How often have you been so stressed out in college that you skipped meals or sleep to get a project done? How many times have you broken down into tears of frustration and despair over studying for an exam, or not being able to get a homework problem correct after numerous attempts? How often have you felt like you were having a "mid-life crisis" when you've barely entered adulthood?
For so many students, mental health issues are a constant force in their lives, from anxiety to OCD to depression to eating disorders. We live in a culture and society that glorifies sleepless nights and Adderall-fueled study sessions, that thrives off of and takes pride in mental breakdowns over midterms and finals, that promotes this falsity that if you aren't struggling mentally, you aren't performing at your peak academically.
And it is so dangerous.
Mental health disorders are prevalent in more Americans that we realize, likely because we refuse to talk about it. Which is pretty ironic, given the fact that we romanticize and glorify the hell out of students having panic attacks and anxiety ticks and striving for nearly-unattainable perfection. We want our students anxiety-ridden, yet we don't want to hear about your internal panicking and fears. We love to glamorize depression as this cutesy quirk, as what makes us "different" and "edgy" and "cool," yet we ignore the cries of help from those suffering from these demons day in and out. We have created this mental picture and stereotype that to suffer from a mental disorder is a sign of pride, a thumbs up and kudos in the college world that you're dedicated to your academics.
As someone who suffers from mental health disorders, I am saddened and enraged that the illusive troupes so often depicted in popular culture and society are just that-illusive.
We've perverted mental health into something eclectic and unconventional, this little facet of a personality that is intriguing and unique. Yet, simultaneously, we've silenced the cries of so many who have suffered so deeply. We've spat in the faces of those who have protested against the colloquial depictions of mental health in popular culture, arguing that the vision and rhetoric being promoted isn't nearly the truth. We make seeking help seem like a white flag, a symbol of one's failure to buckle down, grit their teeth and ignore the monsters in their heads in favor of the numerical grades written on their assignments. We've denounced, discredited and denied so many the validity of their problems in order to protect this false image in our minds.
Mental health disorders and issues are not what we should be ashamed about. We, as a collective student body, should be ashamed of the ways we approach mental health treatment as a sign of defect, rather than seeing it as a sign of immense bravery and self-preservation. We view academic achievements in terms of all we have to give up in order to achieve success, rather than what we've opened ourselves up to learning.
The first step in any recovery process is admitting there's a problem at hand. Until universities and their students begin to accept mental health as a prevalent issue that needs addressing, more and more students will suffer in silence behind the falsity that academics are everything. We need more people to have the courage to enact change in the ways we, and our culture, approach mental health. No cumulative GPA or letter grade is worth the dissatisfaction within one's self and the suffering of one's mental and emotional wellbeing.
It's okay to not be okay.
So let's start seeing it that way.
