Four years ago, during the winter quarter of my freshman year, I developed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. As a UCLA student with a mental illness, I thought I was an outlier, a freak of nature ““ but recently, the Archives of General Psychiatry published a study titled “Mental Health of College Students and Their Non-College-Attending Peers.” I was shocked to learn the study found that, including substance abuse, almost 46 percent of college students had a psychiatric disorder in the course of the one-year study.
I was able to graduate and now I work in health care advocacy, but during my time at UCLA, I faced considerable stigma and obstacles in obtaining support on campus. When I first developed PTSD, I didn’t know where to look for help. However, there are many campus resources available to assist UCLA students experiencing psychological distress, and all of the following services are provided with confidentiality and privacy protections.
Counseling and Psychological Services is a resource that provides a 24-hour crisis hotline at 310-825-0768, urgent walk-in services, appointment-based counseling, psychotherapy services, support groups and wellness workshops. Though there is an appointment limit per quarter, CAPS can also refer students who need additional services to Behavioral Health Services at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute if they are insured by SHIP, or to appropriate providers if not. Services at CAPS are free for SHIP-insured students and only $15 for students without SHIP. Also, students who do not have SHIP can look up local mental health care providers through their personal insurance. If your insurance does not cover mental health services, or you cannot afford to pay, local nonprofit organizations such as Daniel’s Place in Santa Monica put students in touch with low-cost mental health care providers.
For students facing a variety of challenges, the UCLA Center for Women and Men assists students with short-term communication and relationship problems ranging from stalker boyfriends to controlling parents, as well as providing information on topics such as sexual assault. Furthermore, the UCLA Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Campus Resource Center provides counseling for students with issues related to sexuality. Additionally, Community Health Sciences 179: Life Skills for Men and Women is a course that teaches students coping skills and ways to maintain mental wellness, and it’s open to all UCLA students.
Many people are also unaware that the definition of disability in the Americans with Disabilities Act includes people with mental illness, making it illegal for UCLA to discriminate in any way against students with mental illness. Students with psychological disabilities that substantially impact their ability to study should consider registering with the UCLA Office for Students with Disabilities, which provides academic support services. The OSD can assist students with learning disabilities, as well as help students affected by mental illness to work with professors to keep up their grades.
When Bruins hear the phrase “psychiatric disorder,” we often think of the hallucinating homeless people in Westwood or the celebrities checked into our world-class medical center. It’s hard to believe that nearly half the people our age fit a mental health diagnosis. Many chronic mental health conditions actually tend to first manifest during the late teens and early 20s. College is stressful. We’re living on our own for the first time, studying new material in a competitive setting and wading through the bureaucracy of a large university with minimal handholding. Chances are, you already know a fellow student who drinks too often, eats too little, self-injures, panics over grades, worries obsessively, or feels utterly exhausted, burned out or even suicidal.
Armed with knowledge and understanding, any member of the UCLA community can be a resource for students in need. UCPD officers and UCLA emergency room workers are crisis responders and could always benefit from more training on how to deal compassionately with students in crisis. Similarly, resident directors and RAs in on-campus housing are perfectly positioned to empathize with residents and refer them to needed services, and professors and mentors can help encourage their struggling students to seek help. And then there are the friends, roommates and significant others of students in distress. Helping someone you care about with his or her mental illness can be incredibly taxing and stressful. If helping a fellow student in need is causing stress in your own life, these resources exist to help you too.
The University of California’s student mental health centers and services have been overwhelmed and underfunded for years. If the UC system is taking hits from budget cuts and is unable to provide additional resources to help UCLA students, then it’s up to the UCLA community to face the challenge. The study found that even though nearly half of college students have a psychiatric disorder, less than 25 percent of those students seek treatment. If we support one another and encourage students in need to seek services, this doesn’t have to be the case at UCLA.
Lee graduated from UCLA in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in English. To reach her with questions about her experience with mental health services at UCLA, e-mail her at minnalee@ucla.edu.