Understanding Mental Health

This edition is dedicated to those who struggle; those who know and those who love and accept. Focusing on mental health awareness, students’ experiences--not through interviews but through their own submissions--take center stage. Firstly, as challenging and as scary as it may be, you should be able to be yourself without feeling like your behaviors are unacceptable or problematic. Secondly,...

    Naila Lyles-Elcock is a junior Art major with a minor in Communication Studies....

Bridgewater, Va.- While many people may talk about mental health, many do not understand what it truly means or how it affects individuals. Problems with mental health can impact people in different areas of well-being, like their emotions, psychological processes and social interaction. These problems can affect how people interact with one another, how they think and how they perform daily tasks....

Approximately 9-11% of Bridgewater College students utilize mental health services provided on campus, and while that statistic has remained relatively stable over the last 5 semesters, the manner in which those students are connecting with mental health services is following two notable national trends. First, anxiety has eclipsed depression as the most common presenting concern. Second, students...

Bridgewater, Va.- In this edition of “Veritas” we are talking about topics associated with mental health. For college students, mental health is an important aspect to success. Here at Bridgewater there are many resources for students to get help with their mental health. In other words, this edition is bringing awareness to mental health. I would like to say that along with awareness there ...

I had a life like most other teenagers, I went to school, played on a sports team and had some friends.  Everything was fine until July 2nd 2016. On this day my family had something devastating happen to us, our house burnt to the ground.  At first I did not really think that it had affected me much and I was trying to be the strong one for people in my family. Going through my junior year of...

At the age of 14 I was diagnosed with severe depression and social anxiety, nothing really bad had ever happened to me, it was just like my brain wanted me to be sad and anxious all the time. Things used to be so bad that I wouldn’t be able to go anywhere without my mom or a close friend. Even ordering food at a restaurant brought the biggest fear. The idea of being in public terrified me,...

When I was in the 4th grade I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). GAD is a fancy term that means my anxiety is persistent and can stem from virtually anything. For some people, this may mean that they have a fear of death, or maybe they worry that they will not have enough money to support their family. For me, the disorder manifested itself in my school work—I have always had...

This edition is dedicated to those who struggle; those who know and those who love and accept. Focusing on mental health awareness, students’ experiences--not through interviews but through their own submissions--take center stage. Firstly, as challenging and as scary as it may be, you should be able to be yourself without feeling like your behaviors are unacceptable or problematic. Secondly,...