Talking openly about mental health
This year at The Ontarion, there will be a weekly column titled “Mental Health and Wellness,” which will touch on several different kinds of staying mentally healthy and feeling well in day-to-day life. The column will be a place where people can openly discuss how they are feeling, how mental health has affected them in their lives, and ways to stay mentally fit. This column will be of rotating authorship, so our readers will have many different perspectives to learn from.
Some things that have effect on so many people – students and non-students alike – are things like stress, sadness, anxiety, and depression. These are also things that vary in severity and are not the same for everyone. In looking for somewhere to lend a helping hand and some pointers, The Wellness Education Centre on campus was willing to give some feedback to help those dealing with hardship.
The Wellness Education Centre believes that “it’s important to move away from pathologizing mental health and acknowledge that it’s totally normal to feel sad, anxious, or stressed out – especially during such a huge transition. Equally as important is allowing yourself to seek support and talk to someone if you’re having those feelings – even if you don’t have depression or anxiety or a mental health challenge. Sometimes talking through an experience or the emotions can be very helpful for some people. Having emotions [is] what makes us human.” They offered up some important places to reach out to if you or someone you know is wanting to talk, such as “Counselling Services, Student Health Services, and the Student Support Network, [which are] available to students for FREE if they want to talk to a counsellor, physician, or trained volunteer. Good2Talk and Here 24/7 are also two hotlines available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days of the year. Good2Talk is a hotline for post-secondary students who want to discuss the challenges they are facing (…) Here 24/7 is a crisis line that can provide referrals and make appointments with the appropriate support services.”
When wanting to reach out, students are encouraged to do so. “You don’t need to wait until something’s wrong to get involved on campus and meet a really awesome mentor or friend. That could include something like volunteering with a student organization or club, chatting with a professor or TA about something you’re really interested in, working part time, or finding a social hobby that you really enjoy,” said the staff at the Wellness Education Centre.
It is important that “if something isn’t feeling right, you (…) reach out to any of the many resources on or off campus to get support with pretty much anything you could think of (i.e. academics, relationships, career searching, etc.),” they continued.
“What becomes worrisome is when you have an emotion that lasts over a long period of time (think weeks or months), when they get in the way of normal day-to-day living, or they are severe emotions,” the staff of the Centre explained. “If you’re experiencing something like this, Counselling Services (on the 3rd floor of the UC) has professional counsellors that can meet with you one-to-one by appointment or you can drop-in between 12:00pm and 3:30pm Mon-Fri. If you’d like to speak to a trained student volunteer, you can access the Student Support Network in Raithby House from 12pm-10pm Mon-Fri. The physicians in Student Health Services (in the J.T. Powell Building) are also able to support students who are struggling or in crisis between 8:30am and 4:30pm Mon-Fri.”
So please, don’t feel alone – there are times that are tough for all of us, and at the University of Guelph, we are extremely lucky to have so many resources available to help aid in making our livelihood so much better.