In an article entitle, Off to College Alone, Shadowed by Mental Illness, the New York Times details the stories of some students who have a difficult time making the transition from high school and home to college and dorm life:
The transition from high school to college, from adolescence to legal adulthood, can be tricky for any teenager, but for the increasing number of young people who arrive on campus with diagnoses of serious mental disorders — and for their parents — the passage can be particularly fraught.
Standard struggles with class schedules, roommates, and sexual and social freedom are complicated by decisions about if or when to use campus counseling services, whether or not to take medication and whether to disclose an illness to friends or professors.
Keeping a psychiatric disorder under control in an environment often fueled by all-night cram sessions, junk food and heavy drinking is a challenge for even the most motivated students. In addition, the normal separation that goes along with college requires new roles and boundaries with parents, the people who best know the history and contours of their illness.
It’s a good article, long but worth the read. Especially if you’re a student who has just embarked on the college journey, or a parent who has a child that may be grappling with a mental health issue such as depression or bipolar disorder.
Most colleges and universities have good counseling centers on campus that can deal with most mental health and study issues, even cases of depression or bipolar disorder. The key is to know the signs of these things, acknowledge you may have a problem when you notice them impacting your life, and go see a counselor to get help for it.
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EBDblog » EBD goes to college (12/10/2006)
3 Comments to
“College Students Often Find Transition Difficult”
This is exactly why, as a member of student association and representing students on the directive board, I always tryed to implement measurments to allow the proper inclusion and integration of students.
Unforntunatelly, it was never made real…
“Keeping a psychiatric disorder under control in an environment often fueled by all-night cram sessions, junk food and heavy drinking is a challenge for even the most motivated students.”
- Off to College Alone, Shadowed by Mental Illness
Recent scientific understanding of our bodies circadian rhythms lends a lot of weight to concerns about what happens when college students first begin to live on their own terms. It’s not just stress and alcohol that pose a danger… abuse of the light switch may turn out to be the factor that’s most damaging to their mental health. That light switch controls our eyes’ “ipRGCs”, (very recently discovered) and in turn, these cells control not just nearly our whole hormonal system, but our neurotransmitters as well. (I’m relying on PhotoperiodEffect.com for much of this research.)
Serotonin, for example, is only manufactured in the dark - although it’s effects are masked by melatonin that’s present then; so that it’s only active once the lights go on (or stay on.) Now wonder that “sleep hygiene” (and therefore, the regular amount of time we spend in the dark) is now accepted as a critical risk factor for depression and bipolar illness.
Of course, sleep times (and therefore darkness) are also known to affect weight – such as the notorious “Freshman 15” pounds new University students take on. For most, a recent study shows, the gain is less: “both males and females gained an average of 7.8 pounds.” (http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-10-22-freshman-weight_x.htm)
It’s a pity that this science isn’t being applied even in the academic settings it came out of however. Students aren’t advised how dangerous to their weight and mental health self-induced jet-lag before exams can be, and the New York Times article we’re discussing just barely glances on the topic as well. We need set, regular periods of darkness just as other creatures do, and in the last two decades we’ve found out a whole lot more about the reasons why. It’s well past time to apply what we know, and make sure freshman get the lesson, too.
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 9 Dec 2006
