These are the best years of your life . . . why aren’t you enjoying yourself?

You may have heard words like these from a family member or a friend. Perhaps from their perspective everything looks fine: you’re in a great college, you get reasonably good grades, you have a group of friends. Yet, on the inside, you feel like there’s a chain around your neck, like you’re drifting along at the bottom of the sea.

Depression is the second most common complaint of students who seek help at the Counseling Center. Yet, often students don’t come in saying, “I’m depressed.” This is because depression can feel less like something that afflicts us like the flu or a cold — and more like a dark glass through which we look at the world. Since it affects all areas of our life, it can be hard to recognize and name as something distinct from who we are and how the world is.

Depression has many different causes. For some, it is an outgrowth of low self-esteem and excessive self-criticism. For others it is the accumulation of loss that was never properly grieved. Sometimes there is a genetic vulnerability. For some depression is born of stress and struggle that wears down one’s resilience. For instance, students who struggle academically may come to see themselves as failures and question whether they have a good future. Sometimes a sense of isolation plays a role, and we know that strong relationships can help support a student’s mood. Yet, this is complicated, since someone who is depressed can have good friends and a loving family and yet subjectively feel that no one really cares.

The good news is that depression readily responds to talk therapy. By talking things out one can clear away the weeds that choke the mind and spirit and develop a new relationship with life and oneself. Also, therapy breaks down the sense of isolation that depressed people often feel. Moreover in therapy students often learn coping strategies that lift their mood, such as exercise, staying socially engaged and challenging their negative thoughts. Some students find that medication can be helpful. Taking medication, like entering therapy, is a personal choice. In my own practice, I tend to think of medication when a student finds it very difficult to function, for instance, being able to get up in the morning and go to class.

It would be a mistake to think that all depression is bad, something to be stamped out wherever it springs up. Some have suggested that we live in a manic culture, and this too has its costs, such as superficial relationships, trainloads of stress and a blindness to others’ suffering. Depression can lead one to explore the soulful depths of life, and out of the depths often comes wisdom. Moreover, working through the issues that give rise to depression can lead to inner richness and strength of spirit.

If you sometimes feel like you are lost in a dark forest, know that we at the Counseling Center are here to help you find the path through and out.

by Mark Evans, Ph.D.