Mental Illness and The College Student

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Incidentally, my first experience on the locked ward originated with a Student Health Center.

I was, at the time, a music major, and had not had extensive social-theory classes (sociology, psychology, etc) but I started figuring out some stuff on my own w/regards to my sexual identity and also its relationship to politics. I was very excited about these idea because they enabled me to make sense of my life, so I began rather feverishly jotting them down, and asked a few professors, students, and on-campus counselors to read them over and give me some feedback. These early writings looked like this (this is a surviving page).

In retrospect, I think most of the folks I asked to read over this stuff glanced at it, found it incomprehensible and/or chock-full of unexplained/unelaborated raw declarations and unsupported concepts, and rather than tell me so, they were evasive about what they thought of it. I, meanwhile, was so wrapped up in this stuff that I figured they were scared of the ideas’ potential for polarizing…scared to acknowledge these ideas because to do so would compel political activity, that kind of thing! So I wrote more, elaborated more, to try to draw them into conversation.

I was not, however, falling apart. I was attending my classes and doing well in my coursework. I was not by any reasonable stretch of the imagination a danger to myself, either via self-neglect or intentional self-destruction.

One of the people to whom I distributed copies of my writings was the director of the Rape Crisis Center, a poet who read feminist poetry at the coffeehouse across the street. Much of what I had written overlapped with and integrated well with feminist thought, and because of her position, her feminism, and the ideas expressed in her poetry, she was (to my thinking) a good choice of people to try to share my ideas with. But because she only knew me in passing and did not make much sense of my writings, she was worried about my intentions. (I did in no way threaten her though).

Meanwhile, another person I tried to share my ideas with was a counselor at the mental health clinic of the Student Health Center. I’d been going there every once in a while before these ideas came to me, to talk about my social life concerns, sexual identity perplexities, etc., (at one point receiving a prescription for Stelazine — a close relative of Thorazine —in response to having such concerns). So now that I felt I had answers and insights, it seemed natural to share them with the counselors to whom students turn with such problems, yes?

So soon my resident advisor was informing me that to address some growing concerns on campus I really needed to go over to the Student Health Center and speak with the MH director. And when I did, the MH director asked if I was willing to “talk to a psychiatrist”. I figured that was the shortest route to clearing up the possibility that I was nutso (I had by now figured out that I was not making sense to people and had a good laugh at myself upon so realizing) so I said OK. The MH director said I had to sign a permission form, and I figured “Makes sense, you consent to get your teeth drilled at the dentist, you consent to an operation if you need a surgeon, and with a psychiatrist talking is ‘treatment’”, and so I signed.

I was driven in a van to another site a couple miles away and then they came to take away my shoelaces and belt, and in response to my questions said I would not actually be seeing the doctor for 4-5 days. And what I’d signed was an agreement that they could lock me up in a locked ward until they decided they’d fixed me properly.

In other words, don’t kid yourself: one of the functions of mental health services on a college campus is to identify college students who are quirky in ways that are disturbing to other folks on campus and arrange for them to be evaluated by a psychiatrist and subjected to involuntary psychiatric practice if it seems like a good idea.
The ideas I wrote about, despite not making sense to people in the form that I first presented them in, were not delusional babble (or at least far more people are inclined to perceive them that way ;)); I got better at communicating, and learned the language of the relevant existing fields. The stuff that got me locked up is expressed more coherently here, here, and here, as well as on various moderated email digests and of course the SDMB.

22

This is the really frightening part of the whole thing. In my opinion, the fact that you may or may not have been peddling crackpot ideas should have had nothing to do with your being locked up. There is no law against, and no danger in, peddling crackpot ideas! The fact that you maintained your grades and were taking care of yourself should have been what they were looking at. Their attempt to homogenize the campus is obnoxious by itself. But to actually take someone’s liberty away because they sound a little kooky? It’s criminal.

23

But that’s just it-depression is not just “everyday unpleasantness”, nor is it something you can get over with your “inner strengths.” It’s not about “not coping with life.” In fact, phrases like that just feed into the stigma that mental illness means you’re weak, or it’s something to be ashamed of.

And I’m not saying that there are not people involuntarily committed, or that psychiatry is perfect. I’m saying IN THIS INSTANCE, with the OP, it does NOT look like he’s being forced into treatment. I should have clarified that, and that was my mistake.

24

But a lot of “everyday unpleasantness” as experienced by some people is also something they cannot get over with just their “inner strength”, or, rather, the experience of being caught up in a self-perpetuating loop of despondency, lack of energy, inability to care, inability to even think, etc., is turning out to be pretty commonplace after all, rather than being a rare and highly unusual thing.

And devastating as it is, we have no reason to think it is often caused by a pathological condition of the brain or an imbalance of neurochemistry. It probably is, in other word, part of ordinary life for ordinary folks. (That it may manifest itself in the form of self-perpetuating neurochemical conditions is relevant, but so is the distinction I’m making here).

Indubitably, some folks owe their very life to antidepressants. They can break a vicious cycle and enable folks to get back on their emotional feet, so to speak. But as recent headlines will show, more than a double handful of people owe their very death to antidepressants instead.

Meanwhile, they are being prescribed in a highly cavalier fashion — at a very high rate with massively insufficient information and lots of psychopharma-bullshit about it being like insulin for diabetics, and human emotions are increasingly being treated like interior decor (if you don’t like what you feel, get a pill and change it) or vapid escapist movies (good feelings are good to have, even though they don’t have any actual meaning or content). Like Huxley’s soma. Feel dissatisfied with your life, profoundly unhappy about choices you have made, unable to rise and once again face the horrid job or bad marriage your very soul wants you out of at whatever the cost? Take this…

25

I agree that depression is more then “everyday unpleasantness,” and that overcoming it often involves more then “inner strengths” (I think changes in environment and being able to talk with other people is also very important), but I think that depression largely is about being unable to cope with life. When you’re living in a situation that’s causing you to feel so much despair that you don’t want to live, or are so unhappy that you have trouble functioning, I think it’s fair to say that you’re not coping. That said, I think it’s perfectly normal not to be able to cope with some situations…

I don’t think that stigma is completely devoid of truth though: Many of the symptoms of depression (and other mental illnesses) correspond very closely to what the word weak means. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the person experiencing the symptoms doesn’t have worth or is somehow less human for experiencing them; just that they have weaknesses that they must overcome, like everyone else.

26

This has got nothing to do with minimizing the existence or affect of true mental illness. I understand that. What I am saying is that people who are just mildly bummed out about their lives…or even wildly bummed out – but not clinically depressed – are frequently being treated in hospitals or by shrinks, and being prescribed drugs – simply because they’re not happy with the way their lives are going. People who aren’t clinically depressed, but think they might be, are being treated in some cases, because it’s lucrative to do so or because they’re weirdos and are skewing the asthetics. Do you see the difference?

27

Well… I don’t see a difference between someone who has “clinical depression” and someone who’s “wildly bummed out” about their life. I don’t think depression has a physical cause (like a virus or a physical malady) and I don’t think there’s anything magical about a psychiatric diagnosis. Suffering is suffering, no matter how it’s labelled or who labels it.

28

Every shrink I ever talked to referred to a “chemical imbalance” that is making regular life unmanageable, as opposed to just having an unmanageable life. Taking pills to correct a chemical imbalance that doesn’t exist really doesn’t make much sense.

29

And I agree with the “suffering is suffering” statement. The question is, how do you treat it? Do you change your life or do you just add pills?

30

The notion that clinical depression is caused by a “chemical imbalance” is an unproven theory; there’s no evidence that depression is caused by any sort of “chemical imbalance.” People who are depressed may have different brain chemistry then people who aren’t, but there’s no evidence that it’s a cause, has opposed to yet another symptom. The reason psychiatrists are keen to accept and propogate the myth is because it validates their job, which is to treat “mental illness” with medication and other physical therapies.

Exactly.

Change your life.

31

Why not? As I said before happy people are more competent in the face of problems than unhappy people. I myself know when I’m depressed my problems seem bigger and when I’m happy they seem smaller but at the end of the day they are identical problems.

http://collab.givingspace.org/forums/community/2004-02/msg00006.html

I am having trouble finding info on the study but I think it was called “How coping mediates the effect of optimism on distress”. It covers how when told they have breast cancer that happy, optimistic people took more actions to deal with it than pessimistic depressed people.

According to Seligman (researcher on happiness) optimism (which is closely related to happiness) causes higher grades in school.

So happiness is a tool to cope with the world’s problems in an of itself, not necessarily a side effect of living a good life.

32

That’s all well and good. But the point I’m trying to make is that taking pills to buy yourself happiness can be harmful in other ways. And many people take them for years without ever getting what they’re looking for. Sometimes the road to happiness is paved with life’s lessons and simplification rather than little tablets. And sometimes…I know this is a rather foreign concept to some people…but SOMETIMES…life’s downs actually play a part in creating the happiness you are seeking. There’s no free ride.

33

Medication for depression is NOT just popping a “happy pill” and having everything be hunky dory.

34

Wesley Clark:

a) Psychiatric pharmaceuticals do not instill in people the emotional constellation that constitutes a sense of confidence and well-being and happiness with one’s situation. They do not, in fact, tend to actively create any positive euphoriac experiences, so much as they muffle and inhibit feelings, the bad on purpose and the good as a side-effect, leaving patients emotionally truncated.

b) What Kalhoun said.

c) Instead of conceptualizing happiness as either a tool to cope with the world’s problems or a side effect of living a good life, I suggest that feelings are cognitions; they are how we evaluate the goodness of life, they are in fact how we assess “good” in all its permutations. This is why I think it’s such a poor idea to treat good feelings as trivial things like chocolate bon-bons. Emotions are like eyesight. There are vistas that are nicer to look at than the dark alley you’re walking down, but you’re far better off seeing where the fuck you’re going.

35

Except when depression so overwhelmes you that you cannot focus on anything else. If emotions are like eyesite, then sometimes medication AND therapy (not just one other the other) can be like glasses.

I don’t have a problem with you living your life this way, and choosing to deal with things in your way. But I resent your trying to say it should be that way for everyone.

36

But I’d say almost verbatim the same thing back to you.

37

For some people, you’re correct. But for MANY people out there who are on antidepressants and tranqs, they’d be better off not taking them. I personally know lots of people who’ve gone on them because someone died. Well, as painful as it is to lose a loved one, going through the grief process is your body’s way of putting your shit back together after the loss. People all over the world go through what we go through in life, and a million times worse and they’re not on antidepressants. I’m not saying there isn’t a time and place for them; I’m saying they’re overprescribed.

38

a) It depends. If you are referring to pharmacological solutions then I’d agree. But complimentary therapies like nutritional therapy or some forms of lifestyle changes like mindfulness meditation or strong family relationships actually increase happiness levels instead of just decreasing depression levels like pharmacological drugs do.

b) Not everyone wants to live a life at the mercy of their emotions. We already have no control over our genetics which (to a large degree) determines our emotional reactions to life events. Using pharamcology is just taking control away from genetics and putting it into our own hands. Our emotions are shaped by culture, genetics and outside events we have little control over (firings, crime, etc) by and large. We already have almost no control and alot of people are not content with just accepting that fact. There is no telling what ‘bad events’ will do to a person. I hear the same argument about bullying that letting people bully will ‘force kids to defend themselves which will make their lives better when they grow up’. The problem with that argument is that that is not what always happens. Some people become masochistic and full of self hate rather than resiliant and willing to stand up for themselves. Some people react to painful life events by becoming mature and happy down the road, while others just crumble into an overanxious, depressed mess. I know people who are in their 50s who contemplate suicide daily because of things that happened to them when they were 9. They never ‘got happy’ as a result of letting nature take its course. They just got crushed.

c) I don’t agree with that. Emotions are due to biology to a huge degree. Happiness is still 60% genetic and so is depression. Someone whose biology pushes them to be happy will be pretty happy even in the face of major problems (and as a side effect they will be more resiliant, more productive, have better relationships, better health, do more to fight their problem, etc) while someone predisposed to depression will be unhappy even when things are going great. You also seem to assume that the goal is to make people happy even when their lives are going to shit and things like that, where people still listen to music and sing when nuclear war occurs. That is not the goal. The goal is people who are more resiliant and who can cope with lifes problems well enough no matter what happens to them. Its not to create apathetic people with no ties to the outside world.

Plus emotions are not necessarily necessary or productive just because they are natural. If you lose a loved one and you yourself spiral into a serious depression (some people, like me, are genetically prone to suffer major mental illnesses as a result of a major life change. Others are not, some will survive fine w/o major mental problems) that lasts for years then you are harming yourself and your family as a result. Its ‘natural’ but its definately not healthy. If someone can give you a pill so you can face the exact same problem but not let it destroy you (and by proxy hurt your family) what is wrong with taking that pill?

As far as I’m concerned the brain is no different than any other part of human physiology. Due to religion no doubt the ‘mind’ is considered some sacred, etherical thing that cannot be touched by biology. But at the end of the day ‘mind’ is dependent on tangible biology and biochemistry. If our biochemistry was wired differently we wouldn’t even be able to have this discussion because we wouldn’t have minds. You can’t have this discussion with life forms that don’t have higher nervous systems.

The brain/mind is like a muscle, it is not an etherical force that is seperated from physical reality. Like muscle, if you give it the right nutrients and train it in the right way it’ll do what you want it to (within reason). Due to my emphasis on providing proper nutrition for my brain and lifestyle changes I have managed to overcome 4 major mental illnesses (chronic insomnia, depression, schizophrenia & anxiety). They are not 100% gone but I am in quite good mental health as it is, especially compared to others with the same background. Had I not taken control back through lifestyle changes & nutrition instead of just relying on genetics to write my fate for me I would still be in a bad place mentally.

39

That viewpoint is one of just giving up because genetics didn’t write you a script you wanted out of life. The mind is not different than the body. Some people are not physically resiliant enough to handle the cold so they wear coats. Some can’t travel far by foot so we have cars. Some people lose control of their legs so they get wheelchairs. In my eyes there is no difference between that and using drugs to manipulate the mind to make it what you want. I just don’t have that mind/body division that I see here in the critics. I guess you could say I’m on the other extreme end of the spectrum as I don’t consider emotions to be divine or etherical, just genetic programs designed to control our behavior towards ends that we either don’t consiously believe in or understand. Shame for example is probably a tool designed to keep the social order in place (watch how people high on drugs who are immune to shame act, and imagine a whole society of people doing that). But at the end of the day none of us consciously belive in keeping a homogenous society, we just do it due to programming.

I’m a bit confused about the arguments you & Ahunter3 have. From what I can tell your arugments seem to revolve around this idea.

“Emotions are senses (no different than touch or taste) we have to tell us if our lives are on course or not, just like touch tells us what we are in physical proximity to. Antidepressants short circuit this sense and cheapens the true meaning of emotions. It’d be no different than giving someone an orgasm pill so even if they are stepping on nails they still feel bliss. They should be feeling pain and stop stepping on the nails. Pain is a part of life and can have benefits if allowed to run its course, and it is necessary to keep people following a specified path.”

I don’t agree with it but is that more or less the arugment being put forth? I am a little confused.

40

brad_mac2, I have never personally used any student mental health facilities, but I have known lots of people who have. None of them have ever regretted the decision and all were better off afterwards. I know several people who waited until they were 10-15 years out of college to finally get treatment, and they wish they would have done it sooner. Most of the time (to my observation), college students aren’t even medicated. The counselors help you to address your problems, have suggestions for how to handle them, and give you an opportunity to talk about a problem in a safe environment. The book “Shadow Syndromes” by Ratey and Johnson makes a case for treating minor mental problems before they become major problems. I forget the exact numbers, but a study of people who had lost a spouse after a long, happy marrage looked at the long term results of people who received talk therapy after the death and those that didn’t. Nearly all the patients who did not receive therapy had severe depression. Nearly all who did receive therapy had mild or no depression. Another point that the authors make is the spirialing out of control of most mental disorders. We all know that there are people we think are are a little ‘off’ in the head. This behavior makes us wary of them and treat them differently. The different treatment we give them actually reinforces their mental illness. If you are depressed, and think you are worthless and nobody lieks you, and then all your friends ditch you for Spring Break 'cause they will have more fun without you…you sit at your parent’s house and think about how everyone hates you. You feel worthless, you hate yourself. Your depression gets worse. The book is a little hard to read, but make sense, unless you don’t believe in chemical imbalances at all.

As far as the more general question of why so many college students, I really think that it is the stress and the lack of structure. In college, you are free to do or not do almost anything. Consequently, we all did dumb things in college. The major difference is that the dumb things we do in college start having long-term consequenses. An extra beer leads to a one night stand leads to a life-long viral infection. A trip to the student counseling center leads to a pshyc evaluation leads to a perminant mark on your record? I have never had this come up in a job interview, but I would rather interview someone who acknowledged a problem and dealt with it rather than someone who denied they had a problem. I think AHunter3 makes a great case for making sure you understand something before you sign it, but I am not sure his(?) advice on mental illness.

Like I said earlier, I never took advantage of the student counseling center, but I can say that I did feel quite a bit more out of control in college than I did before or after. I had a great group of friends who provided good emotional support and were good influences on me. We had our own little amateur therapy sessions in crappy little apartments.