April 9, 2024
Being depressed in college sucks.
It’s missing class because you couldn’t fall asleep last night, staying in bed all day because you feel horrible about missing class, then staying up all night starting and finishing an assignment that you procrastinated when you stayed in bed feeling bad. It’s walking alone through the quad and seeing groups of friends in hammocks and on picnic blankets listening to music and playing spikeball. It’s scrolling through perfect linkedIn profiles and comparing it to your own meager page. It’s forgetting to eat because you have class during lunchtime, and it’s forgetting to sleep because you have thoughts all night long. It’s being over-caffeinated. It’s being under-hydrated. It’s falling asleep in lecture. It’s not checking emails. It’s just trying to get out of bed each day.
What it is not is laziness.
But, it is important to note the very fine line that definitely does exists between laziness and depression. What is lazy is accepting depression without an attempt to challenge the thoughts and feelings. It’s definitely difficult and might take months and years of work to even begin to challenge those thoughts of “I’m not a good person,” “I have no friends,” “everybody else is normal but I’m the odd one out”, “I don’t deserve to be hired”, “I am a burden to my friends when I reach out”, etc. etc. etc. etc. It isn’t easy to challenge that type of thinking and believe it enough to take different actions. But, it is lazy not to at least try. (Try in the absolutely loosest sense of the term.)
So, how do you get through it?
You can take time off. If you need time, take time.
Alternatively, there’s the tried and true “fake it till you make it method.” This one’s my favorite.
Part of what depression tells you is that the activities you once found fun quite plainly suck. It tells you to stop everything you once loved because it’s not fun anymore. In fact nothing is fun anymore. But, with the fake it till you make it, you say “what would happy Arden do?” If the answer is that happy Arden would read a book, play piano, get coffee with a friend, go to the gym, take a walk outside, etc., then that’s just what depressed Arden will do. And sure, it still doesn’t make me happy, but going through the motions is a good start; there are real psychological benefits to doing those activities, including the subconscious release of endorphins. So even though depression is saying everything is horrible, you might as well force yourself to do something for the very real, behind the scenes benefits. So fake being a happy person just a few times a week or a month, get in the motions of doing things, and maybe it’ll start to stick.
The last method is to read the stats: you are not alone.
Part of what makes depression so bad in college specifically is the sheer number of students your age who look perfectly put together, whether it be their sorority photos on instagram, snapchat stories at exclusive events, swarms of friends to walk to class with, linkedIns, etc. Everyone seems to be happy but me! It can be hard to look around and see that you are not alone, but reading the stats proves it: (https://www.bestcolleges.com/research/college-student-mental-health-statistics/)
In 2023, over three quarters of college students (76%) had experienced moderate to serious psychological distress.
More than 99% of students who face academic challenges say they affect their mental health.
In 2022, one fourth of students say that they feel isolated from others.
It’s real and completely normal to struggle mentally during college.
So what can we do about this?
A lot of pressure is being put on colleges to solve this problem. And yes, the college is in a great position to make real changes, like investing in more wellness counselors so that students can freely talk to professionals without months of wait time and reconsidering extension policies for assignments for accommodations. But, what I think is a less obvious fix is getting off social media. I think we should get off of picture-centered social media like instagram, facebook, and tik-tok = altogether, however radical it seems. I think platforms like twitter and blogs and other non-picture reliant ways of keeping in touch with friends and family is much better.
I have to run to class now; I have exceeded my hour break between classes with this post. I acknowledge that this post is less on the philosophical side and more on the personal side, but it is a topic that I’d like to philosophize further in the context of how to be happy. So, I needed to set the groundwork.
Also, I just wanted to do my part in normalizing depression in college and expressing the message that if you are in college and you aren’t happy, you're not alone.
With much love,
Arden
I love you Arden!😊