1. Choosing a seat before lecture begins is no arbitrary task for college junior Maya Pottiger.
Her decision is methodically planned, always positioning herself, in her words, “near an escape route.”
Because Pottiger, at any moment, may be subject to a panic attack, a common symptom of her anxiety
disorder.
“When I get anxiety, it often helps to be alone so I can get myself under control,” Pottiger said. “So I like to
pick a seat where I can easily get out of the room without drawing attention to myself.”
In 2014, 86 percent of center directors at 275 counseling centers reported a steady increase in students
arriving on campus already on psychiatric medication, according to the National Survey on College
Counseling Centers, or NSCCC. Additionally, 94 percent of directors from the same study reported greater
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JOUR479Z - IMAN SMITH DEC. 15, 2015
Mental Illness in College
Prominence, Stigma and Resistance
Maya Pottiger, a journalism student at the University of Maryland, College Park, struggles
with anxiety.
“I’d like my future to continue getting anxiety-free. And I'd like to tell those who don’t
understand mental illness, the only thing they can do to help is to try to understand and be
accepting,” she said.

2. numbers of students dealing with severe psychological disorders over the
past five years.
Pottiger, a 20-year-old multiplatform journalism major at the University of
Maryland, College Park, said she was diagnosed with panic disorder when
she was 15. She experienced her most severe instance of anxiety in
January 2012.
“I didn’t sleep for a week straight,” Pottiger said. “I didn’t have an appetite
either. I was constantly jittery and not present. I went to a therapist, who
told me to focus on my breathing to help me sleep. It didn’t work. My
mom bought me sleeping pills but the night I took them, I was convinced I
was going to die and couldn’t stop crying.”
Her loved ones were concerned, she said.
“I think I really scared my dad that night. It took me little over a week for me to start feeling like myself
again,” she said.
Gregory Eells, associate director of Gannett Health Services and director of Counseling and Psychological
Services at Cornell University, said students like Maya can be found on several colleges across the country.
This rising trend of mental illness among college students is, in part, because students are arriving on campus
already with a history of mental illness, a testament to the study conducted by NSCCC.
“More students are coming to colleges that look like America or look like the world even,” Eells said. “So that
means they’re coming with more complex issues. Folks are coming who wouldn’t have had access 20 or 25
years ago, with better approaches to psychotherapy and medication management. The challenge is how the
colleges and universities respond to that.”
Anxiety continues to be the most predominant concern among college students (47.4 percent), followed by
depression (39.7 percent), relationship problems (33.7 percent) and suicidal ideation (18.2 percent), to name a
few, according to the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors Annual Survey, or
AUCCCD.
In this 2014 survey, 497 counseling center directors from several institutions, including some from the
University of Maryland, College Park, participated in the research.
Dr. Eells also discussed eating disorders as a common disorder among the college the community.
Courtney Steininger, a 19-year-old sophomore English major, said since high school, she has struggled with
bulimia and although in the past she sought help, in recent years it’s proved more difficult for her due to her
family’s beliefs.
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NSCCC DATA EXCERPT
89% Anxiety Disorders
69% Immediate Response
Crises
60% Psychiatric Medication
Issues
58% Clinical Depression
35% Self-injury Issues

3. “My mother told me that she just prays to
get through things and that that is effective,”
Steininger said. “My family is also really
conservative and religious so whenever issues
of self-harm have arisen, I have been told
that that’s against God. At this point, I’ve
learned to cope and have established a group
of friends that know how to support me.”
At her worst, Steininger said she was purging
approximately once a day.
“My lowest moment was my sister’s birthday
this past year in June. We went out to dinner
as a family and ordered multiple courses and
I purged in between each course and in the
middle of dinner - so four times in the
course of an evening,” Steininger said.
She admitted there were times she was resistant to seeking care, mostly because she said she had control of the
disorder and could stop any time.
And far more often than not, students such as Steininger essentially put off seeking care until the problem
becomes insurmountable, said Keith Anderson, staff psychologist and outreach coordinator at the Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute.
“I think more students are getting some counseling when they’re in high school and so forth. It's becoming a
little more accepted but there’s still a lot of stigma about seeking help in general,” Anderson said. “They’re a
lot of folks who will only come in when they’re in crises because they’re going to try and figure it out on their
own up until they reach a point of crises.”
Eells said college students in general, endure various huge life transitions while at their respected institutions
and so there’s more autonomy and freedom correlated with immense pressure and expectations. Since the
Americans With Disabilities Act, he said there’s more access and resources for students yet there’s still
resistance.
“We all want to put on the best face. We don’t want to seem like we’re weak,” he said. “We have our own
internal stigma. The stigma is, my own sense of ‘I’m less of a person if I seek help.’ I'm thinking you’re going
to think less of me, which is most likely not true based on survey data.”
Additionally, eating disorders, as common as they may seem, are extraordinarily difficult to treat, Eells said.
“We see students who are most likely to really run away from care and not want to acknowledge it. It is so
physiologically potentially addictive in that whether it’s binging and purging or it’s restricting and overexercise,
it can be a very deadly cycle,” he said.
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Steininger said she feels healthier now than in the past even though she does not actively seek
psychotherapy. This is because she surrounds herself with support from friends, she said.

4. America’s Misconceptions of Mental Illness
Around February of this year, Sarah Joyce just wasn’t feeling herself.
“I was contemplating self-harm and I thought it would be easier for me to not be here,” Joyce said. “Not
necessarily that I was suicidal, or had a plan to do it, but more that I wished I could slip into non-existence for
a while.”
Joyce struggles with seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, a condition at its strongest during the winter months,
she said.
“Depression definitely makes me lack motivation in school and life in general. It’s kind of like the feeling that
you’re drowning while everyone else is swimming,” Joyce, a 19-year-old sophomore psychology major at
Sonoma State University in California, said.
A spring 2015 study conducted by the American College Health Association found 13.8 percent of the
students surveyed reported depression as a crucial factor affecting their academic performance in the past 12
months. This study surveyed 93,034 respondents.
However, even though many are aware of depression’s prominence, this doesn’t stop the perpetuations of
misconceptions such as one Joyce experienced after opening up to a friend about her disorder.
“I explained to him that I felt fatigued and I was constantly crying and unmotivated,” she said, “and how I was
just in a bad place in general. I remember it really vividly because he just paused and said ‘I don’t know if that
was really depression.’ I was livid. It just felt insulting for somebody else to try and say that my struggles
weren’t a reality.”
Steininger said the same could be said for her eating disorder, where the common belief is issues of body
image push women to purge.
“I purged when I felt lonely or angry much more than when I didn’t feel attractive,” she said.
For Sarah Bishop, 19, who said she’s taken a sabbatical from college due to her diagnosis of depression and
bipolar tendencies, it’s the notion that mental illness correlates with violence that frustrates her.
“Mental illness doesn’t make a person violent,” Bishop said. “Mental illness shouldn’t be used as an excuse to
humanize white criminals more than people of color. And there is more to mental illness - things like psychosis
and compulsions and rage - that deserve understanding and should be a part of mental illness awareness
programs.”
This is what the public tends to think in a post-Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook society, Dr. Eells said.
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5. Solutions and Success
There’s a classic tale about a pessimistic, stuffed animal from childhood that speaks to how those with mental
illness can learn to cope, Dr. Eells said.
“The great thing about Eeyore is, clearly he’s clinically depressed,” he said. “But you know what - his friends
love him all the same and they invite him on all their adventures anyway. That’s another way of thinking about
this - you can share concern, you can express hope and yet you’re still there as a friend. The challenge is
sometimes it gets hard and people distance themselves and don’t do what Pooh and Christopher Robin do with
Eeyore.”
If anything, college is the time to deal with mental illness before it progresses into late adulthood, he said.
“Working with someone whose 20, who is maybe just now discovering they have bipolar disorder - that’s going
to set a life course that’s much more positive.”
***
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“Our culture is conflating mental health issues with
violence. The violence piece is a whole separate
construct. Most people who struggle are not going to
engage in anything violent,” he said.

6. Addendum: Finding the Data and Social Media
For this project, I wanted the data to be as recent as possible and so the fact-finding process was a bit
unorthodox.
I knew I could easily find statistics from the National Alliance on Mental Health but I wanted my numbers to
speak specifically to college students. Plus, the data from the CDC proved to be a bit more dated than I
preferred. So I chose to call different agencies, such as the American College Health Association, and asked
said organizations about where to find the recent data I placed within my piece. In terms of the series of
events, I took account of the common agencies that would potentially have data.
I started by speaking with a representative of NAMI and asked him which organizations would be the most
beneficial for me. I then called some to ask to be directed to recent data.
Social Media Coverage
‣ Twitter Poll: This would give college students a chance to voice their opinions. I could ask questions such
as “Do you think mental illness awareness is lacking at your university?” or “Do you think mental illness is
negatively perceived by society?” Twitter polls also deliver results and so this data from respondents could be
used within my piece.
‣ Facebook Status: It may be on its last legs, but yes, Facebook can still be effective. The status used for this
article could be a quotation from one of my sources accompanied by a photo/link to the article.
‣ Vimeo: I could present a mini documentary based on any of my sources who said they struggle with mental
illness. Another alternative would be to pull strong quotations from a video perspective and feature them
throughout the piece. So example, “Maya Pottiger on dealing with anxiety” and then inset the video of her
discussing it.
‣ Twitter Post: Posted below (top left-hand side) is an example of what my post could look like. The picture
and piece of data used would need to be eye-catching and significant.
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