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One quarter of all college students will deal with a diagnosable mental health disorder. Of those, most will not receive any kind of professional help.
Ross Szabo (pictured left) and Colleen Coffey speak for my company on issues surrounding mental health, and they shared this statistic with me this weekend at our biannual company meeting.
Nearly all young people will struggle with a mental health issue, be it stress, lack of sleep, life balance, eating issues, unhealthy responses to grief, or other life events. While these issues affect almost everyone, the topic of mental health and the struggles associated with it, are shrouded in secrecy, misunderstanding, stigma and discomfort.
I brought Ross aboard our agency about five years ago, long before incidents at Northern Illinois University and Virginia Tech focused higher education's attention on the importance of mental health. Back then, I had to beg people to take a chance on booking him. Today, he's one of our busiest and most successful speakers.
I'm proud that Ross has done so much great work for the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign and CAMPUSPEAK. I truly, truly wish that every college student and advising professional could see his presentation. Colleen Coffey (also with NMHAC) joins our roster this year to help meet the demand for programs on this issue, and she's fantastic also.
If you don't have mental health issues on your list of programming priorities, you should be fighting to get it on there. Sure, issues like alcohol abuse and sexual assault prevention are critical, but too many campus limit their programming priorities to these two topics, ignoring the fact that mental health is an issue that crosses into all others. If awareness of mental health issues isn't on your programming priority list, it needs to be.
Many students also struggle with mental health issues in their families. My mother's depression and bipolar disorder shaped my childhood more than almost anything else. It's part of the reason my professional commitment to promoting mental health awareness is so very personal. My younger brother and I spent our childhoods doing everything we could to compensate for my mother's struggles, and we never got any help. We didn't know that anyone else faced these issues, and we never knew there was anywhere to turn for help. We would have given a limb each just to better understand what our mother was going through.
In your capacity as a student leader, or a program advisor, you can help many college students understand that their struggles – or those in their families – are not unique. Best of all, you can help students who feel trapped (like I did) to understand that there are resources to help them end the shame and the fear that surround mental health issues.
The new year is coming. This is your chance.
