Let’s Talk: Mental Health in Colleges (Parents — Stop Worrying)
***Disclaimer: I am not a clinically or scientifically trained psychologist. Everything I express here is my own opinion based on my own readings, university courses, and personal experiences. This should be taken as an opinion piece and not as any professional advice (medical, parenting, or otherwise)***
A large focus of my writing on mental health and wellbeing is towards destigmatization. As our understanding of clinical psychology has advanced in the past 20 years, so too has the rate of diagnosis for mental health disorders. MD’s today are trained to recognize, diagnose, and treat these conditions in much more detail and nuance than generations past. Although there is still progress to be made, the medical community seems to be largely unified on the prognosis, diagnosis, and treatment of mental health conditions.
Why has society lagged behind?
When discussing mental health conditions with parents, the most frequent concern I hear is that they fear their child will not be successful given their diagnosis. Allow me to explain why this is not the case. The umbrella term of “mental health disorder” spans the entirety of the DSM5, but for arguments sake, allow me to break these down into laymen’s terms:
Developmental Disorders — i.e. Aspergers, High Functioning Autism, etc.
‘Regulatory’ Disorders — i.e. Generalized Anxiety, ADD, ADHD, OCD, etc.
Personality Disorders — i.e. Narcissism, Psychopathy, Sociopathy, etc.
‘Variable’ Disorders — i.e. Bipolar Disorder, Multiple Personality Disorder, Schizophrenia, etc.
I will largely discuss the “Developmental” and “Regulatory” disorders together, before moving onto discussing the “Personality” and “Variable” disorders.
With regards to the former, understandably, there are concerns surrounding a child’s progressive development. Early signs of some of these mental disorders include late walking or late talking. In many ways, these mental disorders can be thought of as a learning disability (perhaps euphemistically — the connotative ramifications of which I won’t discuss in this post).
I should first like to point out that this generalization I have just made is incredibly and irrefutably false. There are many students who are diagnosed with Aspergers or ADHD, and are ultimately more gifted than their peers. Ranking on IQ tests (as flawed as they may be) with statistical significance in their favour.
Admittedly, this is only for some students, not all, I recognize that. But I would also like to assure you that not only has the medical community advanced in leaps and bounds with their diagnosis and treatment of these disabilities, but so too have colleges and their administrations.
Much like IPP’s (or individualized learning plans) are implemented on a K-12 level, academic accommodation, access to resources, and medical recognition are all prominent, and individualized for undergraduate students. Whether this manifests in extra time on tests, flexible deadlines on due dates, additional support resources from the institutions, or another measure — colleges are livening up to the realities of their student bodies, and the academic detriment to such individuals is being minimized. Students Union advocates and other undergraduate students and bodies are frequently lobbying for improvements in these capacities as well, and the University of Calgary allocated an eight figure budget to mental health initiatives in 2018.
Moving on to what I have termed “Personality” and “Variable” disorders I would like to address in two ways. Firstly, by acknowledging there is still a lot of work to be done in destigmatization and in advocacy for these groups. Secondly, by properly recognizing that there has also been great strides made in clinical psychology — the understanding and treatment of such disorders are better than they have ever been. What’s more interesting to me though, is the progression of societal understandings of these disorders. Before the legends of Ted Bundy, Bernie Madoff, and Gotham City’s own Joker, the romanticization of such Cluster B personality types were not mainstream.
That is to say, the expression of sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies (not a DSM5 diagnosis) is common, and depending on the severity of such a diagnosis, may not indicate a poor prognosis at all. Narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths — in moderation, have become, and are currently productive and successful members of society. This is also true of bipolar, split personality, and schizophrenic individuals. Not only has the scientific and medical understanding expanded exponentially, the continual development of treatments suggest great success for individuals with these diagnoses.
Much like genetics determine an individuals traits and characteristics, it is ultimately an individual’s nurturing that determines their virtues and their humanity. A genetic predisposition towards an event does not guarantee it, and this likewise holds true with these forms of mental disorders.
Lastly on the topic of schizophrenia — I would like to direct you towards Steve Nash, along with many other brilliant minds — all of which are defined by the same ultimate beginning and end: it doesn’t matter what happens in our heads, because in our hearts, we’re all human.
