Student depression

Julia Trachy always counted herself among the happy. So after she dropped 25 pounds in two and a half weeks and her stomach hurt so much she couldn’t hold herself up to play the violin, she didn’t read it as depression.

“I just thought there was something wrong with me physically,” said Trachy, a sophomore nursing student at the University of Minnesota. When her doctor suggested therapy, she thought, “They think I’m making this up. I was really hurt just because all my life I was the fun person.”

Student mental health is a rising concern at universities across the country – 86 percent of campus counseling centers report say they’ve seen an increase in recent years of students with severe psychological problems – nine of 10 believe students with significant psychological disorders are a growing concern on campus.

Trachy is one of a rising number of college students across the country seeking help for depression, mental illness and other emotional problems. Some 2,200 students made nearly 10,000 visits last year to the mental health clinic at Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus, up 44 percent from five years ago.

Antidepressants were second only to contraceptives as the most prescribed medication from the Boynton Health Service pharmacy on campus, with students spending more than $500,000 on antidepressants last year. In surveys, 20 percent of the university’s undergraduate women say they’ve been diagnosed with depression, twice the rate of men.

On their own for the first time, plunged into a new world of high stakes pressures and a culture different from home, depression can take hold in students, observers say. Untreated, it can lead to suicide, the second leading cause of death in college students nationwide. Sixteen University of Minnesota students have killed themselves since 2000, according to data Boynton leaders are presenting to university regents.

Some universities now require students to leave school if they’re depressed or possibly suicidal. At Minnesota, officials say that’s not happening, but they acknowledge a “high and persistent level of mental health problems on campus” that needs more attention.

“There is a tremendous stigma associated with (mental health) disabilities, but people are talking about it more, and there’s improvement in medication and treatment,” said Dr. Betty Benson, associate director of the university’s disability services office.

“I think we have more people coming to college who have a diagnosis of depression than we did before,” said Dr. Ed Ehlinger, Boynton’s chief health officer. Treatment is better, so people are able to enter college and succeed, he said.

Women are more likely than men to admit a problem and seek help, which is why they turn up in the surveys in higher concentrations, Ehlinger added.

Trachy, 19, says her depression surfaced in her junior year of high school with physical pain and crying. She began to think of ways to end the pain, including jumping out a window.

“That’s when I realized that something had to be wrong,” said Trachy.

When she began therapy, she didn’t want medication, believing she should be able to control her own moods. When she finally agreed, she struggled to find the right medicines and dosages. One medicine made her shake and kept her up all night; another made her tired.

“It was a hard journey to make,” she said. “And, yeah, it still is hard.”

Most students diagnosed with mental illness get some kind of extra help in their classes, officials say. Extended testing time is a typical accommodation. Some students can also get a reduced course load while still being considered full time.

Requests are reviewed on a case-by-case, class-by-class basis, she added.

Students must register with the disability services office to get the extra help; those who don’t are pretty much on their own.

Trachy, in a recent class paper, called herself the “happiest depressed person you will ever meet.” She has control of her depression but acknowledged it’s harder this year than last. Still, she’s pushing ahead and plans to work on a “stamp out the stigma” campaign next semester.

“People don’t just walk up to you and say, ‘Hi, I’m Julia. I have depression.’ If more people were open about it, more people could help each other out. I used to be all quiet about it, then found out about my friends that had depression and asked why is it so secretive?”