Stress and Anxiety: You’re not alone

Anxiety, stress and depression are no strangers to a full-time college student. The pressures of higher education have the potential to be overwhelming and even harmful.

Three Utah State University seniors recognized this fact and have stepped up to help make a difference.

Ilana Cornfield, Trisha Johnson and Jessica Palmer have founded a branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI, on campus. NAMI is a grassroots organization that works to raise awareness and provide support to people who suffer from mental illness. All social work majors, the founders learned about NAMI in a mental health class and knew it was something they wanted to bring to the university setting.

“We thought, ‘There needs to be some sort of club on campus for mental illness.’ Because it can really affect the rest of your adult life if you learn to take care of your mental health when you’re younger,” Palmer said.

Studies show that really acute mental illness strikes around the age of college students, Cornfield said. And one big reason is people are alone for the first time in their lives.

“They’re independent, and they don’t know what to do, and all of a sudden it all sinks on them like the perfect storm,” she said.

USUNAMI hopes to offer resources for students who find themselves in such sinking situations. Weekly student-led support groups are one resource they will provide. Three students are currently in training with a NAMI representative to conduct these sessions.

“This is something run by students for students,” Cornfield said. “As soon as you have students getting involved in the role of support groups, that helps reduce stigma. Spreading education to your fellow students definitely makes this a much easier thing to talk about.”

The main focus of NAMI for the year is reducing stigma, as evident in their campaign #nostigma. USU’s branch also plans to utilize this powerful motto in their work as well.

“You can only reduce stigma by education and by talking about it, and that is what we are aiming to do,” Cornfield said.

In addition to shrinking stigma this year, USUNAMI has goals to expand their club and keep it available for years to come. As all three founders are seniors, they decided to appoint a younger club presidency in order to protect the future of their organization.

“People tried to start a club in the past, but it fizzled out after a year. Our main goal is to keep it going and continue to help students on campus,” Johnson said.

Junior Laurel Hanson has been appointed as president for the 2015 academic year. Hanson has a passion for this cause and is anxious to begin work.

“I look forward to getting out there and letting students know that we are here. And we’re available to everyone. Whether it’s themselves, their roommate, or just someone they know, we’re here,” Hanson said.

As part of her responsibilities, Hanson will work to organize and run the student support groups. The proposed focus of these groups is learning tools to manage stress and anxiety. That emphasis will change based on the needs voiced by the group. More details about these sessions will become available after the leaders have completed their NAMI training.

After just one month, USUNAMI has 111 members ready to begin meeting. To raise further awareness of the new club, the founders organized NAMI week. On Wednesday, a self-care day including instruction on meditation and mindfulness, was held in the TSC. Thursday brought a unique speaker with an important message to campus.

“We are going to have someone come and talk about Crisis Intervention Training for police officers. They train police officers on how deal with people who are mentally ill. There has been a lot of deaths because police officers don’t know what to do, and CIT has been known to reduce those deaths,” Cornfield said.

The CIT speaker will be in the Distance Education building, room 012 at 11 a.m. Questions regarding leading or joining a support group can be sent to namiutahstate@gmail.com. Further information can also be found on the Facebook page NAMIUSU.

— emilyabel25@gmail.com