I'm sure you've heard the statistic "one in four people suffer from a mental disorder" before. Mental health disorders are very common and can be found anywhere. College campuses are no exception. It is our job as students to be aware that this is a serious issue on campus, and that many of our fellow students are suffering, some of them alone. Many people feel like they have to keep their mental disorder a secret because they will be judged or looked down upon. There is a stigma associated with mental health that needs to be eliminated, and Active Minds is an organization dedicated to that cause.
Active Minds is a national organization with over 400 chapters on college campuses across the nation. In 2000, Brian Malmon, a college student, took his own life after a fight with schizoaffective disorder. His sister Alison Malmon, a college student at Penn, discovered after the death of her brother that mental health on her college campus was not as widely talked about as it was experienced. With that in mind, Active Minds was formed. The organization works to end the stigma against and to bring awareness to mental health issues on college campuses, something that desperately needs to be done.
Mental health disorders are not something that should be swept under the rug, but instead talked about openly. Active Minds works to ensure that students feel safe talking about their issues in order to ensure that they don't suffer alone. With a national headquarters located in Washington, D.C., Active Minds fundraisers, holds national awareness campaigns, provides speakers, and holds events on campuses for students to attend.
The fight for ending stigma against mental health disorders starts here, and we, as a community, can work to ensure that students don't have to be afraid of something they cannot control and that their community is here for them. By joining an Active Minds chapter, you can be someone who contributes to the cause. You can be someone who shows your fellow students that they are not alone. You can be someone that not only changes the view on mental health for our current students but for the future ones too.
