Mental health is not a dichotomous variable.  It isn’t a card that can be flipped from “normal” to “abnormal” and back again.  But it would seem that way from the way many address mental health issues.  The discourse about mental health only deals with dysfunction: it isn’t a topic of everyday discussion.  Rarely does one [...]

The best college advice I ever got was a riff on a math metaphor by an English professor. At the end of freshman week, after a bad ear infection and hours spent in the cool basement of Holder (I still wasn’t used to the humidity; I’m from Utah), my academic advisor took us out for [...]

As a 21 year-old Nigerian-American, first-generation, low-income female college student (yes, so many descriptors), I feel that I am both proud and still somewhat ashamed of my background. When I started college three years ago, I was nothing but proud. Despite the fact that I came from a poorer background than 90% of my peers, [...]

In some ways, Princeton was the worst and best place I could have been when I got sick. The illness was easy enough to hide, or at least easy enough to mask with all those things I thought Princeton students normally felt– tired, anxious, worried, guilty, and even restless. The sadness was the one thing [...]

The past few days have been a bit rough for me, so this morning I decided to schedule an appointment with Counseling and Psychological Services at McCosh. I have gone once before and felt better after talking through my anxieties, so I thought going once more would be helpful again. In addition, as an RCA, [...]

The first time I remember being depressed was in the spring of my freshmen year, though I didn’t know it at the time. I had just finished rehearsal for a play and I had no energy. I slept for several hours in the middle of the afternoon. When I woke up, I couldn’t bring myself [...]

It is very possible that Mental Health is about to become a trendy topic. Celebrities are going to start staring into cameras and using over-worked statements; “Parents” are going to care about “the children”; mental health environment is going to become a buzz-phrase applied to everything from the inner city to malls. We need to prepare for [...]

My freshman year was tough. I had moved to Princeton from far away and struggled to adjust to almost everything, from the cold weather to the social scene. I missed my family and friends, and although I was overwhelmed by work I still felt the constant pressure to jam my schedule full of activities, striving [...]

We need to honor ourselves. Not in a superficial way, and not by saying “I know I am special because I got into Princeton.” We need to look at ourselves and appreciate who we are and where we currently stand. We need to learn how to say “I am okay as I am” while accepting [...]