The first experience many of us had at this place was Trips, an experience carefully tailored to provide the most upbeat and positive portrayal of Dartmouth possible. Everything is so new and exhilarating that it is hard not to feel almost overcome with excitement for your next four years, which, as everyone reminds you, are going to be "the best of your life." Dartmouth kids are supposed to be able to party all the time and make crazy memories so that they'll have something to talk about besides how the bond markets closed when they're senior vice presidents sitting around the country club on a Sunday afternoon in Winnetka.
Declaring these four years as the pinnacle of our lives is depressing. Even as a freshman, I sometimes get anxious thinking about how quickly the year has gone by and how I only have three years left of my designated "primetime." (I can't imagine what the '10s feel like.) For most of us, our lives have been pretty well planned out up to this point: four years of high school followed by four years of college, beyond which lies the great unknown, save for the fact that whatever mysterious fate awaits us, it can't be as much fun as we're having now.
Given the onslaught of novel stressers that descend upon college-age people it's not surprising that the ages between 18 and 22 typically mark the first onset of clinical depression. Even though we meet new friends we separate from our old ones and from our families. We might live with a roommate but still lay sleepless at night in a strange bed, homesick and lonely. We might make bad decisions that we only hear about from our new friends the next morning. We struggle to find our place, not only on the myopic Dartmouth campus but also in the world at large. And we do all this with what seem to be hordes of happy students surrounding us.
Dartmouth's culture of happiness is a wonderful thing, and for many, including myself, the overall sense of contentment here in Hanover was a key factor in choosing this school over others. Yet as Katie Edkins '12, the head of Active Minds, a campus group devoted to "changing the conversation about mental health," notes, this prevailing sense of contentment makes it difficult to talk about your troubles.
"I think a lot of the time people here don't want to admit that they're struggling because everyone else seems to have it so together," she said. "I think that leads to even more increased depression on this campus."
Hanover's recent bizarre weather mirrors the extreme shifts that its collegians sometimes experience. We go from dark days of disconcerting despair, a hard snow in late April, to humid May warmth in the space of a few days.
It might be our "work hard, play harder" mindset that can result in such mood swings. Dartmouth's culture (or even cult) of happiness that cultivates perky happy-go-lucky attitudes 24/7 is not sustainable; what goes up must go down, after all. It's the depth of that slide, however, that differentiates a bad day from depression, says Heather Earle, a counselor at Dick's House.
It's common, she said, to feel sad "after a disappointment or letdown, or to have difficulties with sleeping or eating after a break-up." It's when those symptoms of sadness linger that clinical depression can set in, involving "a noticeable change in functioning that persists for two weeks or longer."
Both Edkins and Earle suggested that one of the best things to do to fight the blues is just to talk about it.
"Feelings of inadequacy run rampant at this campus, when very few of us should feel that way, and just knowing that you are not the only one having a bad day is key," Edkins said.
Whether you talk to a friend, a parent, or a counselor, a conversation "is always the first step."
The best defense against depression might well be friendship. So grab a friend and take a walk in the spring sunshine. If you can't ameliorate your melancholy, you might as well get tan.
