Sunlight starts creeping in under the closed curtains. More annoying than an alarm clock, the light calls sleepy eyes to open. Clock face reveals the two hours of elapsed time spent sleeping. Another morning with red rimmed eyes from crying in the night instead of dreaming.
Awake, but still in bed, questions arise in the mind of the depressed girl. Why should she bother getting out of bed? Dread arises thinking of what she must face today-her everyday ordinary routine of school, work, and people. Heavy legs refuse to move. Feelings of worthlessness and sadness impede her journey from bed to shower like immovable stones. She is nameless. She is sick. She is the one of seven college students who suffers from some form of depression. And the disease is spreading.
The National Institute of Mental Health classifies depression in three categories: major depression, dysthmia, and bipolar disease. Major depression includes symptoms such as sadness, anxiousness, sleep disturbances, suicidal feelings or thoughts and changes in weight.
To be diagnosed as having major depression, a person must have at least five of these symptoms unrelenting and concurrently for at least two weeks. Dysthmia is similar but less severe while bipolar disease presents with cycles of depressive and manic episodes. A manic episode can include uncontrollable fidgeting, racing thoughts, and increased aggressiveness.
Among college students, occurrences of students suffering from depression, and other mental health problems, continue to rise.
According to the University of Michigan’s Daniel Eisenberg, who directs the Healthy Minds Study center, which asks school counselors about the ”prevalence of clinical depression, anxiety and eating disorders” on their campuses, 90 percent of college counseling services reported an increase in the number of students with mental health problems.
Though Eisenberg cites better screening and earlier diagnosis of mental illness before students enter college as one reason why that number increased, past articles have shown that students struggling with depression is hardly new. In 2002, Shamsah Sonawalla, a Psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital, reported that 14 percent of 701 Boston-area students who filled out a survey showed significant symptoms of depression.
Additionally, Robert Gallagher of the University of Pittsburgh said in a 2001 survey that 85 percent colleges reported an increase during the past five years in students with severe psychological problems. Both findings were reported on in USA Today in an article written by Karen Peterson.
So if students have been struggling with depression since the beginning of the Aughts, what hope is there? The answer, that both 2002 and 2009 articles propose, is that help is out there.
Lonely and melancholy, she is home again having made it through another day. Yet no relief feels her cheeks with joy and color. She walks slowly and deliberately into the bathroom knowing she cannot face another day. No more crying. No more anxiety. No more girl. The hollowness she sometimes felt fills the house until the police arrive making noise. Tears fall again in her apartment… the tears of her family and friends.
Our take:
Depression is a serious illness, and is becoming more common for everyone. Yet help is available. Don’t hesitate to talk to your doctor, and I know some of us don’t have insurance. We can’t go to the doctor or pay an emergency room bill. Do some research. There are programs that can help you get your medicine for free. Groups do exist that care about you. I write this article as someone who suffers from depression. I am bipolar, but I have received help. I am not perfect, but I can cope now.
