ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM Monday, April 18, 2016
Ann Arbor, Michigan
“I had really bad panic attacks. I stopped eating. I was really, really, really sick, and I ended up leaving school.”
By EMMA KINERY Daily News Editor
It was LSA sophomore Lauren Matson’s first night on campus freshman year when she felt it. “I was walking back with my friend that night through the streets of Ann Arbor, and I just felt this pang of loneliness — this pang of sadness,” Matson said. It must be homesickness, she thought. Sure, she missed her friends from home, but didn’t everyone, especially on their first night? The sadness, however, stayed. Matson began having difficulty eating and keeping food down. Some days, she would only eat a granola bar or two because of nausea. Within weeks, her bodily sickness began to negatively impact other aspects of her life too. Worried she would feel sudden bouts of queasiness, she didn’t want to leave her dorm and felt anxious about going out with new friends. “That anxiety was what was leading me to not want to leave my dorm, or go out with my friends to do things in Ann Arbor Welcome Week,” she said. Transitioning to college Matson’s experience is one that has familiar echoes for a lot of University students — last year 4,197 students sought help from CAPS — and for college students nationwide, with a range of different outcomes, choices and paths for each as they move forward in their college careers and lives. For Matson, the choice was to go to Counseling and Psychological Services three weeks later, on the advice of a friend. It wasn’t until November, however, when she would find answers. She spent months bouncing back and forth between CAPS and University Health Service. A CAPS counselor referred her to UHS, determining the medical staff would be more suited to address her stomach problems. The lines between physical illness and mental illness blurred. Matson was put on medication to correct the nausea, but the
medication soon stopped working. As time went on, she began to have suicidal thoughts — she said she always knew the problem was with her mind, not her stomach. When she returned to UHS with the same symptoms of nausea, she was told she had depressive disorder. She was back to seeing counselors at CAPS, and her parents started visiting every week — or she would go home every weekend. But nothing was working. CAPS currently does not have the resources to support long-term care, and eventually, Matson said, her counselor felt it was time to refer her to an outside counselor, who would become essential to her health improvement in the coming years. Students seeking mental health help can also go to the University Health Service, but according to Dr. Robert Winfield, chief health officer and director of UHS, the psychiatry department only offers prescription and drug treatments. “We don’t offer any counseling at Health Services, so there are a variety of situations where somebody wants to be evaluated for the continuation of medications,” he said. “And some of those situations are situations where somebody might choose to not get counseling or may want to focus on medications.” There is no one cure-all for patients concerned about their mental health, though many people choose to turn to medications over counseling after talking with a doctor. According to the Centers for Disease Control, across the United States approximately one in 10 Americans ages 12 or older take antidepressants. At colleges, these numbers are typically higher. “Sometimes people just feel terrible with anxiety or depression but they haven’t been able to put a word on it — they just don’t feel well,” Winfield said. “And so they may think ‘Maybe there’s something wrong with me physically,’ so they may come in not knowing what’s wrong.” LSA junior Raivynn Smith had a similar experience with a physical sickness accompanying mental health concerns. Before transferring to the University this year, Smith took a two-year gap following a painful and difficult freshman year experience at a small private college in Illinois.
“There have been so many other situations throughout my college career where I’ve seen people who aren’t able to gain access to what they need — and that’s including myself.”
MATT VAILLIENCOURT/Daily
She said though it probably wasn’t when she first started experiencing her social and generalized anxiety, coming to college is when she first noticed it. Like Matson, the transition to college was difficult and her anxiety began to affect her diet. “I had really bad panic attacks,” Smith said. “I stopped eating. I was really, really, really sick, and I ended up leaving school.” The gap was cathartic for her, she said, though she noted that she still deals with her anxiety, especially on a larger campus like the University of Michigan where day-to-day things like going to the dining hall can be challenging. Even for students who have already noticed and begun acting on the signs of mental health issues before college, the transition can still be significantly difficult, on top of what is an already challenging process. LSA sophomore Jarrett Reichel dealt with depression throughout high school, but had a support system then — leaving home, he said, meant leaving that comfort and support. “I had a really good support group in high school, with my friends and my family, and coming here since none of my friends came here, the transition was really difficult because I didn’t have that support group I normally had,” Reichel said. “Then, of course, the added stress of changing your entire life.” Reichel lived in Bursley Residence Hall his freshman year and said he found the experience to be isolating. Like many students, he didn’t make friends immediately during Welcome Week and felt alone. Everyone in his hall became tight-knit and he said he felt as though he was missing out on the college experience. “It was a pretty rough transition — especially because everyone around me seemed as though they were having a good time, and it was kind of hard to recover from that,” Reichel said. “It was irrational, but I felt like after the first couple of months it was almost too late (to make friends). So, that was rough, especially in regard to the future.” Like Reichel, LSA junior Morgan Rondenelli said she found the new surroundings in college made it easier for her to avoid addressing her obsessive compulsive disorder. See HEALTH, Page 7A
“It was a pretty rough transition — especially because everyone around me seemed as though they were having a good time.”
KRISTINA PERKINS/Daily
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“That anxiety was what was leading me to not want to leave my dorm, or go out with my friends to do things in Ann Arbor Welcome Week.”
MATT VAILLIENCOURT/Daily
KRISTINA PERKINS/Daily
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Vol. CXXV, No. 112 ©2016 The Michigan Daily michigandaily.com
NEWS......................... 2A OPINION.....................4A N E W S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7A
SUDOKU.....................2A ARTS......................5A S P O R T S M O N DAY. . . . . . . . . .1 B