Mental health has always been an extremely controversial topic in our world. If someone claims to suffer from a mental illness, they are often labeled as attention-seeking or weak. This is because society places so much pressure on individuals to fit into the crowd and to accord to a mindset that is free of all vulnerability and fragility.

College students in particular are frequently stigmatized when suffering from diseases like anxiety or depression, when in reality the everyday demands of a student make the onset of such illnesses perfectly logical.

The American College Health Association Spring 2014 National College Health Assessment found that in the 12 months prior to the assessment, 15.8 percent of students surveyed had been diagnosed with or treated for anxiety issues. As if this isn’t bad enough, another 13.1 percent were treated for depression.

An even more concerning fact is that a large portion of the population affected never seeks out any form of medical help or treatment. The same survey by the ACHA revealed that a whopping 56.9 percent of respondents reported feeling overwhelming anxiety.

In order to truly make a dent in these statistics, students need to be educated on the fact that it is perfectly okay not to always have everything together and that asking for help does not mean someone is incapable or weak. Bottling everything up and letting the worries fester is not going to magically erase all of the stress—if anything, it will intensify them and take a toll on one’s health.

Pretty much every college or university today has some sort of counseling center available to students and more often than not, the services are included in the existing tuition. These centers exist for the sole purpose of serving as a resource and a support system for the student body, yet are often overlooked because they are viewed as a dramatic response to what students believe is an insignificant issue.

Having a mental illness does not make someone any less of a human being or label them as flawed or feeble. It does not decrease a person’s value or mark them as unstable, like the media often portrays in the movies.

A mental illness is a real, life-altering condition that is just as legitimate as physical diseases such as diabetes or arthritis. That being said, it is time for society and the media to stop belittling mental health issues and recognize the widespread effect they are having on people everywhere, especially overburdened college students.

The assessment done by the ACHA reported that 85.6 percent of students felt overwhelmed by everything on their agenda. This constitutes balancing academic workload, campus involvement, a possible part-time job, and maintaining a social life out of whatever time is leftover. Not to mention the fact that the college years are a period when young adults are discovering who they are and dealing with all sorts of internal conflict.

So if you find yourself experiencing an overpowering amount of worry or negative emotion on a regular basis, please consider speaking to someone about what you are feeling. Whether you stop into the Counseling Center in DePaolo for a visit or simply have a chat with your RA, simply sharing your emotions with an open-minded individual can take a significant load off of your shoulders.