A Troubled Student Mind
Alexis Maislen was known as a girl who could do anything. Her seemingly endless supply of energy enabled her to perform in plays, write for her college paper, intern for a state senator and keep her studies up to par.
But energy and good grades weren’t all that distinguished Maislen at her all-girl college in Boston, who was featured in BP Magazine published Winter 2005. She was also known for making inappropriate jokes, invading fellow student’s personal space and playing lewd games with her boyfriend in the residency halls. One of Maislen’s roommates felt so uncomfortable around her that she moved out and had the dean impose a restraining order.
Though she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1996 and given medication to treat the disorder, Maislen consistently struggled with her medication. In the college atmosphere, even though she had friends who accepted her, Maislen says she constantly needed to have more – more friends, more drugs, more alcohol and more of the “manic energy” that let her participate in her many activities.
“I just went emotionally overboard and plunged in,” Maislen said in the article.
The problem is that experiences like Maislen’s may be more typical than anyone previously thought.
According to a mental health survey conducted by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and Abbott Laboratories and released in Oct. 2004, one in seven college students acknowledged having difficulty at school because of mental illness.
“[Mental illness] isn’t something you can see,” said Dan Miggin, a licensed marriage and family therapist working at Bear River Mental Health in Logan. “Usually it’s an emotional and mental thing that’s happening with [a person]. A lot of the time it shows up in different behaviors, but unless you know what you’re looking for, you might not even consider it mental illness.”
Manifested in major depression, anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia and a manifold other diagnoses, mental illness can seriously disrupt students’ thinking, feelings, moods, social responses and overall capacity to cope with the rigorous, multitudinous demands of college life.
“It can be a traumatic thing for some kids to be off on their own and be responsible for everything,” Miggin, who worked with college students as a therapist in Idaho Falls, Idaho, said. “They have to manage their time and their money and their studies and their own curfew and even increased peer pressure over what you get in high school. A lot of kids don’t do well with that; they withdraw and get depressed, or they are constantly anxious about things, or they give up.”
Often, as is the case with obsessive-compulsive disorder, a student may not even realize that they have a problem until other symptoms, like increased alcohol and drug use, begin to appear, Miggin said.
“[Obsessive-compulsive disorder] is like perfectionism,” Miggin said. “When [a student] realizes they can’t be perfect in every one of their classes at all times, they become so overwhelmed that a lot of times they’ll give up completely, and it’s not because they didn’t care, but because they cared too much.”
The problem of mental illness is more pronounced than most campuses and most parents are willing to admit. On a federal level, President George W. Bush recently signed into law federal legislation that authorizes $82 million for youth suicide prevention programs. Some institutions, like New York University, have responded to increased reports of mental illness and increased suicides by establishing wellness hotlines, requiring freshman to attend seminars focusing on mental health issues and asking students to fill out a questionnaire about their history of mental health problems.
While heartened by these and other steps to confront mental illness and suicide, some, like Donna Satow, whose son committed suicide in 1998 while attending the University of Arizona, feel that the steps aren’t enough.
“We don’t want these steps taken in response [to suicides],” Satow said. “Schools shouldn’t wait until the NBC trucks are at their doors and then rush to fix things.”
Locally, in the past five years, there have been five threatened or attempted suicides on Utah State University property, but none have been committed.
Currently the USU Counseling Center, located in the Taggart Student Center Room 306, which is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, is staffed with six full-time licensed psychologists and several staff trained to help students coping with mental illness.
“The problems that we see most often are depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, people with relationship problems, an unfortunate amount of people coping with childhood trauma and some substance abuse problems,” said full-time counseling center psychologist Mark Nylger.
According to a recent counseling center assessment posted on the center Web site at www.usu.edu/counsel, between 2003 and 2004, 635 students sought services at the center. Of those students, 59 percent were female, 40 percent were male, 44 percent came in for one time consultations and the average number of sessions per client was 7.2.
“I’m sure there are people who don’t talk to anybody, or talk to some sort of religious counselor or authority instead,” Nylger said, “but that’s just a fact of life in the mental health field that a lot of people just don’t come in for treatment.”
Nylger said the stigma associated with mental illness prevents a lot of people from coming, though he admitted the stigma is less apparent now than it was even a decade ago.
“A lot of people view mental health issues differently than they view physical health issues,” Nylger said. “If somebody broke their arm, they would be unlikely to say, ‘I should be able to deal with this on my own,’ but if it’s a psychological issue of some type, then people feel differently. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to go and talk to someone that you’ve never met before about very personal things that you maybe have not told anyone in your life or didn’t wish to tell anyone”
Though Nylger said that many types of mental illness are just extreme versions of emotions and experiences common to life, students are better off getting help in the initial stages of their problem.
“If someone is depressed and they wait three months to come in, the depression has set in and it will take longer to help work with that problem” Nylger said. “I think people should come in whenever the problem is starting to cause them difficulties in their life.”
Counseling services are provided without charge to students who are enrolled with at least six credit hours. The center is funded by a part of student fees. Nylger said that all reports are strictly confidential, except in certain cases involving court subpoenas, tangible risk to self or others or possibly students with suicidal tendencies.
In addition to the counseling center, there are organizations devoted to helping family members and friends understand, cope with, and help those close to them who have a mental illness
Championing mental health research and spreading awareness and hope to communities across the United States, NAMI has recently begun extending its organization onto college campuses, hoping to improve services for those diagnosed with mental illness and their families, educate students about mental illness and improve the overall mental health of campus communities.
Though a chapter has yet to come to USU, the Cache Valley Affiliate of NAMI-Utah has programs in place to help students struggling to understand and help their friends and family members who are diagnosed with mental illness.
“The mission of NAMI is to acquaint people with mental illness, [to let them know] that it’s real, to provide them with coping skills and understanding [and] to work with people who do have mental illness,” said Gale Larson, president of NAMI-Utah Cache Valley Affiliate.
Larson and his wife Joyce began two of their 12-week courses on Feb. 8 and 9. The classes, which Joyce said include a lot of discussion, lectures about mental illness and interaction with others going through similar experiences, are taught every spring and fall free of charge. For more information, contact Joyce at 752-8818.
The most important thing for those coping with mental illness is to remember that you are not alone, Gale said.
For students coping with roommates who have a mental illness, one of the most important things to remember is that they shouldn’t try to be a therapist and fix the problem themselves.
“Refer them in to get help if you see someone struggling,” Miggin said. “Sometimes people need a kick in the butt in order to do something about [a problem].”
-mattgo@cc.usu.edu