U of T falls flat in addressing student mental health

Soon after being assigned to write on mental illness, I fell from a graceful stability. I found myself lying paralyzed in bed on a Monday, snoozing alarm after alarm. First, it felt like exhaustion, like I simply wasn’t ready. Eventually the feeling deepened and worsened. I realized this was closer to a deep inability, an immobility and a ‘cannot.’ Eventually I decided to call the day off, opting instead to spend the afternoon texting my best friend and crying. Both these acts felt like plugging myself in for power.

For me, university represents something beyond education and learning—university is also a site of struggle and pain. When I ask my peers if they’ve experienced something similar, an astounding amount of them tell me the same thing. If university is sometimes a site of struggle, or a trigger for deeper emotional and mental pain, what exactly is the university doing to help us, if anything at all? And how can we understand our needs and begin to ask for more?

I’ve finally started allowing taking time for myself only after years of choosing to be dedicated to my work over my health. Two years ago, I would’ve pulled myself out of bed painstakingly. I would’ve made my way to campus with a discomfort I could feel deeply in my body. My skin would be pale and my eyes heavy, holding back tears instead of taking down notes.

A lot of us were forced to go head to head with our vulnerabilities the moment we stepped onto campus. Often times, greeting someone at school with a basic “how are you?” question elicits a tragic response— a big sigh, a sarcastic laugh, a list of deadlines we are afraid of not meeting—a recount of the ways we are feeling overwhelmed and broken. It’s a feeling that there’s too much pressure, not enough time to sleep and an impending stress that is always under the threat of spiraling into hopelessness and helplessness.

The University of Toronto is often spoken about in positive, prestigious light, but how exactly is the university attending to the mental health of the students who make this reputation possible? Are these ways sufficient?

Posted on bathroom stalls around campus, the university most explicitly tells us that the answer to our struggles is through exercise. If we work out, we will perform better in our studies. Ultimately, they’re saying that the answer to feeling overwhelmed, and some days, deeply immobile, is as simple as just getting out and doing more. Ironically, this ‘more’ is far from plenty. How do we make it to the gym when we can’t make it out of bed? How do we survive a work out when eating regularly and nutritiously feels plainly out of reach? These types of posters tell us that our mental health only matters in relation to our productivity—both in and out of the classroom. It strips the person from the student and fails to accurately understand how mental health affects us.

Many students are familiar with the Counselling and Psychological Services (CAPS) offered at the Koffler Student Services Centre.  However, not everyone is familiar with its awfully long wait list. Gathering the strength and courage to seek help is a feat in itself. Arriving at CAPS and not being able to deal with your issue promptly is discouraging at best, and life threatening at worst. In an institution so large and powerful, this news necessitates that we ask two questions: Why are these services not enough? And, further—why do the students actively seeking counsel outnumber the amount of services the university willingly provides? There is a disconnect between student needs and administrative services in perhaps the most crucial place.

As I sat with my friend Rob* outside of Sid Smith, updating each other on how we were dealing with the months of November and December, we talked about the mental health landscape of our campus. He mentioned how anyone who hears of the University of Toronto or encounters it from a distance, understands it to be a perfectly functioning and hugely successful institution. While U of T has so many internationally renowned opportunities and experiences, this singular image is in heavy contrast to the actual experience of being on campus at stressful times. This experience sometimes includes students spending entire nights in the library and walking with their heads bowed on a landscape where suicide is a very present threat. It lies quietly among us until one day, it appears in a news report and challenges all our conceptions once again.

*Name has been changed

Featured image courtesy of Art by Meeks