WHAT
YOU CAN DO
TO HELP
Malmon says our brains change rapidly
until the age of 25, so the high school and
college years are when mental health issues
commonly surface. And today, a shocking
proportion of college students report being
deeply, worrisomely unhappy. In the spring
semester of 2018, 53 percent reported having
“felt things were hopeless” within the past
year, according to the American College
Health Association. Twelve percent said
they had “seriously considered suicide.”
P a r t of t h i s c a n b e bl a me d on t he s p e c i f ic
(and outrageous) pressures of being young in
- But high counseling demand also has
roots in something more positive: mental
health issues being increasingly destigma-
tized. “In previous generations, people suf-
fered silently,” says Barry Schrier, PhD,
director of the counseling center at the Uni-
versity of Iowa and chair of the AUCCCD’s
communications committee. Today, “more
students have decided, ‘I want help.’”
But these students may not have the
wherewithal, while they deal with self-harm
or suicidal thoughts, to advocate for an ear-
lier appointment date too. “Not everybody
knows how to say, ‘I’m in a crisis,’” Malmon
says. Being put off “can feel like a rejection.”Soon, Makai was slicing angry red
marks on her arm a few times a
week, locked in a bathroom stall or
alone in her room. She wasn’t trying to seri-
ously injure herself. The physical pain was a
way to dial in, she says, to pull the focus
from her emotional pain. Stanching the
blood with a tissue, she was embarrassed
that she’d have to wrap her wrist in an ACE
bandage and make excuses to her new
friends—and that she was right back here, in
this place she’d worked hard to move on
from. She felt out of control. And, increas-
ingly, like she was going to implode.
It’s true that the woman from the counsel-
ing center had offered her other resources,
like group therapy, but what Makai really
wanted was one-on-one sessions. Most stu-
dents Cosmo spoke to said the same. When
Angela, 21, a senior at the University of Texas
at Austin (UT), suffered a devastating
breakup sophomore year, she felt alienated
from her friends (who were also her ex’s
friends) and couldn’t stop sobbing in her
favorite coffee shop. It took two weeks to see
a therapist, who, as a fellow Asian American,
understood her reluctance to open up about
her feelings. The stigma around therapy,
Angela says, is strong in her community. But
after one session, the therapist referred her
off campus for more treatment.
Angela didn’t have a car. She also didn’t
feel comfortable with the group therapy
sessions she was offered, which would
require telling a group of strangers about her
convoluted romantic situation. So she just
tried to cope on her own. Until the next
semester, when things got bad again and she
landed back in the counseling center.
In two years, Angela says, she saw four dif-
ferent on-campus therapists, for one session
each, after waiting up to a month. (MarlaGO NATIONAL
If a friend is suffering, contact the 24/7
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (800-273-8255)
or the Crisis Text Line (text HOME to 741741),
suggests Alison Malmon of Active Minds.JULIE, 21
Stockton University,
New Jersey
HER STRUGGLE
“With anxiety, you
can’t function the way
everyone else does. You
need to focus on the
paper due tomorrow,
but you’re worried
about the exam three
months from now.”
HER WAIT TIME
“Over four years, it’s
gone from being easy
to schedule an
appointment to having
to wait for up to a
month.”