For more than a year and a half of her university career, Kara Cousins was depressed. And for the majority of that time, she was in denial about it.
“It was a really dangerous place to be because I became really close to ending my life.”
Cousins is one of two recent St. Thomas University graduates, the other being Bridget Yard, who have “unleashed the noise” about mental illness by releasing a video. They’re sharing stories of students dealing with mental illness, including their own.
At the beginning of her fourth year, Cousins realized she needed help.
“I was just like ‘okay, it’s literally do or die’ and so I need to reach out and I need to set my pride and my fear aside and I need to ask for help.”
Bridget Yard has been struggling with mental health issues since she was 14. Now 23, the Ontario-native looks back at herself as a sad teenager. A competitive cross-country skier and runner in high school, Yard developed an eating disorder.
She also suffered from depression, which often goes hand-in-hand with eating disorders.
Although Yard went to the doctor, she wasn’t willing to talk about her problems. And even though it was obvious she was losing weight, she was never referred to a specialist.
“I had put pennies in my pockets when they weighed me at the doctors office because my mom wouldn’t let me go back to school until I gained a certain amount of weight,” said Yard. “I was putting pennies in my pocket – I was obviously crying out for help and no one noticed.”
It wasn’t until her second year of university that she started experiencing the same mental health problems again.
“I started isolating myself and started getting really bad social anxiety to the point where if I had to go out with friends, then I would get a migraine and I just couldn’t do it. I was so nervous and so upset all of the time.”
The next year she sought help and was referred by a doctor to UNB counselling.
Their YouTube video, STUdent Mental Health, has already been viewed over 700 times. They hope to start a conversation about mental illness at STU. They want students and faculty to hear the stories so they’ll better understand mental illness and hopefully lessen the stigma surrounding it.
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It all began in March for the two 2013 journalism graduates when they attended a student-led mental illness conference called Unleash the Noise in Toronto.
“The interesting thing about the conference was there were no doctors, there were no adults – it was students who had created their own initiative on their own campus or had gone through something themselves,” said Yard. “It was very emotional, very personal and it’s no wonder that people want to do something after attending this conference.”
Yard said the stories people shared at the conference had a much deeper impact on her than any statistic she ever heard.
“The statistics are frightening but they are not as effective as hearing someone you can identify with.”
STU incorporated the video into Welcome Week to Cousins’ and Yard’s delight. Welcome Week leaders showed the video to first-year students in residence. The video has also been shared on Facebook and Twitter, generating much feedback.
Second-year student Brandon Ramey has suffered from depression. He agreed to appear in the video because he wanted to help other students come to terms with their feelings.
“The biggest obstacle I think people with a mental illness face is dealing with people who have no idea what it actually is. I hope this video helps change that,” he said.
Although many people volunteered to be in the video, Yard admits she was hesitant about telling her own story and posting it online for everyone to see.
“I’m not equating it to coming out as being homosexual, but I always feel like I’m coming out when I tell somebody I have had a mental illness because it immediately changes their view of you. Either their sympathetic or they say, ‘wow! I can’t believe you overcame that’ or ‘are you going to be okay? Can I trust you with this job? Are you going to be stable?’”
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Cousins and Yard decided to do this story about mental health awareness because the university needs to better address the issue.
Cousins said STU needs more resources on campus. Mental illness needs to be a topic more openly discussed.
Yard said the long waits for counselling appointments at the UNB and STU Health Centre is ridiculous.
“I thought that was a big problem for me because when I needed help, when I was finally ready to ask for it, I wasn’t able to get it.”
She thinks the solution is more funding for more mental health research and physicians.
Cousins said although STU needs a lot of work, the university is headed in the right direction.
“STU right now is actually hiring what is called a mental health champion. UNB counseling is great but this position will be someone who can just connect right with students, whose office will probably be in GMH and who’s going to coordinate different activities and have resources for students.”
STU has also hired their own counsellor, Roxann Morin, to help avoid the long wait lists for students at UNB.
Cousins also thinks STU is lucky to have Jan Wong as a part of its faculty. Wong, a journalism professor, wrote the book Out of the Blue about her own experience with mental illness.
At the beginning of her fourth year, Cousins was in a low, and the rumors of Wong’s class being one of the toughest worried her. She debated about returning to university at all
“Early in the year, I went to her Out of the Blue launch at STU and I was just kind of crying throughout the whole thing because everything she was saying was really resonating with me.”
Cousins then sent her an email thanking her and mentioning her own story. Wong met with her soon after.
“It was just really great because she genuinely, genuinely cared and understood what I was talking about. It just surprised me because she was one of the reasons I didn’t want to go back to university and she ended up being the reason I got through it.”
After creating this video, Yard hopes students will be informed about the conference and maybe even be inspired to create a bigger initiative at STU.
Yard and Cousins already have plans for another short film with STU students and alumni.
“I think we want to do one focused on life after mental illness,” Cousins said, “that there is a hope and there is a future.”
