According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, “nearly 40 million people in the United States (18 percent) experience an anxiety disorder in any given year.” I am one of those people. As are many of my peers, except I may not even know who they are. Mental illness carries a stigma and while it is now being talked about more frequently, healthy discussion still has a long way to go before it is considered “normal” and taken as seriously as any physical illness or injury.
Personally, I began experiencing symptoms of anxiety during the summer before my sophomore year of college. When I came back to school, I started seeing a counselor, and we worked on understanding my anxiety and developing coping mechanisms. While these tools helped tremendously, the best tool really is to talk about it. It is amazing that my university offers free counseling services as it allows anyone access, especially with the reality that most cannot afford to see a therapist. And with mental illnesses typically being misunderstood in today’s society, we need to work harder to check in on others, on our peers. It is important to reach out, as well. As a college student, there are so many other things that occupy our time such as school work, sports, clubs, etc. that reaching out/checking in is sometimes hard to do. Sometimes we forget to check in when we are occupied with other things and sometimes we don’t reach out because we don’t want to seem like a burden, or give our friends and family yet another thing to worry about. As a whole, we need to do better in our efforts to address mental health. If you need to talk, please reach out to the John Carroll University Counseling Center at (216) 397-4283, or visit them at 2567 South Belvoir Boulevard.