Dealing with Mental Illness as a Student

There won’t be any answers here, but sometimes it’s good to be reminded that there are options, especially because so many mental illnesses function in ways that hide your options from you. Depression and anxiety each make it their job to the erase possibility of improvement. Other illnesses persuade you that nothing was ever wrong in the first place; it’s just other people’s perceptions that are off. No blog post can account for everything that mental illness will put a person through.

Depending on what your particular struggles are as a student, leaving notes for yourself can help. Making some 5 x 8 cards that to remind yourself that one load of laundry cleans more clothes than you will wear today is a way to remind yourself that getting ahead can be as simple as one load of laundry. If anxiety causes you feel like it is impossible to do what you need to do, it can be good to make a list of times when you’ve done the “impossible.” Write down some times that you’ve written a paper quickly, cleaned your entire dorm or apartment in an hour, or accomplished something in an hour that you thought would take two.

 It may also be helpful to keep a list of services that can be helpful to you, everything from doctors and family members, to restaurants that are open late and/ or deliver to your area, as well as helpful Web sites (like ours!) and the contact information of the writing center and tutoring services at your school. Consider making contact with the writing center, tutoring services, or campus helpline, before you need them. Then, if you find yourself in crisis, it will be less intimidating because you will be able to reach out to someone you are familiar with rather than a complete stranger.