Is mental health seasonal?

New Google-based research suggests that we’re happier — and saner — in the summer months

BY KEVIN CHARLES REDMON

(Credit: Shutterstock)

http://www.salon.com/2013/04/21/study_depression_and_anxiety_may_be_more_seasonal_than_we_think_partner/

To Hell and Back

(Taken from the Harvard Crimson)
The morning birds sang sweetly as I walked from Lamont Library at 4 a.m., carrying my heavy backpack to Mower A-11 for an hour of sleep after studying for the Life Sciences 1b final. It was the bittersweet sound of spring, the spring of 2011, when the sun rose when you wished it was dark and it set when you wished it was still bright.

I do not remember a point at which I was happy in that freshman spring semester. At the end of the semester, my attitude was confirmed when I saw that grade on my transcript: D+. It stood there like a demonic fire, making the C+ I received in Math 1b look like a Hoopes Prize. I had worked so hard, torturing my body and torturing my mind, for a D+ in a class that I loathed. It brought down my freshman year GPA to a 2.7. Frustratingly, although I really wanted to learn the material, I felt that the class could not teach it to me well. At the time, I couldn’t imagine how much that hellish freshman year would change my life for the better. It taught me a great deal about the importance of experiences, how they shape you and how you can use them against your fears, and it also taught me how flawed the GPA system is in assessing students’ success and its detrimental effect on students, especially on their mental health.

My freshman year began with such excitement, with the thought of all the great people I could meet, the awesome classes I could take, and the amazing activities I could engage in—only to end with depression. I only had a few close friends, and I was even afraid of opening up to them. I would go back to my room to try and hold back my tears. I spent my summer in a similar state, trying to figure things out. I felt so alone. I needed someone to talk to.

That summer, I spoke to a close friend about dealing with depression, and he recommended a book called “The Power of Intention.” The book’s ideas were enthralling to me: I decided to take up meditation. Soon, miraculously, it began to work, clearing my mind of negative thoughts. I had long forgotten what happiness felt like, but now I was beginning to remember. I started meditating daily. By meditating, I felt myself reaching a deep state of peace; positivity came flowing in. I could feel a strong presence, calmly assuring me that everything was going to be alright.

At the beginning of sophomore year, I decided to concentrate in organismic and evolutionary biology instead of molecular and cellular biology, relishing the big picture framework that it seemed to offer. That fall I took an advanced class in OEB—and I loved it. I also took two classes in religion, which impelled me to take up a secondary in that field. I had found my niche. After struggling with feeling alone, I finally decided to embrace Room 13 and the Bureau of Study Counsel. Though I do occasionally experience some depression,  I am now nowhere near the rut that I was once in.

Harvard is a place for personal growth in addition to academic growth, and experience—even struggle—is necessary for that growth. My grades have improved, but what is the point of getting good grades without any personal development in the process? Those with lower GPAs, like me, are a part of the Harvard community. Our voice is rarely heard, but it is about time that it is.

Our grades and our GPAs do not define who we are. They are constructs; they categorize you based on someone else’s parochial understanding of excellence. In reality, of course, only you can define who you are. We all came to Harvard because we could think out of the box, not because we could fit into it. So why should we fit into a box that someone else creates for us?

I have realized that the difficulty with using GPA in academics is that it is not as nuanced as the grade system. Whereas grades are meant to track your progress throughout a course, the GPA system only provides a picture on where you stand at the course’s conclusion. Unfortunately, we tend to use this holistic system in unhelpful ways—ways that tend to equate a number on a transcript with our own self-worth.

Students here contend with serious mental illnesses each and every day. It is important to consider these issues, and assure these students that they are not alone. But it is just as important to reconsider the kind of academic culture we promote. To promote good academic culture, we must believe in Harvard and we must believe in each other. It is our interpersonal experiences that help shape us, not our GPAs. The good moments will make us happy, and those dark spots that we are in at times will make us find the courage and the desire to move to higher ground. And when we get there, we realize that if it was not for that experience, we would not be on that higher ground. Every bad experience, at the end of the day, is just an opportunity in disguise.

Avinaash Subramaniam ’14 is an organismic and evolutionary biology concentrator in Lowell House. This piece is part of a semester-long series organized by Student Mental Health Liaisons to encourage conversation around mental health; previous pieces may be found here and here.

TED Talk: Thomas Insel, Toward a new understanding of mental illness

A TED talk that frames a new look on mental illness.  Check it out!

http://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_insel_toward_a_new_understanding_of_mental_illness.html

Today, thanks to better early detection, there are 63% fewer deaths from heart disease than there were just a few decades ago. Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, wonders: Could we do the same for depression and schizophrenia? The first step in this new avenue of research, he says, is a crucial reframing: for us to stop thinking about “mental disorders” and start understanding them as “brain disorders.” (Filmed at TEDxCaltech.)

The Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Thomas Insel supports research that will help us understand, treat and even prevent mental disorders.

A Beautiful, Honest op-ed Piece on Bulimia

Written by one of SMHL’s own.

Taken from The Harvard Crimson.

If I’ve learned anything from my childhood, it’s that you can achieve anything that you put your mind to. If you want it badly enough, you can find a way to achieve it.  The way movies framed it, part of growing up—your coming of age—was to realize that you are capable in every sense, and to capitalize on it.

I would think about this a lot in high school, when applying for extracurricular positions or finishing papers late into the night. When I did do well, it was a justification of what I believed in—it gave me the motivation to work harder. It came to be an incredible thrill, a funny sort of recklessness, to see how far I could push myself.

I continued freshman year. I felt empowered utilizing my twenty minutes on the T to study, or going out Saturday night then waking up at 6 a.m. to do work. I can’t remember if I ever truly cared about any of this, but I felt a high seeing how efficient I could be. I was functioning at a whole new level, in which I could do everything, and do everything well.

Eating was the one part of my life that was uncontrollable. I struggled with bulimia. It was two to four hours of extreme, disgusting excess: too much food, too much emotion. Those were hours I would try to remember later—how many loaves had I finished? Did I really drink four liters of water? Had I cried? I would struggle terrifically, then wash up and go to a meeting. This physical and mental sloppiness happened at least a few times a week. But I did all I could do at the time, which was to simply contain it.

Classes were going well, and I found a great group of friends. My life increasingly diverged. I compartmentalized my school life more and more, only to spend hours alone reeling with physical pain. But still, in some ways, I was performing even better than I had before. I found more and more ways to cut back on sleep and socializing; I reset the bar of being “functional.”

But that all changed when my standing as a student became in jeopardy. Looking back, I genuinely believe I did all that I could at the time to overcome bulimia. It became another chance to excel. I tried about 15 different breathing exercises. (I was deliberately attempting to relax far more often than I actually was relaxing.) I gave myself a timetable for recovery. I felt selfish, pained, and burdensome to my friends. I had to get better, or else. I didn’t know what would come next.

Yet “next” is where I found myself just a few months later. Things didn’t get better. I couldn’t stop purging; cold water hurt my teeth. I still got unpredictably, deeply depressed. Freshman fall’s schoolwork had gone well enough, in my eyes, but I was failing so miserably at what mattered most: being functional enough to stay in school.  It was especially painful watching myself fall apart while knowing how hard I had tried.  I ended up having to go home for the rest of spring semester, which for me spelled out the end of normal life as I knew it.

It took all of six months to tackle the groundwork of recovery, and it was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. A lot of it was quiet realizations: that I wasn’t super-human, that achievements were fleeting, and that sustaining a quality of life was a responsibility. It was the opposite of the exhaustion had gotten me through high school and freshman year.

Recently I found the quote, attributed to Marilyn Monroe: “Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.” In retrospect, I very much believe so. I know that what I may have lost has been more than made up in what I have since found. While I can’t quite tally it all up, despite every time things didn’t go as planned—having to go on leave being only one example—, so much good has happened since. I found a wonderful group of girls to block with, who support me and genuinely care. I have found the concentration I love, and with the time formerly devoted to bulimia, I have been able to find moments of peace and quiet.

And I still believe that I anything is possible. I still believe that if I try hard enough, I can achieve whatever it is I’m looking for. But what I want is very different, and I understand that achieving my material goals has little relation to the kind of person I am. At a place like Harvard, a community that thrives on superlatives—the smartest, the best, the brightest—it is easy, if not necessary, to believe that our initiative to control the quantitative things around us makes us successful. Through bulimia, I’ve come to realize that I’m not in control of everything. And maybe it’s something I’ve known deep down all along.

But at last I can say I’m truly happy about it.

Angela Lee ‘14 is an anthropology concentrator in Dunster House. This is part of a semester-long series organized by SMHL (Student Mental Health Liaisons) to encourage conversation around mental health. You can find previous columns here and here

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/4/10/mental-health-happiness/

Taken from the Yale Daily News:

Yalies want to talk about mental health issues. As a campus, we are largely able to discuss the stresses and challenges that we all face as Yalies in a high-intensity academic environment, but our conversation falters when we are confronted by more serious, long-term problems.

To impact the day-to-day lives of students, President-elect Peter Salovey’s administration must cut through Yale Health’s bureaucracy to bring effective mental health care to campus.

Students seeking psychological treatment may initially feel alone or anxious. Admitting a need for real medical help is hard — especially for Yale students. The stigma surrounding mental health issues discourages many students from coming forward. Yale cannot single-handedly reverse the unfortunate stigmatization of mental health issues in our society, but our University can take conscious steps to lessen the institutional barriers that preclude students from seeking help.

Getting mental health treatment at Yale should be not a maze. The lack of a clear and streamlined process ultimately discourages many students from seeking help. Students often face waiting times that belie the severity or immediacy of their problem, and an unnecessarily opaque website only worsens the red tape.

Students seeking immediate counseling such as grief counseling are often burdened by waits that may last weeks. By the time these students can get appointments, they may have already sought help elsewhere. Yale should guarantee that students can see a professional within a short, standardized amount of time.

Students seeking long-term counseling for chronic illness are similarly disadvantaged. Yale Health’s website states that “individual therapy is available on a short-term basis,” but offers no information on what constitutes short-term, as well as no obvious destination for students requiring long-term services. Students may be forced to turn off campus to find resources that they believed would be made available on campus. Yale commits itself to four-year physical health, but the double-standard concerning mental health issues jeopardizes students’ ability to receive adequate long-term treatment. Moving forward, Yale must be able to triage effectively between short and long-term cases without denying any student timely care.

Moreover, mental health professionals often serve as gatekeepers. In certain extreme cases, their evaluations can determine whether a student with pressing mental health issues will be permitted to remain on campus, or forced to take a leave of absence. Students hear stories of other students compelled to leave campus for a semester, or admitted Yalies forced to defer enrollment.

Of course, Yale Health should be empowered to take some kind of preventative actions to deter students from self-harm. But simply sending students with mental illness away from campus can send the message that Yale is unwilling to engage with these students — and this reputation deters students from coming forward for help.

Our dialogue about mental health cannot be only reactive to campus tragedy. We must broaden our daily conversations to demand answers and action from those who lead us.

http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2013/04/08/news-view-getting-help-for-mental-health/

The Harvard Speaks Up website has gone live!  Click here to check it out, and watch videos from peers, tutors, and Steven Pinker!  And it’s still not too late to upload your own.

More Than 150 Students Rally for Mental Health Reform

By QUINN D. HATOFF, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Taken from the Harvard Crimson.  http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/2/22/mental-health-yard-rally/

UPDATED: February 23, 2013, at 2:34 p.m.

Chanting the words “Reform mental health” and “Our Harvard can do better,” a group of more than 150 students gathered in front of Massachusetts Hall Friday afternoon to urge administrators to take action on mental health.

“The drumbeat of student voices for reform is growing, but change is happening too slowly,” Undergraduate Council President Tara Raghuveer ’14 said in an interview. “It’s our responsibility to step in and advocate for students.”

The rally came one day after an anonymous Crimson op-ed written by an undergraduate student with schizophrenia generated dialogue in dining halls, on email lists, and on social media sites about perceived flaws in mental health services at Harvard. Also on Thursday, Director of Harvard University Health Services Paul J. Barreira spoke at a Committee on Student Life meeting to present several University mental health initiatives, including the hiring of a number of full-time psychiatrists whose work will be devoted exclusively to improving students’ mental well-being.

At Friday’s rally, the demonstrators arranged themselves into a large circle, and for one hour, shared personal experiences with UHS and brainstormed a list of specific demands from the administration. That list, in addition to other signs written by demonstrators, was hung on the facade of Massachusetts Hall, which houses the offices of University President Drew G. Faust and other senior administrators.

“I lost 4 friends to suicide in 6 weeks. I’m not better,” read one sign. “Harvard we are MAD,” read another.

Twenty minutes into the rally, Assistant Dean for Student Life Emelyn A. dela Peña entered the circle and offered a warm room for students to discuss their concerns with administrators and Barreira.

“We are willing to sit down, we’ll listen for as long as you want us to be there,” said dela Peña.

Although demonstrators turned down the offer and continued their discussion outdoors, dela Peña promised that administrators would review the signs and pass along the list of demands.

During the discussion, students called on Harvard to clarify its policies regarding leaves of absences, provide students with advocates within the system, ensure that financial resources do not prevent students from obtaining care, personalize what one student characterized as an “impersonal” system, and hire more therapists to cut down on wait times.

Late Friday, UHS spokesperson Lindsey Baker released a statement in response to the op-ed that sparked the rally.

“The health of Harvard students and all of our patients is of the utmost importance and we consider it to be our top priority,” Baker wrote.

In her statement, Baker wrote that there is no monetary cap on prescription drug benefits through the Harvard University Student Health Program, which covers mental health and other health services and is available to all registered students. Baker also wrote that UHS offers need-based financial assistance through a special Medical Hardship Fund and “makes every effort” to schedule appointments in a timely manner.

“Anyone with an urgent need can usually be seen within 24 hours, and anyone with an emergency can be seen almost immediately,” she wrote.

In the hours before the rally, undergraduates mobilized to promote the demonstration via House mailing lists, Facebook, Twitter, text messages, and word of mouth. Some student groups—including “Our Harvard Can Do Better,” which campaigns for reform of Harvard’s sexual assault policies voiced support for the demonstrators’ cause or asked members to attend.

“The Our Harvard Can Do Better campaign recognize that mental health intersects with sexual violence,” the group wrote in an email sent over the Harvard College Democrats email list. “We, the student body will stand together in holding our school accountable for its policies that too often have driven many of us to despair and failure.”

Raghuveer also urged UC representatives to join her at the rally in an email sent over the Council’s mailing list early Friday morning. A number of students affiliated with the UC, including former UC President Danny P. Bicknell ’13, former UC Vice President Pratyusha Yalamanchi ’13, and current UC Vice President Jen Q. Y. Zhu ’14, were in attendance at Friday’s demonstration.

“UC reps are attending this rally to stand in solidarity with people on this issue of mental health on campus, as well as to listen to the people present to better understand the students’ asks, so we can work toward a solution,” said Zhu.

Council representatives ended the rally by promising an open forum with administrators, UHS representatives, and House Masters to be held within the next two weeks. The UC will also devote time during Sunday’s general meeting to discussing mental health, according to Raghuveer.

Following the rally, a new Facebook group called Coalition to Reform Mental Health Services at Harvard was launched. The group aims to provide “a platform to bring together those on Harvard’s campus who support improving mental health.” By Saturday afternoon, the group had amassed 110 members.

In Sight, Out of Mind

By: Anonymous

Taken from the Harvard Crimson

You do not become schizophrenic overnight. When I began to hear voices, I told myself that it was some peculiar coping mechanism that was benign and would soon go away. Around the same time I had been in an accident, was dealing with a family crisis, and as a corollary was off-and-on homeless for a few weeks. Such occurrences would make anyone momentarily mad, right? This is what I told the social worker the first time I went to Harvard University Health Services. I was depressed: These were odd shock symptoms that would heal and fade away like bruises. We never talked about the voices. It was a topic that terrified me, and she was no more eager to ask me about them. She encouraged me to drink chamomile tea and to practice breathing exercises to cope with stress.

I knew I needed more help than tea, but as a poor, financially independent student from a poor family, my options were limited. I was lucky to enroll in a research study that gave me psychotherapy in exchange for serving as guinea pig for new social workers. By October 2012, I was seeing a therapist at least three times a week and sleeping the rest of the time to hide from the voices, which were getting worse and handicapping my ability to listen to my own stream of consciousness. Have you ever tried writing a paper when roommates are having a loud conversation? Now imagine they are screaming at you. This is how I feel every day. I experienced other symptoms I did not expect, such as forgetting words, and instead of my once photographic memory, I often cannot remember in the evening what I did in the morning.

December came, and with it, exams and final papers. I had to pull endless all-nighters to complete the work I had missed, and forsaking sleep meant that I was abandoning the only effective refuge I had from my screaming demons. I survived by the compassion of my roommates, who made sure I was eating and would hold and soothe me when things became unbearable. After exams, I was supposed to start antipsychotics. I was surprised to find out that my insurance company would not cover the drug, which cost $850 a month. I successfully petitioned to have the drug partially covered by insurance; still, $650 a month.

Even on full financial aid, I work two jobs to pay for my education, and there is no money to spare. I wrote to my financial aid officer, and he still has not responded. I made an appointment with the patient advocate, but because I am not on Harvard’s student insurance plan, nothing could be done. My resident dean could apply for a special fund, but only after my financial aid officer officially refuses my petition.

Two months have passed. What can I do? My resident dean, academic advisor, and psychiatrist strongly encourage me to take the semester off. I want to, but my family situation makes living at home a non-option. Where else can I go? I am too sick regularly to be in class; how can I hold a job? I decided to stay as I fight for treatment. Harvard may not be willing to pay for treatment, but at least as a student I hope that they are too afraid of bad publicity to let me die should I need hospitalization. At least here I have food and housing through financial aid. As a student on leave, I would have no such reluctant advocate. I am lucky to have enrolled in a trial that pays for a month’s treatment, but I have no idea from where the money will come next month. I just know that I would not have survived the last month without treatment.

What they never tell you about schizophrenia is that you never really believe it, internalize it, identify with it. Mornings are agonizing because every day in the haze of waking up I briefly remember all over again who I am and what I have lost. I remember the friends that I am terrified will see me differently if I tell them; I remember that on my bad days I scare people in class and on the subway; I remember that the academic career for which I had worked is now improbable. I remember that the measure of success for too many of my days will be that I have not killed myself.

So Harvard, friends, peers, anyone who might be reading this: I am asking you to advocate for me and the other statistically 70 or so students here who are struggling with schizophrenia or other acute illnesses. The average age of onset for schizophrenia is 18 for men and 25 for women, meaning that it often occurs during college. Most of you who are reading this assume that Harvard provides some end-of-the-line safety net for poor students in such calamitous circumstances and that Harvard would never let a student fail, drop out, or not receive medical care for lack of money. I write to assure you that there is no end in sight to the falling. I can apply for $5,000 to study bat droppings over the summer, but there is no application to pay for the treatment that enables me to function. Dear Harvard College Research Program, will you finance an application for me to study the effect of treatment on the schizophrenic brain? I know just the test subject.

Scientists have not yet decoded the medical and psychiatric workings of schizophrenia, but there are a few obvious reforms Harvard could implement that would allow students like me to have the support and treatment we need to succeed and survive. These policy changes need to be implemented transparently: Currently, most leave of absence and mental health policy is nebulous, unofficial, unpublished, and only policy-as-practiced through the decisions of the Administrative Board.

First, Harvard should guarantee that anyone who seeks treatment be able to see a therapist within a week, and if desired, to see a therapist on a weekly basis. Currently wait times can be as long as a month, and anecdotal evidence from friends and a conversation with a Harvard therapist suggest that they are pressured to cap the number of appointments covered by Harvard insurance. While Harvard has taken steps forward in covering up to 24 visits to outside providers, Harvard can continue this progress by hiring enough therapists at HUHS to meet student need and covering as many outside visits as are recommended by the therapist.

Second, Harvard should abolish the present oft-coerced leave of absence imposed on students who admit themselves to the infirmary. Students who decide to go on leave are often unaware that in order to return, they must prove that they have held a job or internship and that they have been seeking treatment. The burden of this policy falls brutally on students from poor backgrounds, students lacking robust health insurance, and students with unstable family situations. Ironically, these are the very students who are more likely to have experienced trauma.

This policy typifies the hostility with which mental illness is treated by the Harvard administration. The administration is pursuing what can—despite the University’s belief to the contrary—only be described as punitive courses of action that do not take into consideration the wellbeing of students. If your financial situation is such that Harvard is your only hope for treatment, your options are to seek immediate help and forego longer-term treatment or to try to fight through the darkest nights in hopes that maybe things will get better. I have lost too many friends at Harvard who did not survive that fight. An alternative option would be to implement a program for students on financial aid: Give us housing, allow us to stay with the therapists who know us best, and finance the program through a combination of grants, subsidized loans, and a work program.

Third, the administration should guarantee reasonable turnaround times for decisions from the Financial Aid Office in emergency situations, institute a reasonable cap on health spending in a given year, and provide grants for any additional amount for students on financial aid. Need-blind financial aid allows me to attend Harvard regardless of my financial situation; it should also allow me to stay regardless of a treatable medical condition.

In a recent letter, Dean of the College Evelynn M. Hammonds encouraged students to “not suffer in silence. We are here to support you.” I was not silent: I sought and was refused help. I am asking you to join me in a loud appeal to the administration for quality mental health support. If there really is such a thing as a Harvard community, then our shared resources should be allocated according to our values. If Harvard is willing to cut hot breakfast to restructure its budget, then surely mental health is important enough for us to demand adequate resources and to implement serious and necessary reforms.

This is not crazy talk, but I am mad. We can do better.

—The writer can be reached at wecandobetterharvard@gmail.com.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/2/21/anonymous-schizophrenia-help/

‘I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother’: A Mom’s Perspective On The Mental Illness Conversation In America