College is a beautiful time in a person's life where excitement and freedom await. But it isn't all fun and games. There are tons of papers, tests, and long nights spent at the library. Stress in itself is not an illness but a problem. All of the pressure put on college students can lead to mental illnesses like anxiety and depression.
Although it is 2015, some people still think like it's the 19th century and believe people with psychological issues are "crazy." Nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody suffering from any psychological condition wants to be called crazy. For a lot of people, their mental health is out of their control. Maybe some chemical imbalances are there, maybe it's hereditary. But they are not crazy or sick--they are normal human beings who just need to adjust to life a little differently than perfectly healthy people. In a nutshell, mental health issues can arise from a number of triggers like stress, fear, or being exposed to an entirely new environment. And that is exactly what college is.
You're thrown onto a brand new campus with no familiar faces and a completely different schooling experience. You are expected to know everything and ace every test like in high school, but you soon realize high school did not prepare you at all for this. Most freshmen get the nervous jitters about college, but are able to adjust quickly and assimilate into the social scene fast as well. For me, college was a drastic change. Coming from a small town at a small public high school with a graduating class of 86 kids--Boston was overwhelming. Classes were hard, I spent hours and hours on a long paper just to get a bad mark on it, and I didn't know anyone. There are about 4,500 people in my class and although I loved school, something just wasn't clicking.
I would be nervous, constantly. I would get panic attacks during class, not knowing at the time what was happening to me. I thought I was going to faint. I started missing the classes where I had most frequently experienced that awful feeling and school became quite frustrating. It was like I was no longer in control of myself. After deciding I needed to do something about it--that these feelings were not entirely normal--I visited student health where I was diagnosed with anxiety and panic disorder. I was scared at first, because you don't exactly make friends by saying "hey I might have a panic attack but wanna grab lunch?"
Long after starting treatment for my mental health, I became more comfortable talking about it. It seemed like a lot of people I grew close to at school were dealing with the same issues I had and we were able to bond and help each other. After all this time I feel silly for being so self-conscious about my mental illness, but now I know it is, unfortunately, a lot more common than I thought.
There is no reason to be ashamed of having anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, or any other mental illness. You are not crazy. You are not alone. There is always someone out there going through the same thing as you. There is always help when you ask for it. When my grades suffered from my panic attacks during class I read this amazing quote online, "Your mental health is more important than your grades." No matter what happens at school, you and only you are your own numberone priority. Nothing else matters unless you are happy with yourself and your life. Your mental health does not define you. You are so much more than what you are dealing with. Sometimes you just need to take a deep breath and remind yourself that everything will be okay.
