Keeping Depressed College Students From Committing Suicide

Posted by Gord Marwick on December 14, 2015

For some youths, College is not a time of joyously spreading their wings; but, rather, it becomes for them a time of coping with serious Depression, from feeling lost, lonely, confused, anxious, inadequate, and stressed. Too many of them seriously consider Suicide as one way out of their misery; and too many of those actually act on their impulses to end their lives, when their Depression doesn’t get effectively treated. Suicide is right up there, along with alcohol poisoning and drunk-driving accidents, as a leading cause of Deaths among College Students, although the exact statistical rankings of these causes of Death are disputed among various researchers.

What’s more, one-fifth of all College Students surveyed feel that their level of Depression is inappropriately high; but less than one-third of those indicate that they are intending to seek help for their Depression.

College-Student Suicides Statistics

Getting credible statistics about College-Student Suicides, as compared with Suicides among non-College youths of similar ages, is tricky — both because the institutional reporting of them is very flaky and inadequate at present, and also because some College-Student Suicides occur while those Students are off-campus for one reason or another. It’s currently claimed that about seven out of every 100,000 College Students are ending their lives by Suicide — which if so is about twice the Suicide rate for directly-comparable non-College youths — even though in most cases their Depression problems were eminently treatable.

College Students Have Unique Characteristics

College Students have some unique characteristics, differing from those of the general population, that need to be better understood in order to act effectively against their apparent tendencies towards Depression and Suicide. There have been some large-scale surveys that have indicated that College-Student Depression has recently been getting measurably worse; although, because these surveys depend upon self-reporting they can’t be 100% conclusive. One surprising survey result is that the problem is worse among Students who usually don’t drink much alcohol; when infrequent drinkers do get totally blasted, they’re more likely to get depressed as a result, and consequently maybe then to attempt Suicide.

Depression Causes in Men and Women

Among the general population, men are less likely that women to report Depression, and women are less likely than men to report ever getting totally stinking drunk. But, among College Students, men are relatively much more prone to report Depression, and women are relatively much more prone to get drunk utterly out of their minds, as compared anyway with comparable folks within the general population. For College men, academic failures are commonly a big Depression and Suicide risk factor; for College women. personal-relationship failures are commonly a big Depression and Suicide risk factor. For both College-Student genders, loneliness and social hopelessness — despair about ever finding satisfying intimacy — are important Depression and Suicide risk factors.

Face-to-Face Socialization Problems

Also, Students of both genders may often arrive on campus these days having less experience with actual face-to-face socialization with other people than was true in previous generations, because of the recent boom among their age group in social-software usage. And they may have higher levels of internalized perfectionism, both academic and social, because their peers have all been relentlessly broadcasting via social media about how happy and successful they are — even when it isn’t actually so. And, moreover, because of the currently-fashionable trend among their fathers and mothers towards over-involved ‘helicopter parenting,’ they’re less used to making decisions for themselves about matters that are going to affect them.

Dealing with College’s Health Insurance

Another unique factor for College Students is their schools’ policies as to health insurance, and regarding leaving school for a time because of mental-health issues. Yale University in Connecticut in particular is now getting public flak from no-longer-enrolled students; Yale requires any withdrawee to take at least two reputable College-level courses, to receive a grade of B or better in both of them, and to be able to show that he or she has been “constructively occupied” during all periods of downtime absence, before that Student can become eligible for readmission to Yale. And, while they’re out of school, Students generally lose their health insurance and become otherwise very isolated. In the words of one former Yale man, “I withdrew and they washed their hands of me.” He now has been hit with the double whammy of coping with his mental-health issues, while paying for much of his treatment out of his own pocket. Yale’s official word so far on this matter has apparently been just the Bureaucracy 101 standard response that “We’re taking this matter very seriously.” Yeah, sure.

Mental-Health Staffing at College

There have actually been clusters of Student Suicides at Tulane University, at William and Mary, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and at other campuses. As a result. this subject is at least now getting lots of public and media attention, and on some campuses there has actually been a significant increase in mental-health staffing — although it hasn’t been nearly enough to keep up with the rapid growth of the problem. Perhaps more Students today feel willing and comfortable in seeking mental-health counselling at their schools; and perhaps some of them wouldn’t have even made it into College, back in those Good Old Days when there wasn’t nearly as much help being offered to little kids who were struggling with mental and emotional maladjustments.

The Best 4 years Of Your Life?

Many kids leave their homes to go off to College having been told that “It’s going to be the best 4 years of your life.” For some lucky, well-adjusted ones, it is; they enjoy challenging courses, good times, great friendships, and Saturday-afternoon football games. Others don’t fare so well; once there, they wind up declaring a major in Anxiety with a minor in Depression, and suffering from homesickness, relationships gone wrong, families at home behaving dysfunctionally, and career-choice agonies. According to the 2014 Annual Report of the Center for Collegiate Mental Health. based on data from 263 Colleges and Universities of all sizes within the United States:

22% of all Students sought mental-health counselling during their College years.
10% of those Students had previously been hospitalized for a mental illness.
33% of entering freshmen have some psychiatric disorder, such as Anxiety or major Depression.
20% of all College Students are taking psychiatric medications, typically for Anxiety.
54% of all College Students have been diagnosed with some major Anxiety disorder during the period 2009-2013.
25% of all College Students have somehow mutilated their own bodies due to Anxiety.
30% of College Students being treated for Anxiety or Depression have seriously considered Suicide.

Number One Mental Illness among College Students

The Number One diagnosis of mental illness among College Student was Depression in 2010, but was Anxiety in 2014. Social Anxiety in particular is responsible for avoidance of romantic relationships, squabbles with roommates, difficulties with taking very large classes, and shunning face-to-face meetings with faculty for needed extra help with coursework. And also for getting smashed on alcohol, and/or stoned on weed.

The recently-organized Send Silence Packing project collects and decorates backpacks left behind by College Students who have committed Suicide, and tours campuses exhibiting them. It’s already a big collection, what with College-Student Suicides averaging 1100 during every year.

Mental-health Services in Campus Must Increase

One other recent study, commissioned by the American College Health Association and carried out by faculty members of the University of Virginia, partially contradicts the claims of some other studies that have been mentioned above — asserting that a College Student is in general less likely to die than a comparable non-college peer. Campuses do, apparently, provide Students with a safer and more-protective environment than does the outside World. If so, the reasons for this circumstance aren’t yet well understood by social scientists. This University of Virginia study does, however, fully agree with other studies that Suicide is a very serious problem — in fact, Number One! — among College Students, that increased campus mental-health services are badly needed, and that institutional tracking and reporting of Student Suicides needs to be greatly strengthened.

Reduce Anxiety and Depression with CLE Mood Effex

As its attempt to help folks, including College Students, who are suffering from Anxiety and/or Depression, CLE Holistic Health offers 500-milligram Mood Effex ‘feel-good’ capsules. Like other CLE products, Mood Effex capsules are produced from blended extracts obtained from herbs grown organically on CLE’s own farming plots, and harvested and processed and packaged by CLE using its own proprietary methods. The seven herbal ingredients in Mood Effex have been used for centuries or even for millenia by ancient traditional healers — Indian Ayurvedic, Chinese, Persian, and European — to cheer people up, and to help them to overcome their Depression. If you’re a stressed College Student, or the parent of a stressed College Student, maybe you should give CLE Mood Effex a try — it could, just possibly, literally be a lifesaver.

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