College Student Dealing with Mental Health Issues? You Might be in the Majority.
That seems to be the takeaway from this recent polling data.
Three in five (60%) college students reported being diagnosed with a mental health condition by a professional, the most common afflictions being anxiety and depression, according to an exclusive Fortune survey of 1,000 college students conducted by The Harris Poll in June.
That’s significantly higher than the general population, only about 48% of whom say they’ve been diagnosed with a mental health condition.
The thing about this data was that it wasn’t just self-described mental health issues. That 60% of students, and 48% of the public, have been diagnosed with a mental health condition such as depression or anxiety. When we also know there are a number of people who will not deal with the stigma of going to get a diagnosis we can assume that the actual numbers are higher as well.
This might just mean that the majority of the people around us right now are likely dealing with some sort of mental health struggle. This would also mean that there is nothing wrong with us, that we are the normal ones. That there is no weakness in us, or something lacking in us, but rather that we are having a normal reaction to a world that is causing anxiety and depression.
The fix is out there, not inside of us. We can only do what we can to cope, take care of ourselves, and find the tools that allow us to continue, but the real solution is much larger than that. The real solution will require much more. The real solution to mental health issues is fixing society and the world we live in.
If you want solutions, that’s where you start. How do we build a world where being anxious and depressed isn’t an understandable and normal reaction?
