It Can Feel Like Drowning
The Pandemic Puts Student Mental Health Front and Center
You’re in your dorm room, crying and trying to slow your breathing as you gasp for air at 2 a.m. and you have to get up at 8 a.m. for classes, but you just can’t get yourself to fall asleep. You just had a panic attack that was triggered because of a paper you forgot was due earlier, but you felt this coming because your whole week was mentally draining.
As a college student diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, I’ve had nights like this. I’ve been there. College is already stressful enough between trying to balance studies, relationships, work, a social life and self discovery. This stress is only heightened by the pandemic and isolation while trying to get an education. Anxiety and depression, specifically, are intensified during this pandemic for students with mental health conditions.
I put a poll on my Instagram account asking current college students “Would you say the pandemic has had a negative impact on your mental health?” Out of the 100 college students who responded, 88 said the pandemic has had a negative impact on their mental health. My informal poll is backed up by more formal ones.
According to statistics from Chadron State College, 73 percent of college students living with mental-health conditions have experienced a mental health crisis on campus, while 34.2 percent stated that their school did not know about their crisis at all. According to an article published by the college- and career-advice website What to Become, 64 percent of college students who drop out do so because of mental health problems.
This pandemic has clearly hit college students in general when it comes to mental health, but some of us already had mental health conditions. So how do college students battle chronic mental health conditions, the drama and stresses of college life, and a global pandemic? How did they cope with everything before the pandemic?
From scriptures in the bible to drinking alcohol, students turn to a variety coping mechanisms when it comes to the pandemic. While not all of these are healthy, it’s easy to see how the pandemic has brought us here, especially considering some mental-health conditions even before COVID-19.
First-year student Sage Amdahl compares her depression to the feeling of drowning. “I used to imagine myself sinking, pulled down by layers of thick clothing while desperately clawing for the surface of the water,” says Amdahl. “I could see my friends, my family, my therapist throwing a rope into the water, but you can’t grab it once you’re already under.”
Before the pandemic, Nicole Fair, a third year student at Whittier College , says for her living with Generalized Anxiety Disorder consists of overthinking and over-analyzing to the point where she gets stuck in the worst- case scenario, which is where depression comes in. Fair believes there is this stereotype of what depression and anxiety looks like, there’s this belief that someone who looks like they’re always happy or seem put together can’t be mentally ill. She says these ideas can be very detrimental to those who struggle with mental illnesses because it invalidates their experience and it creates this vicious cycle in which you end up invalidating yourself, wondering if you’re just pretending to be mentally ill or that you’ve made it all up and you’re just “being dramatic.”
Sky Black, a third year at Whittier College who struggles with generalized anxiety disorder, says she believes these stigmas come from i an overall lack of understanding. Black says she notices people will say that they’re depressed, when really they just had one rough day. Black sees this as downplaying depression, that it invalidates the difficult daily struggles people with depression actually have to face and the extremes that mental health conditions can bring. On the other hand, not all depression is severe or accute. It looks different person to person.
These young women say that school has had an impact on their mental health. Amdahl says school had an overall positive impact, especially when feelings of abandonment occurred. It helped her to surround herself with friends. On the other hand, when Amdahl was experiencing harassment at her high school, it wasn’t the school psychologists or drop-in centers that helped her through it. When Amdahl spent her days in school bathrooms or alone in the art room, it was individual teachers who she eventually found support within.
Black and Fair have similar experiences when it comes to school. Fair says moving away from home for college was a very positive influence on her mentally. She says being able to have more freedom and meet new people had a specially important impact on her since she comes from a very small town. Black was so excited to go to college that graduated from high school early and has noticed she is a lot happier in college than she was in high school. Black also gets extra support in academics through Student Disabilities Services but says that is not a well known resource. Overall, finally having full independence has been great for her mental health.
Not everyone has the same experience, though, and Whittier College’s Counseling Center offers resources for the times when a student’s mental health isn’t so great. Dr. Doribeth Tardillo says Whittier College’s counseling center has a variety of resources available since students may have differing needs. The center offers psycho-therapy, individual counseling (six to eight sessions), and peer-to-peer support counseling. They also have “Mental Health Mondays,” in which a new topic is discussed every Monday as a group. Dr. Tardillo adds that the counseling center is currently trying to work with other departments in order to take accountability for students’ mental health. They plan on working with Student Disability Services to learn how to better work with students on the autism spectrum and they plan on working with the Office of Equity and Inclusion (OEI) the day after the 2020 elections to give students a safe space to process.
During the pandemic, second-year Whittier College student Chelo Ferschweiler, dealt with pretty severe depression throughout quarantine this summer. Her summer was an overall blur, possibly because her daily routine consisted of losing her appetite, being extremely tired and being so sore that every joint in her body was too painful to move, making her want to just stay in bed.
On the other hand, Amdahl says she’s taken the pandemic surprisingly well and has been taking walks with her friends to stay social and to get physical activity. She’s also been focusing on her art as an outlet. She says the pandemic has forced her to address the things she’s struggled with.
Fair says her mental health during the pandemic has also deteriorated. The lack of social interaction has been really detrimental for her, and it is hard for her to reach out to her friends because her anxiety makes her feel that others would reach out to her if they wanted to. This leads her to a downward spiral in which she believes that her friends don’t want anything to do with her, which worsens her depression. Similarly this summer Black was constantly anxious about getting sick, even though she was taking the necessary precautions not to. She had to keep herself busy so her mental stability didn’t completely diminish.
While the overall college experience has had mostly a very positive impact on their mental health, Black wasn’t completely satisfied with her pexperiences with the school’s counseling center. At the end of Black’s first year in college she wanted to go to therapy, but she wanted something more consistent than what the school provided. The center did refer her to other places for therapy, but didn’t offer any resources for transportation. Black also mentions that therapy can be really costly, especially for college students, and the school didn’t have financial support for that.
A report released in September by Chegg, an organization that invests in scholarships and research of student issues, supports the idea that colleges need to give more resources to students with mental health conditions, so they can feel more heard. Chegg reported that only four in ten students say that they feel their instructors take mental health seriously and just three in ten students say they feel comfortable enough to tell their instructor if their mental health prohibits them from completing work
According to reports by Chegg and Inside Higher Education, 58 percent of college students surveyed say they are “moderately,” “very” or “extremely” worried about their mental health during the pandemic. Dr. Tardillo says that the counseling center is offering extra support to students during the pandemic. This includes video conferences within state regulation and consultations for those currently out of state. The center also plans to connect and refer students to other therapists if they are out of state.
There has been an increase in mental health needs, not only at Whittier College, but across the US. There has been an overall increase in college students reporting anxiety, depression, and distress (related to finances, relationships and academics) since the pandemic started. According to surveys done by called Active Minds, an organization focusing on mental health awareness among young people, one in five college students say their mental health has significantly worsened under COVID-19. Among the students surveyed 38 percent said their stress came from having trouble focusing on school or work, 28 percent said their stress came from feeling disconnected from friends and loved ones.
Dr. Tadillo understands that dealing with changes and the unknown can be especially hard on top of online courses. Dr. Tadillo suggests that students acknowledge that any strong feelings and reactions are normal for the state we are in, and to take time to adjust when you can. She encourages students to contact the counseling center if they need help.
