The November day we learned Alexis Lasker had died was sunny, but I spent the afternoon shuttered in my room, sobbing about losing a person I never knew. Fear, anger and grief overtook me as I contemplated the modern prevalence of mental illness. No amount of television, music or sleep could ease my mind. After volumes of personal and community struggle in my time here, nothing about Northwestern seemed right.
College graduates usually recall triumphs. They allude to hardship, but generally focus on the future's promise. A college degree symbolizes readiness to hit the ground running, even after years of stress.
But that premise is flawed.
Receiving my Northwestern acceptance in 2010 was my crowning achievement. I was an Eagle Scout, an All-State clarinetist, a top-notch student who graduated at the top of his class and even played in a rock band. My other friends were going to public schools or – cue disdainful eyebrow raise – community college. Northwestern promised me a bright future.
In Evanston, I felt out of place, never fitting in because my views surrounding success, friendship and recreation diverged. Some friends knew. Others are shocked when I tell them now how alienated I felt by Northwestern's prevailing culture. Like so many of us, I learned to hide those feelings and masquerade as a peppy Wildcat when necessary.
Truthfully, my biggest lesson at Northwestern has nothing to do with academics – it has to do with how schools like Northwestern fail students when they need institutional backing most.
On JR at Outside this past winter, I received science press releases, reading obscure studies I wouldn't have seen otherwise. Most were inconsequential, like "Male goat really turns the females on" and "Can babies learn to read? No, NYU study finds." But on February 26, one headline caught my eye: "Stigma 'key deterrent' in accessing mental health care."
The results synthesized 144 studies covering more than 90,000 patients and served as a sobering reminder about mental health's modern state. According to the findings, more than 75 million Americans suffer from mental health problems, but a staggering 59 million might not receive treatment (even the study's low-ball figure put this number around 37 million). The study concluded that social stigma is the fourth-largest reason why people don't get help.
Mental health – or lack thereof – has always been real to me. My maternal grandma committed suicide in the seventies, a loss my family still grapples with. As an endearingly-labeled "problem child," I've worked with mental health professionals for as long as I can remember. My household didn't stigmatize mental illness. Your back aches, you see a chiropractor; your mind aches, you see a therapist.
Which brings me back to the study. Published by researchers at King's College London, it broke stigma into six subcategories, and emphasized two: treatment stigma (associated with societal views about seeking help) and internalized stigma (how individuals view their own mental illness).
The conclusions will sound familiar to anyone who's stomached their way through a crappy Plex burger. "Individuals did not tell others about their mental health problems and masked the symptoms," the study's authors wrote. "This, together with the anticipated or experienced negative consequences, deterred them from help-seeking."
In Winter Quarter 2013, I broke down. I struggled through my classes, but couldn't motivate myself. My life seemed unfocused and pointless. When I called my mom in hysterics one morning, she urged me to visit CAPS.
I sat in a cozy CAPS office, as a therapist recommended I withdraw from the University. She didn't understand when I told her that'd only make things worse, that I'd feel like a failure. I wanted solutions at school, not to remove school completely. Like me, most Northwestern students are too afraid – and rightly so, based on the expectations of employers, faculty members, and especially our peers – to pursue that option. Coming up for air has become hopelessly taboo.
I told the CAPS counselor I wasn't going anywhere, and survived with a 3.3 GPA. You may have smirked at that. "3.3? Really?" Many Northwestern students would call that a cakewalk. I'd call that Herculean. Hell, I'd have t-shirts made commemorating the accomplishment, but I think my classmates would silently ridicule me as I passed through the Arch.
I didn't power through because I felt capable. I powered through because I feared the implications of giving up, even temporarily. I didn't want employers to ask me in interviews why I graduated a quarter or two later than my peers. I didn't want my peers to think less of me because I had succumbed to my chemical imbalance, to wonder why I didn't just stick out the tough times like they did.
The problem stems from a vicious cycle. We never hear about folks who do just "okay" – like my perfectly alright Winter Quarter – because our society shames mere acceptability. Rather than living with a B, or even wishing we had studied an hour longer, we parse out the opportunity costs: Was that B worth the hour we spent leading a student group meeting or editing a cover letter? Was that extra hour – which might not have even guaranteed a better grade – worth losing the hour of sleep that brought our night's total to what doctors recommend?
Trained to vanquish, or at least ignore, stress with a vengeance, most Northwestern students don't know what to do when anxiety and depression come knocking. What we do know is that our institutions will politely show us the door, and that our friends will half-heartedly shrug before burying their noses in their textbooks once again. Lots of us could avoid problems if it wasn't "wrong" to take a quarter off, to drop a class, or to – God forbid – not seek a summer internship. I can't help but think that if the culture surrounding leaves of absence changed, fewer people would need to take them. We spend every ounce of ourselves, making recovery that much tougher.
The study's authors said that "care that is welcoming and preserves dignity" can help dispel stigma. But Northwestern often goes in the opposite direction. Two days after I read about stigma's ill effects, I learned Northwestern had blocked student efforts to establish an on-campus mental health support group. Situations like mine, where a University-employed therapist suggests a voluntary leave of absence, happen all the time. But such a brazen repudiation of mental health support? And after the deaths that have recently rocked our community? My blood ran hot. Northwestern provides so many wonderful resources for its students, but needs to reconsider its approach to mental illness.
So, here's the sappy part. Even if I struggled in my time at Northwestern, I know I'll take volumes from my experience. I've learned loyalty, perseverance, empathy and humility better that I could've imagined. This school taught me how to make the most of the opportunities I'm given, but also how to handle inevitable failure. I'm a stronger job candidate – but I'm a stronger person too, and that's what matters. Even if the experience was usually closer to the forging of a sword in a blazing furnace than to a positive journey of self-exploration, Northwestern's lessons taught me countless things, in and out of lecture halls.
My graduating class will walk away with many lessons from you, Northwestern. What lessons will you take from us?
Eric served as Print Associate Editor, Entertainment Editor, Managing Editor and Executive Editor for North by Northwestern.