O'Colly: Depression and the College Experience

Mental health is something people don’t tend to think about until it effects them. In a digital fast-paced world, it can be easy or too awkward do bring up matters like mental health in casual conversation. This can be because of simple things, but more broadly speaking metal health, or lack thereof, has been stigmatized in our society.

Major Depressive Disorder, according to the American Psychiatric Association, is defined as “a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act.” The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) 5 defines depression as meeting five of nine specifically laid out criteria.

According to Our World in Data, an estimated 268 million people suffered from depression in 2016. This sample makes up about 6% of the world, and oddly enough doesn’t correlate with the higher GDP typically associated with countries considered developed. The U.S. ranks fairly high with a depression rate around 5.1 per 100 people. For reference, countries like Haiti and Pakistan have rates around 3.7 per 100 people.

So what does a breakdown of these numbers look like? Around 8.1% of Americans have reported depression for at least a two-week period from 2013-2016 according to the CDC. Women were found to be almost twice as likely to suffer from depression than men.

Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death nationally, but the second leading cause of death among people ages 15-24. These suicides largely used firearms or suffocation, and accounted for 32,306 confirmed cases from 2012-2015. While this might not sound like a high number, suicide is commonly hard to prove, and often classified as accidental death. The actual rates are predicted to be much higher. Data suggest that, despite efforts for increased mental health awareness, a larger percent of the U.S. population turns to such drastic measures every year.

Depression is a harder to find concreate statistics on, but is widely regarded as the leading cause of suicided. So what does mental health look like on college campus?

“We live in a society that is immersed in social media,” Holland Grey, SGA Chair and Mental Health Week Organizer, said. “College is typically when depression peaks because we are so saturated in this high stress environment that requires so much from us.

“We (college students) constantly surround ourselves with social media and compare how we deal with life to the idealized versions of how others do. During this whole process, we never ask ourselves if that is really who that person is and if we should actually be comparing ourselves to that. It’s an unhealthy cycle that is defiantly something I’ve found myself in, and it’s hard to get out of.”

“There are all sorts of stressors,” Associate Professor and Director of Psychological Services Center Dr. Tony Wells said.

Dr. Wells said that for college students the three main stressors come in the form of time, money and social support. Time and money are fairly straight-forward concepts to grasp as students are poor and tend to be short on time. Social support is more of an abstract idea though, but has very real consequences on mental health.

"We know that social support is a big factor of depression,” Dr. Wells said. “Lately we have been looking into how people pay attention to emotional information and how it’s related to depression. We have also been looking at social media’s impact on depression and how it can provide a fake sense of social connection.”

Dr. Wells lab is looking into how this is effecting the long term maintenance of depression and is finding correlations that align with past research. Research into social media’s impact is still a relatively new field across all practices, and he says they will need more research going into the future.

Dr. Jennifer Byrd-Craven, an Associate Professor and the Experimental Program Director for the OSU Phycology Department, said there is actually a practical function to depression.

“From an evolutionary prospective depression is actually pretty fictional,” Dr. Bryd said. ”It serves to prevent you from incurring additional social risks and signals to others that we need assistance or support. There are factors that are specific to college students that seem to account for this rise in depression and suicidal ideation.

“With college students we sort of have the perfect storm. We know that stress often precedes depressive episodes. Being away from family also means that they don’t have the social support that they are used to.”

Dr. Bryd also talked about how the period of emerging adulthood is a fairly novel concept specific to humans. Throughout history, young adulthood would be a time when people start contributing to their groups, but now we have long periods where we are contributing little to our groups. The benefits of your work are not immediately apparent while in college, which can lead to a since of hopelessness and burdensomeness.

While this can happen throughout life, this issue is effecting college students the most, leading to disproportionate rates of suicide among young adults. These novel stressors for students can also effect people who are already struggling with issues such as anxiety.

“I’ve had anxiety long before college, but going through it brought on an intense level of depression,” a senior psychology student, who wishes not to be identified, said. “Between the work load and my dad getting cancer it became a lot. I was lucky to be in psychology though because I was able to see the signs and get professional help.

“It’s so easy to feel alone while you are going through this. When you get down like this you don’t want to take care of yourself, you don’t want to talk to people, and every step, weither school or personal, seems harder.”

This kind of restrictive behavior is becoming more common as modern luxuries afford us easier access to seclusion. As we become more social retracted, the consequences become more apparent. The need to be socially productive and wanted compounds over time and leads to drastic outcomes such as suicide.

“Ive had depression most of my life, but junior year of high school was the peak of my suicidal idealizations,” Grey said. “When I came to college I had to lock all my sharp objects in a box and give the key to friends because I was afraid that they would find me in my dorm not alive.

“It wasn’t until the summer of 2017 that I overcame it, and that’s when I became really interested in what types of mental health we offered on campus. I feel like people thought I was well put together and happy, but that wasn’t the case and I made it my mission… to promote a more inclusive environment and to encourage suicide prevention education across campus.”

Modern technology is making this job harder by the year though. With growing national depression rates among college students, it’s hard to imagine what is causing this.

“Solitary behavior has become easier in today’s age, as it’s much easier to seclude yourself from others,” Dr. Byrd said.” You can still survive if you build a wall, but in an ancestral environment the ability to do that and still eat is severally limited.

“One of the things we do much less is to be physically active. Even when we do, we tend to do it wrong, often exercising for an hour and then sitting all day.”

Dr. Byrd said that mechanisms that helped us evolve are sometime misplaced in a modern environment. Our need for an active social life has been replaced by desk jobs and social media.

There are ways to overcome modern pressures and seclusive tendencies.

“I would tell people to developed a good core social support system where you actually talk to people non-electronically,” Dr. Byrd said. “Those relationships are our biggest buffer to depression.”

The worst thing you can do is keep it to yourself.

“If you keep it a secret, there’s not much your friends or family can do to help,” Dr. Wells said. “The more that we as a society can reduce the stigma of depression, the more help we can offer to people that might be resistant.

“It’s something pretty common for people to experience, and if they’re struggling with it they should really reach out, though it can be difficult sometimes, and I really do belive that they will realize that people can be a lot more understanding.”

This can be easier said than done though.

“I really struggled with classes because of all the stuff I was going through,” the anonymous physiology student said. ”I reached out to my professors, explained the situation, and most of them understood and were happy to work with me. One of them actually asked if I really wanted to be in college after we talked about it, but sometimes that’s just stuff you have to work through, and you can’t be dissuaded by the little things.”

Holland, having gone through major depression, is going on to graduate with distinction after chairing the most prestigious organization on campus.

“You don’t choose to have depression, but it is your choice if you want to get better,” Holland said. “It’s not easy, I remember that it took me a long time before I could start the process. You have to realize that you’re not perfect and you’re never going to be and that’s perfectly ok. It’s perfect to be perfectly imperfect.

“For people going through this, it’s truly easier said than done. Know that even if it feels like you’re in a raging sea being battered by a storm, and it seems like all hope is lost, somewhere over the horizon the sun is shining and waiting to be found. All you have to do is go on and find it.”

One in five students struggle with depression or anxiety. If you or someone you know is struggling with depression or any other mental illnesses, please contact a licensed medical professional. For free professional counseling, call OSU Counselling Services at 405-744-5472.