TO THE EDITOR:
We’re fortunate to attend a school where many professors are accepting of students who need to take “mental health days.” However, the college experience is riddled with many stressors and pressures, and emotional well-being is often shoved aside while we pull all-nighters to complete assignments and spend hours frantically studying for important exams.
Everyone’s mental health is unique, but no one is exempt from experiencing mental health crises. We have all faced emotional suffering at some point in our lives. Sometimes, emotional suffering develops into something more serious, which is why understanding the Five Signs of Emotional Suffering is so important.
In order to change the culture surrounding mental health, we have to be able to identify the Five Signs — personality change, agitation, withdrawal, poor self-care and hopelessness — and use them as a common language when we recognize that someone is in pain and provide them the care and support they deserve.
By regularly facilitating open and honest conversations about mental health, we hope to convey that one’s emotional wellness is just as important as physical wellness. This is the very foundation of our #EmotionalWELLness Campaign, a joint effort between the national nonprofit organization, The Campaign to Change Direction and the Campus Y committee, Rethink: Psychiatric Illness.
Although this monthlong campaign comes to a close soon, we hope our message of normalizing discussions about mental health is everlasting within the Carolina community.
Sloan Taylor
Junior
Public relations and political science
