. If they are finals, it's the end of an era, time to face growing up."

Oxford University hit the headlines a few years ago when three students committed suicide in seven months. An official inquiry conceded that the number of suicides was greater than would be expected on the basis of national rates for people in the 18 to 25 age group and the counselling service was expanded. Suicide, as Ms Bell points out, is something that many young people think about. "It's that time of your life when you are considering issues to do with life and death." Those who actually act on their thoughts are usually the ones who have not told anyone, let alone sought counselling. For their families and friends the pain is tremendous.

Jenny Whitaker lost her 21-year-old son, Mike, five years ago. He was a very bright chemistry student who always did well at exams yet always got in a state beforehand. She was sufficiently worried in his second year to suggest he come home for a break. "We got him back into normal eating and sleeping patterns and I was quite strict about how long he could work. He said he was going to fail but he ended up winning a prize and came home looking rather sheepish."

In his final year, Mike went back to university early to study, but suddenly came home, saying he couldn't cope and was ill. "He was in a very distressed state, shaking and crying. He said he wanted to leave, he couldn't cope with the pressure. His personal tutor was wonderful and told him to take time out. After three days he decided to go back. I really relaxed, thinking he had just needed a bit of home care. But in the middle of that night he simply took my car down to the village and attached a hose to it."

The shock was terrible. "I never contemplated that this sort of thing happened in stable families. Looking back, I think he felt everybody expected so much of him because he was so bright and he put tremendous pressure on himself to succeed. His notes were full of love but sad that he felt a failure and was not capable of making any decisions about his life. He said he was a burden and we would be better off without him.

"I think a lot of young people are so wrapped up in their own inner feelings of despair that that's the only way out they can see. It may be the answer for them but other people are destroyed by it. It's braver to go on living."

Childline has just published leaflets on suicide for young people, with money raised after the death of Charlotte Thompson last year. Charlotte, aged 20, committed suicide on the day she got her A-level results, convinced that she had not got a place at university. Mr McDevitt says that coming to terms with failure can be extremely painful. "It is a real loss and so often there is no second chance. But that is part of life. We try to help people to hold on to some self-esteem, to realise that it is not a matter of shame, that it is an accident and that they are more than just their capacity to sit exams."

Childline: 0800 1111; Compassionate Friends (for families coping with suicide): 0117 9539639.