Mental health has become an increasingly talked about topic and for good reason. Mental health has the capacity to strongly affect our lives in so many ways: our relationships with friends and family, performance in work or school, how we feel from day to day, and it can even trickle over and affect our physical health.
It’s important to regularly check in with yourself and others to make sure we’re mentally well, and if not, that we seek help or some outlet to help improve. However, sometimes life happens quickly or people may not always feel comfortable talking to someone about it until their feelings escalate, and this is when it can be really dangerous.
The risk of suicide due to unchecked mental health is very real. In 2017, there were over 47,000 deaths by suicide and 1,400,000 suicide attempts in the US alone, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Mental health doesn’t discriminate; it could happen to anyone we know. Luckily, more and more people are opening up about their own experiences on coping with mental health obstacles, so there is less stigma associated with these issues.
There are many options for coping and maintaining balanced mental health, especially as a student at ETSU. Some of the simplest and most accessible options is confiding in family or friends or engaging in some type of hobby as a way to manage stress and take time for ourselves.
Sometimes, those options aren’t enough, and we might need to turn to trained professionals for help instead.
ETSU has several resources available through the Counseling Center. Anyone can schedule one-time or recurring appointments with a counselor. They also have walk-in hours on Monday-Thursday 10 a.m.-11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m.-3 p.m. On their website, they also have a self-screening with information about common mental health issues.
Should anyone ever find themselves or someone else in need of urgent help, there is also BucsPress2, which is a helpline that anyone can call 24/7.
It’s important to remember that concerns about mental health are common and nothing to be ashamed of. There are resources available to offer assistance to anyone in need.
Please call any of these lines for assistance: ETSU Counseling Center: 423-439-3333, BucsPress2: 423-439-4841, and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
