Uncontrollable anxiety. Panic attacks. Disturbing thoughts. Dissociating. Obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Paranoia. Thoughts of suicide.
“I was convincing myself that I was crazy. I felt barely alive.”
Ben Slowey found himself walking into the Norris Health Center Crisis Services on a February day in 2017. He said the care he received there saved his life.
“I finally did what I needed to do,” said Slowey. “I couldn’t keep living like that a day longer.”
In 2018, a study conducted by the Norris Health Center at UWM found that 66% of students felt overwhelming anxiety in the past year, a 10% increase from the same study in 2008. Only 26% of UWM students have been treated for this anxiety. There was also an increase in depression, with 48% of UWM students reporting that, in the last year, they felt so depressed it was difficult to function, a 13% increase from 2008.
This rise in mental health issues on campus is reflected in the number of students seeking help at UWM. University Counseling appointments so far this semester have increased 65% from last year, according to Paul Dupont, Norris Health Center’s Director of University Counseling.
“The demand for services is growing, growing, growing here at UWM and across the country,” said Dupont, “to the point where it is impossible for most college counseling centers to be able to have services for every student and to be able to do it at a fast basis.”
The demand is being met with no additional increase in staff from last year. Students have pointed to this lack of staff and availability to be a problem in the past.
Lindsey Needham, a UW-Milwaukee junior who has struggled with anxiety throughout college, said that although she appreciated services that are available, she ended up needing to find a therapist outside of campus.
“It was like they were trying to accommodate so many people and issues that it wasn’t as helpful as it could have been if I would’ve gone to a specialist,” said Needham.
Slowey, who attended UWM Counseling session his freshman year of college, had similar concerns based on the care he received.
“A big thing about having a good therapist is developing trust with that therapist and feeling like they’re actually present for you,” Slowey said. “The Norris therapists felt very minimal and surface-level.”
However, both Slowey and Needham did not have Wisconsin health insurance when they moved to school, and they both recognized that this was a major benefit of the on campus mental health care.
“Finding something up here wasn’t a possibility with my healthcare insurance,” said Needham. “I thought ‘this is free, this can help me and boost me to where I need to go.’”
After his initial attempt at therapy at UWM, Slowey took time off from talking to a therapist. This, combined with his growing mental health issues, pushed him to go to Norris Health Center Crisis Services, which he views more fondly than UWM’s counseling services.
“When I went to the crisis center, that was important for me to do,” said Slowey. “That was a lot more direct and immediate, and they just knew what to do and how to help me.”
Slowey was taken to Columbia St. Mary’s, where he was admitted to an impatient clinic that he says saved his life. After that, he followed up with outpatient services, where group therapy and workshops helped maintain his progress. Similar methods are being incorporated into the university’s counseling services. Group therapy is an option for students to receive further care if one-on-one therapy is not working, and skills workshops are offered several days a week to provide assistance to students needing a push in the right direction, according to Dupont.
The university counseling also offers a program called “Let’s Talk,” which features brief, informal conversations with a staff member. The program is offered at four locations around campus, multiple days a week.
“’Let’s Talk’ is the first step that many students will take, and for many they will come into counseling if that’s what they are recommended,” said Dupont.
The programs are attempting to address problems that students like Needham and Slowey have with university counseling, while addressing the many mental health needs on campus.