Like many college students, the feeling of coming home this past weekend filled me with a feeling of content, tryptophan and a resulting laziness that kept me at least five feet away from a school book at all times.
But also like many college students, coming home was an adjustment to communicating, interacting and even sleeping in a way that I was not immediately used to. Between dinner table conversations or asking to take the car out, there is always something eerie about adjusting to home life after over half a semester at the University.
We’ve all experienced how families can be happy and bothersome at the same time, but aside from the occasional “Stall Seat Journal,” the topic is a big part of being a University student that usually goes unaddressed. Whether it’s the act of going home or being away from it, however, there’s something about the college experience that can coincide with a feeling of detachment — and sometimes, depression — once a student comes home.
In fact, a study conducted by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center shows that almost 16 percent of college women and a full 10 percent of college men say they have been diagnosed with depression at some point in their lives. The extent to which such depression is directly related to home-related issues is yet to be determined, but from what I’ve seen, the experience of coming home aligns itself into one of the many reasons a University student may become depressed.
So why is this so? Most parents make an effort to create a loving environment for their visiting children. And although problems like alcoholism and psychological illness also serve as pathways to depression, it’s important to note the less concrete, and for some, more relatable feeling of awareness developed in college.
And “awareness” I’m talking about is not a simple generation gap. Sure, the invention of the Internet and easy access to almost infinite knowledge bombards the college student with conflicting ideas. But for some, there is an existential crisis that goes beyond a moral philosophy class and online forums about religious doubt. The new “awareness” is most harmful because it puts home life into a new perspective, and consequently, a negative perspective. Expectations change, interactions change and people change. The feeling is summed up perfectly in a Tweet (yes, Tweet) from Daily Show writer Chris Regan: “‘I’d be thankful for a little less MINDLESS SMALL TALK!’ —college freshman English major, home for the holidays.”
But to those who have it, the feeling is anything but funny. And it often goes beyond a pair of parents failing to acknowledge your references or not valuing them as much as your peers. While the idea of the “burdening awareness” may seem cliché and generations old, the growth of education is causing more and more college students to experience it and is making it harder to combat. Depression in the form of “awareness” can trivialize students’ goals, cause them to be less productive and eventually provoke a descent into apathy.
At the University, it’s easy to see that we are, by nature, a goal-oriented student body. Any student or parent knows that academics are not the limit when it comes to just how much we contribute. But with these contributions come the psychological byproducts of these goals, the expectation has its limits. And sometimes, especially for those in depression, the disparity between expectation and reality can magnify when awareness is tried at home. Seeking professional help is one thing — the same study showed that counseling in most universities see an almost unmatchable high demand — but students at the University must understand that their awareness, however acute, must not get in the way of their realities, both at home and in school.
Denise Taylor’s column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at d.taylor@cavalierdaily.com.
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