In times of sadness, picking a dandelion allows for a wish. With a puff of air, the dandelion seeds scatter in the wind spreading color and joy. (Photo by Amanda Orozco)

Story and video by Amanda Orozco

Stuck temporarily in a place of dark feelings and harmful thoughts, college students struggle to overcome their depression on top of maintaining their GPA. The ideal of higher education is filled with new beginnings.

In movies and on television, college life is depicted as strenuous, but rewarding.The students we see manage to attend classes, make a lot of friends, party every night and still have time for romance.

The reality of depression

It almost seems like depression would have no place in a university setting, yet, according to a 2008 study by the American College Health Association (ACHA), 25.6 percent of male college students and 31.7 percent of female students reported that on at least one occasion in the last year they had felt so depressed it was difficult to function.

NMSU students travel through these doors to speak with someone about life as a college student. (Photo by Amanda Orozco)

The New Mexico State University Counseling Center has seen a 60 percent increase of patients since 2009.  Psychologist Chaunce Windle says depression is consistently their No. 1 concern on campus.

“Eighty-five percent of students who sought services here report some level of depression and that’s anywhere from mild depression to severe depression,” Windle reports.

Another 23 percent of students reported having thoughts of suicide at some level or at some point.

Two New Mexico State University students were willing to come forward with their own personal experiences with depression.  Both wished to remain anonymous, so for the sake of this article, their names have been changed.

A long sentence in a dark place

When she was five Jamie had her first brush with depression.

After her parents’ divorce, her grades began slipping, and she was taken to see a counselor.

“He really really wouldn’t talk to me very much; he wouldn’t listen very much,” Jamie says. “He just kept talking about how I should just be happier.”

The school continued to try to find ways to help Jamie, but nothing seemed to work, especially when a part of her problem was the other kids.

“It was really hard because they didn’t know I was going through depression.  They didn’t know I was going through so much, and they would make fun of me.  That’s the worst part,” Jamie says.  “It’s that when you’re little and you’re going through something you really can’t control and everyone is making fun of you.”

Jamie continued to struggle with depression throughout elementary school and into middle school.  This is when the problems at home were at their worst.  Her mother would disappear for days at a time, her brothers were in another city, and her sister, who was in high school, was out with her friends smoking weed and drinking alcohol.

Isolation during a difficult time

Jamie was left alone.  In her solitude, she began to contemplate suicide.

“I felt like no one cared, and I just felt like no one would notice if I was gone—no one would care, no one would even know, no one’s here.  I felt like there was no other hope for me.  I felt that I wasn’t good enough for anything in the world,” she admitted. In the end, it was her phobia of death that saved her life and prevented her from making this mistake.

Having someone to talk to and lean on can help in the fight against depression. (Photo by Amanda Orozco)

Jamie has been attending New Mexico State University since 2008.  She loves the new friends she’s made and enjoys most of her classes, but campus life has also brought her depression back into the limelight.

“I’ve caught myself falling into deep depression a lot more in college than I did in high school,” Jamie shared.  “There are all these obstacles pushing against me because not only am I depressed in general, but I have all these forces and stress that just triggers more.”

Although she managed to dig herself out of that depression episode, the fight isn’t over.

“Sometimes, I’ll have days where I don’t want to get up and face life – I just want to sleep,” Jamie says about her college life.  “There’s days where I just feel like ‘what’s the point,’ ‘why am I living,’ or ‘why am I here?’ It’s a really dark place.”

A sudden onset

Sam sits on a bench as she recounts her experiences with depression. (Photo by Amanda Orozco)

The birth of a brother is supposed to be a joyous occasion filled with cooing and giggles, but for Sam it became a struggle for her mother’s life.

Sam’s mother suffered from postpartum depression after the birth of her fourth child.

At first Sam didn’t understand how her mother could be depressed with such a good life. “I would get frustrated like ‘why are you so sad,’” Sam confessed. “Your family’s good, you have good kids, we’re all going to school, you have a good husband.  I’m like ‘why are you sad’ and she’s like ‘I don’t know.’”

While taking medication, her mother was getting better until she accidentally became pregnant again.   The pregnancy pushed her to the edge, and Sam’s mother became suicidal.

Fearing for both their lives, the family took her to a treatment center in Chicago, where she stayed until she gave birth to another son.  She returned home a completely different person, someone Sam doesn’t recognize.

“The depression ate her,” Sam says. “It took over her happiness.  She would always joke around.  She would call me names to be funny.  She was always joking.  She was energetic.  She was really involved in our lives. And now she really doesn’t care.”

Almost a month ago, her mother tried to commit suicide. Sam’s father found her in the bathtub with her wrists slit. She went to Albuquerque to undergo Electric Convulsive Therapy, one of the last options open to the family.

“It’s really hard to say.  We’ve been battling with her depression for such a long time. The doctors are telling us to still be hopeful because depression is such a long process,” said Sam about her hopes for the treatment.

Her mother’s depression began during Sam’s second year at college, and she’s noticed a difference.  “As time progresses, I feel like I’m getting depressed too,” Sam admitted “I can’t focus a lot in school.  I have isolated myself a little bit.”

The situation has become so dire that Sam has decided to take a break from school to help support her family.

Seeking help/ refusing treatment

Whether you go to the NMSU Counseling Center or talk to a friend, it's important to find a safe zone. (Photo by Amanda Orozco)

Seeking help can be the hardest part during the battle with depression.

“There is still a stigma on receiving mental health services, so I think that there are a lot of people out there that think ‘gosh if I go to counsel, that means I’m crazy or that means something is seriously wrong with me,’” Windle said.

Although exercise helps with depression, having someone to talk to is one of the best remedies.  Windle says the first step to helping a friend is “making yourself available to listen to that person that’s often the biggest thing. A lot of times people just feel alone and don’t have anyone that they feel like they can talk to. And so the first thing you can do is just be a helpful ear.”

College students don’t always feel protected enough to confide their deepest, darkest secrets to their new roommate, but there are confidential services offered by the University.  The first option is seeking help at the NMSU Counseling Center.

“It’s basically a place where it’s safe, it’s confidential, it’s mainly just a place where you can talk about what’s going on without being judged or without fearing it’s going to get out and get to this friend or this family member,” Windle explained.

Sam is not ashamed to admit that she seeks help regularly and feels other students should as well. “I do go see a counselor, and it does help me a lot just to vent and tell her how I feel about everything and it helps me out,” she said.

Because of her past experience, Jamie would not seek help from a professional until it was her last option.

“A counselor doesn’t know anything about you, hasn’t grown up with you or been with you as a friend,” Jamie insists. “A friend would understand more where you’re coming from and can understand you much better than a stranger would.”

Although professional help never helped Jamie, she does advocate talking to someone.

“Once you start drowning yourself and don’t talk, you just let it sit in your head.  That’s when it gets to you, and that’s when you’re at your most vulnerable, and that’s when you have those close encounters with yourself,” Jamie said. “I think having at least one person to talk to, whether it be professional or not, does a lot.”

Another option is the CALL, a confidential warm line run by the Wellness Alcohol Violence and Education program (WAVE).

Started in 2008, the Crisis Assistance Listening Line (CALL) is a telephone service for any type of situation.  WAVE Educational Assistant Montevis Price says, “We’re really there to help guide people through their own feelings and help them come to solutions to their own problems.

The NMSU Counseling Center can be reached at (575) 646-2731 and is open from 8 to 5 and always able to talk people in crisis. More information on the center can be found at http://www.nmsu.edu/~counsel/cc/index.html

CALL can be reached at (575) 646-2255 or toll free at 1-866-314-6841.