How mental health affects students at SUNY Oswego
By Christina Bandru and Winnie Blackwood
Whether someone is clinically diagnosed with a mental health issue or is struggling with common feelings like stress, mental health plays an active role in the lives of students at SUNY Oswego.
The questions are: what help is available to students, and are they seeking it?
Nick Brown is a senior creative writing major at SUNY Oswego who has struggled with mental health since he was a freshman in high school. He started getting professional help for severe depression when he was in ninth grade.
“It’s come and gone,” Brown said. “I was miserable. It wasn’t a normal misery. I was drowned in apathy and had an overwhelming feeling of nothingness and numbness,” he added.
Two years ago, Brown decided to take a semester off, even though, people advised him against this decision.
“Even my therapist said school was a bigger priority than my mental health,” Brown said.
It made him wonder if counselors were advised to convince students to not leave school.
“The best thing I ever did was take that time off,” he added.
His mental health and stress over school started to affect him negatively.
“I wasn’t sleeping because I was so obsessed with getting a good GPA,” Brown said. “ I didn’t go out on the weekends. I was a total recluse,” he added.
Brown has utilized services and treatments to help with his depression. He was also struggling with taking full advantage of the services and treatments.
“I haven’t taken any medication in a year,” Brown said. “In spring of 2016, I went cold turkey off medication. I thought of it as another nuisance.”
Although Brown feels that SUNY Oswego has a good counseling center and system for students struggling with mental health issues, he sees room for improvement.
“They need longer sessions,” Brown said. “Their schedules are really tight, but that isn’t necessarily the counselors’ fault.”
Brown also believes that it is important to take note of counseling services outside of school.
“More kids should know about the 24-hour line,” Brown said. “Sometimes there’s a fear with calling it, so I hope we can change the stigma around that,” he added. “They’re nice people you can remain anonymous to.”
According to Robin McAleese, a mental health counselor at SUNY Oswego’s Counseling Services Center, the most common diagnosis she sees with college students is depressed mood, depression and anxiety.
There is a difference between a depressed mood and depression that individuals do not realize, McAleese said. The difference between the two depends on the duration. A depressed mood lasts less than two months, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder.
If a student is still feeling this way after the allotted amount of time, it is probable that they will have a diagnosis of depression. Yet students with a depressed mood should also seek treatment before this manifests into something more serious.
“I don’t want to see people necessarily suffering when they don’t have to,” McAleese said.
After a student tells McAleese, as the clinician how they have been feeling and for how long, it is determined what their state is.
“Often it does help them feel better, though,” McAleese said. “They’ll drop their shoulders and they’ll go, ‘I thought so, but I wasn’t sure.’”
Rikki Ziegan is the assistant director at Integrative Counseling Services. Ziegan believes college is a factor in college students experiencing these mental illnesses. Adjustment disorder is a common diagnosis ICS sees for students, as well, because college means a constant adjustment to aspects like schedules, socializing, home life and school work.
“It is common for college students to feel sad or stressed with the amount of coursework they have, and for some students, being so far away from home,” Ziegen said.
McAleese does not believe college plays a major role in the increasing number of students being diagnosed with these mental illnesses, but instead attributes it to the differences this generation experiences.
Recognizing the world as unsafe is a factor and some students can not cope with emotional discomfort, said McAleese, who is in her 60s.
She does acknowledge the stress college puts on students. McAleese said that the problems faced by young adults can be “scary” and have a long term effect.
“There’s just more media around how unsafe our world is that contributes to parents raising kids to be a bit more fragile,” McAleese said.
Daniel*, a SUNY Oswego student, said college has affected his mental health in certain aspects.
Diagnosed with depression and anxiety, Daniel tries to keep himself busy, since he does not take medication or seek counseling. In the past counseling was not an effective way for him to treat his mental illnesses.
“Because I don’t take medication or go to therapy sessions, I just try to deal with it on my own, which is a tactic that sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t work, but for the most part I’ve noticed it’s probably the easiest way for me to deal with it for right now, being a busy college student,” Daniel said.
While Daniel’s classwork can be easy, there are times when he has multiple projects going on at once that may trigger his anxiety, he said. Other triggers of his include getting bad grades and believing he is doing poorly in the class.
“I’ll start losing motivation,” Daniel said. “I’ll start either skipping or sleeping in more or even just losing that motivation to do my actual class work.”
Daniel takes his day step by step and takes each new day as it comes, going about his life and to classes as normal. If something bothers him, he will either talk to his friends about it, who talk Daniel through it the rest of the day, or he keeps himself so busy he does not have time to think about it.
“My depression over the years has gotten to the point where it’s not like I wake up and I’m immediately depressed all the time,” Daniel said. “There are days where that happens, but for the most part it’s something will trigger it and then I’m in a bad mood for the rest of the day.”
By the time he goes to bed and wakes up the next day, Daniel no longer feels the way he did the day prior. “Sleeping it off” is helpful, he said.
SUNY Oswego’s Counseling Services Center has a variety of services for students including the traditional and most popular individual sessions, but there is also group sessions depending upon the problem being presented.
The problem is that there is a limited staff at the Counseling Services Center of only six, who must meet the demand of approximately 800 students per academic year, McAleese said. The Counseling Services Center consists of five full time mental health counselors and three who are part time.
She wishes there was more counselors available to meet the demand of the students the current staff is already doing all they can, McAleese said.
Yet, it has been know for students to complain because of the wait for an appointment or the want to be seen more often, McAleese said.
The counselors can diagnose students, but due to the ratio of students to counselors, they instead do a provisional diagnosis, McAleese said.
“In order for me to have a treatment plan and know how I’m going to work with the student, I need to have a clear sense in my head of what I’m dealing with here,” she said.
Once a week psychiatrist and psychiatric nurse practitioner come in to assist the Counseling Services Center with students who have emerging mental health issues that need medication after their symptoms do not decrease through therapy.
The Counseling Services Center also has their Let’s Talk program, which was started by McAleese, where informal offsite consolation counseling is brought to the students.
The Let’s Talk program allows for students to visit the seven different locations on campus for a quick session and can help address the negative stigma attached to mental illness and counseling, McAleese said.
Prevention outreach is another priority with information tables and programs done by peer educators to residence halls and clubs and organizations.
The Integrative Counseling Services works with SUNY Oswego’s Counseling Services Center if additional services are needed for a student, Ziegan said.
“We do service the Oswego college population,” Ziegan said. “The services that they utilize on campus are typically short-term and solution focused.”
Students receive a reduced rate because they are aware of their financial situation, Ziegan said. The Integrative Counseling Services, an outpatient mental health private practice, serving community members in Oswego, Onondaga, and Cayuga Counties in four different locations with 25 counselors working both full time and part time. The closet practice is in Oswego, located at 5 West Cayuga Street, and another is in Fulton.
There are student-run organizations on campus that help students who are struggling with their mental health. Brionna Moore is the president of Active Minds, a mental health awareness club at SUNY Oswego. According to Moore, the goal of the club is to “open the conversation up about mental health issues.”
She considers mental health a priority. “If your mind’s not in it, the rest of you isn’t,” Moore said.
“Another goal of ours is to fight the stigmas,” Moore said. Mental health issues are not rare, so joining an organization like Active Minds can help people feel like they are not alone.
Moore has a few suggestions on how someone can cope with their mental health issues. “Write down your feelings or try to seek help from a licensed official,” Moore said. “Talk to us as friends,” she added.
According to Moore, stress and sadness are legitimate mental health problems, but they are not necessarily the same as clinically diagnosed issues, such as depression.
“Feelings are still valid even if you don’t have a clinical diagnosis,” Moore said. When feelings of sadness are present for a very long time, then it might be time to talk to a professional, Moore added. Clinical cases can be more severe and require medication and/or regular counseling.
“I’m on medication and see a counselor to deal with my depression, anxiety, and PTSD,” Moore said. “That’s why Active Minds is so important.”
Common symptoms of depression that students can watch out for include feeling depressed most of the day or even everyday, decreased interest in activities, significant weight loss/gain, decreased appetite, sleep disturbances, tiredness, feelings of worthlessness, difficulty concentrating and thoughts of death, Ziegen said.
Anxiety is excessive worrying for a time span of six months, and common symptoms include feeling restless, having difficulty concentrating, being easily fatigued, difficulty controlling excessive worry, irritability, sleep disturbances and muscle tension, Ziegen said.
Both McAleese and Ziegen advise students to seek professional help if they believe they meet the symptomatic criteria for either anxiety, depression or a depressed mood, so a diagnosis can be made.
Sydney Credle is the secretary for the psychology club and the treasurer for Active Minds. Like Active Minds, the psychology club is designated toward helping people feel like they are not alone when it comes to struggling with a mental health problem.
“The goal of the psychology club is to give knowledge about psychological issues,” Credle said. “It allows a group of people to come together who have the same interests.”
Credle has experience with different mechanisms to help with mental health. She has been diagnosed with depression and general anxiety disorder.
“I used to be on medication,” Credle said. “I started managing it better through therapy.”
One reason why she decided to stop taking medication was because the dosage was too high and wasn’t working properly for her. This is because not every medication works the same for every individual.
“I went through three different kinds,” Credle said. “Some aren’t going to work for you, so just keep trying.”
According to Credle, one way to tell if someone should consider seeking help is if their feelings are overwhelming.
“If it gets in the way of your life, it can be labeled as depression,” she said.
Depending on the situation, an individual may want to reach out to friends, family, or seek professional help from a counselor, therapist, or psychiatrist, or a combination of these.
“Don’t be afraid to reach out,” Credle said.
*Student’s name has been changed.
