Mental health treatment requires accountability from selves, schools

By Editorial Board

In a land flowing with milk and honey, that being a society overflowing with resources at every corner of our reach, it is a wonder why more than 60% of college students struggle with at least one mental health problem.

If students are to improve their mental health, they must not solely rely on their school systems but also on their own motivation to pursue help. The first step in wellness is taking responsibility for your life, getting real about the help you need and actively seeking it.

A survey by Healthy Minds Network, an organization focused on mental health among young adults, found that 96,000 students from various U.S. colleges in the 2021-2022 school year displayed the highest rates of mental health issues in the network’s past 15 years of research. Students reported experiences with depression, anxiety, eating disorders, substance abuse and even suicide.

What factors are affecting this generation of students? The answers vary for each individual, but the survey shows that loneliness, academic stress and lack of institutional help have contributed to these unprecedented numbers.

Another factor affecting students is social media. According to a study by the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, “people who used social media for more than 2 hours per day were twice as likely to feel socially isolated compared with those who only used social media for under half an hour every day.”

As a result students are left feeling lonely, isolated and dependent on inauthentic sources of happiness and health.The everpresent access to social media allows students to waste time mindlessly scrolling and digesting more content than one has time for and neglect face-to-face interaction needed to build strong connections.

The misconception that students are isolated and have to fend for themselves may also come from conversations around mental health. A Healthy Minds Network study found that 6% of students agreed with the statement “I would think less of someone who has received mental health treatment” while 40% agreed with the statement “most people would think less of someone who has received mental health treatment.”

Some students may experience a form of internalized shame, feeling that they are weak for experiencing such hardships. Social stigma from fellow peers and even family can also diminish mental health issues as small

By Katrina Bui STAFF REPORTER

bouts of illness to “get over ” instead of seeking treatment needed to manage and heal.

Two understandings are necessary to rectify these thoughts. One, mental illness is not a sign of weakness or lack of emotional stability. Two, mental illnesses are not defining traits but rather battles requiring real treatment.

Treatment, however, is not easily accessible to all students. Although educational institutions, including 90 out of 116 community colleges, may provide students access to on-campus counselors, availability runs thin with weeks-in-advance scheduling and low counselor-to-student ratios.

To widen access to support, institutions like De Anza College have begun holding group therapy sessions, hosting campus workshops and establishing student centers to break down stigmas around mental health. Other colleges are investing in peer counseling to invite positive, community-centered discussions around mental health struggles and provide aid to students lacking a support system.

And who knows, this might even help students get off their phones and make real connections with peers around them. By joining the vast array of clubs and organizations on campuses, students can find niches dedicated to their own interests and create relationships within those groups.

Students acknowledging their personal needs, taking accountability for their own health and having constructive mental health discussions with peers or professionals provide the way forward for addressing widespread mental health issues.

As my time to start university transfer applications approaches, I find myself inundated with college related content while I scroll through my social media accounts or check my personal emails. Every time this happens, I am once again reminded of the feelings of stress and dread that await me in the future as I make my way through the college admissions system for the second time.

Applying for college is a taxing and high-stakes process. It sometimes becomes difficult for prospective students to separate their own self-worth from their acceptance and rejection letters due to the endless amounts of time and effort invested.

One aspect of college applications that is particularly damaging is the normalization and encouragement of “struggle essays” as personal statements. Many institutions ask aspiring students to chronicle their greatest obstacles, perhaps to gain insight into their character or to see if they would be a good fit for the campus.

However, I believe that this practice is ineffective because it is built on assumptions that enable a toxic culture around the idea of personal hardship and trivialize mental health.

The application for the University of California system features a Personal Insight Question (PIQ) that states: “Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?” This prompt, while somewhat open-ended, is clear in its solicitation: open up, to a faceless stranger, about the most difficult experience of your life, in 350 words or less.

This forces an expectation onto the individual to show an extreme level of vulnerability to a person that they probably won’t ever meet, yet has the power to determine the trajectory of their future from a mere few paragraphs.

Additionally, it makes an assumption that one must have learned or gained something from this struggle, and that they will have resolved their issues by the time of their application.

Enduring hardship is an important part of life that can indeed shape an individual, but sometimes bad things just happen. Expecting someone to always find value in their struggles enforces toxic positivity that can invalidate their experiences and criticisms of the issues that they may face.

Furthermore, the normalization of this notion leads to the conflation of one’s application with their struggles, and by extension, themselves. In many ways the application system becomes a contest of who struggled the most, with an acceptance letter as the prize.

When a student is rejected they may feel as if their struggles were not valid enough. If they are accepted, they may feel like they are perceived only by their struggles.

As students face structural and societal inequities in their daily lives, they may feel compelled to write about them in their college essays. However, many admissions services advise against these topics, stating that they may be too common or cliché.

Aside from it being discriminatory, this assumption glosses over a greater implication— the fact that these problems are so widespread and severe that they impact the lives of large groups of people. This in turn exploits the negative effects without actually addressing them.

Because of this students feel pressured to capitalize on their traumatic experiences and package them up into readable, feel-good fairytales of 650 words or less for the uncertain sake of their futures, often before they are even able to process their feelings.

It can be argued that writing about a negative experience may help someone process their emotions surrounding it. While I agree that it is possible, the small space and strict guidelines of a college admissions essay does not provide an accommodating environment to do so.

Admittedly, I don’t believe the struggle essay should be taken away completely. With a better approach, it can become a good outlet for students and colleges alike.

On an institutional level, this would entail university’ admissions departments being more transparent about their evaluation process and what they seek in student applications. This would ease the burden of uncertainty for students and discourage harmful behavior for and on applications.

A good first step for applicants is to simply be aware of and stop oneself from falling into the dangerous aspects of the struggle essay. When crafting such a response, students should be mindful in the assessment and portrayal of their feelings to avoid letting their negative experiences define and take over their self image.

Additionally, we should work to change the culture around the romanticization of suffering that is prevalent in our society, as it contributes to our current perception of these struggle essays.

With every new application cycle college admissions only become more competitive. The application process is already difficult enough, so expecting students to pour their hearts out for a simple yes or no only serves to further reduce their confidence and perceptions of themselves.

In a system where you will inevitably be compared to countless others, it’s important to acknowledge that everyone endures hardships and everyone’s hardships are valid, regardless of whether or not they can be spun into an inspiring story that fits within a word limit.