<p>" The real issue at hand is how students address their peers who are suffering silently with mental illness. While stress makes this situation worse, it also desensitize students to the issue and makes them more likely to focus on themselves rather than to help peers who they observe are struggling. It’s this culture that needs to change. Penn will always be competitive, what matters is how students treat each other."</p>
<p>Oh, by all means lets stigmatize the kids with ‘mental illness’ and for being 18 and not being trained psychologists, and let’s not suggest there is anything about the pressure in the system or lack of support on campus that might be addressed. Because that will make people who need help really want to come forward.</p>
<p>Obviously, all kids don’t have this problem, but when society becomes much more competitive for economic reasons, a good institution should move some of its massive deadwood into the categories that would help, and not accuse students they selected for promise of mental illness.</p>
<p>212DAD and collegevetting, my post was not insensitive. And no I am not premed. Penn is a very stressful environment, that is certain, but it does not cause people to kill themselves. It can make people feel quite down on themselves and worsen feelings that were already there. I usually don’t like to reveal this, but I am one of those kids I was referring to and have had some very difficult times at Penn. It didn’t matter that people always think I’m doing fine, one of my worst times at Penn when I felt absolutely stupid and worthless happened a few weeks before I won an incredibly prestigious award, so obviously someone thought I was doing something right even though I sure didn’t think so at the time.</p>
<p>When people commit suicide, they are under incredible mental distress and do not have an accurate perception of reality. That is what mental illness is, and it is really a terrible and debilitating thing which often develops in the late teens and mid twenties, hence why it is such a problem in college. It doesn’t matter if everything looks wonderful on the outside. My friend knew Madison and said she was an incredibly smart and sweet girl. She was a wonderful athlete and although they cite her GPA as a cause for concern, it is actually quite good for first semester and would have probably gone up quite a bit with her work ethic. Madison obviously couldn’t see this, and that is what breaks my heart. I wish I could have told her how much promise she had and that things would get better if she received the help she needed.</p>
<p>My comment about Penn students being prone to mental illness is not unwarranted. There have been many studies that correlate high creativity and intelligence and mental illness. It makes a lot of sense to, since someone who is very smart is very aware of their weaknesses in a way other people are not. If you have ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect, smart people have the opposite which is often called imposter system in which they believe their achievements are due to luck and that people think they are smarter than they are.</p>
<p>There is a ton of stigma at Penn with regards to mental illness. If you tell someone about it, they often respond with something like “oh your having a bad week”. People do not want to reveal their problems because they are afraid people will see them as breaking under the pressure.</p>
<p>@Poeme I agree with everyting you said as some of the causes of the problem. In addition the support from health professionals as well as faculty needs much more sensitivity at Penn than has been the case in the past.This is a big part of the problem. You are at Penn because you deserve to be , but who says you have to be perfect. There should be much more to the college learning experience than grades. @collegevetting In your post, you have twice referred to mental illness as being a stigma.</p>
<p>@ovrseasmom I didn’t say it should be a stigma, but of course it is a stigma, and kids will avoid being so labeled. That is also a problem I have with this massive rewrite of the DM standards that makes being human a mental illness essentially, in order to justify insurance payments. Once those labels are on, they are on. Obviously, if you read the standards, the idea that a bunch of this stuff is mental illness is nonsense, imho. I think there is a big push to call every bad feeling ‘mental illness’ out of good intentions of ‘getting someone’s help’ paid for by insurance and government, forgetting that illness has a common sense definition that then impacts how the person is viewed. Meanwhile, I do see that press release as mean spirited at the students’ expense, to absolve the university, and as creating more of a situation where kids won’t want to come forward, rather than expressing, for example, an idea that ‘everyone needs help sometime and we want to make sure that our students know help is available when it is needed’ or something a bit more proactive.</p>
<p>So @collegevetting so you think stress like getting a bad grade or not getting an interview makes kids kill themselves? Because that is completely insensitive and makes no sense. Articles and books on suicide make it clear that most of the people who commit suicide do not want to die, they do so because something inside them snaps and makes them feel so overwhelmed with emotional pain that they feel like they can’t take it any more. What is so sad is that the act of taking one’s life is a very impulsive thing to do. Yes people may fantasize about suicide or make plans, but actually carrying it out is a whole different story.</p>
<p>Statistically people with bipolar disorder are more likely to commit or attempt suicide that those with depression. Some people think this is because many people commit suicide when they are experiencing mixed episodes in which they are depressed but also impulsive as in a manic episode.</p>
<p>@Poeme I don’t have to think one thing or another about causation to think that if the goal is to get kids who need it to get help, then not labeling the kids who ask for help might be advisable. I don’t think it is worth a ton more energy to argue the point, but it seemed to me like the press release was trying to point fingers at the kid, and at the students around the kid, as being at fault, as opposed to the university. In doing this, IMHO it missed the opportunity to ignore the blame game altogether, and instead try to encourage people who need help to get help, and emphasize that if someone needs help with stress ‘we’re here for you’, instead.</p>
<p>I’ve never mentioned labeling anyone @collegevetting. Mental illness is very serious and something you need to tread carefully around it, especially when it involves medication. But when someone commits suicide in the circumstances that we have seen in the past few weeks, there is no doubt that these two students were really sick. It’s not their fault by any means, being mentally ill is like having diabetes, it is nothing to be ashamed about and if managed well people can live wonderful lives filled with happiness and success.</p>
<p>While Penn itself could do more to help students feeling stress due to their circumstances, a lot of the stress from Penn is caused by the student body itself. Most of the students who come to Penn are very conscientious and also perfectionists. This is not a bad thing at all, people like this go on to accomplish some of the most amazing feats in all fields. However having such high standards does cause a lot of anxiety for these people and the ones around them. </p>
<p>Penn has tons of resources for students who are struggling academically such as tutoring services and study sessions. This is in addition to all of the professors I have had (and other people have had as well) who were incredibly generous with their time and bent over backwards to help me and my friends when we were having trouble understanding some of the class material. While this is not true of all the professors, it has been true of pretty much all of the ones I have interacted with. Penn want students to succeed, and for the most part, they really make an effort to see this true. Penn has its flaws, but compared to other places, I think Penn is doing a great job. One of my professors, who taught at Harvard and Yale was saying how she really felt that Penn had a great environment compared to its peers, many of which she felt had absolutely toxic atmospheres. There are so many different types of people at Penn that everyone can find a group of friends eventually.</p>
<p>The university also has many study breaks during finals meant to help students relax. There are also many student groups at Penn who are involved in activities like community service, which I find really decreases stress.</p>
<p>@Poeme I don’t feel qualified to judge that two students I never meant were ‘really sick’. That is what I meant by labeling. Why can’t it just be said if you need help get help, instead of saying ‘you are really sick’ implying that only if you are really sick will you need help? It seems to me it lowers the wall to say if you need help get it. I don’t see what the whole ‘really sick’ part adds to the discussion whether those individuals are or are not ‘really sick’.</p>