Life-altering events such as an illness or the passing of a family member, friend, or other types of losses impact our emotional and mental health.
This year, I have friends who have fallen ill with COVID for the second time around. I have friends whose bosses are being less than understanding about employees taking time off due to illness or quarantining. Most of us have dealt with loss and change in our lives over the last couple of years. Life does not stop for anyone, but it does end.
Recently, my aunt shared with me that during her freshman year of college, she was put on academic probation as a result of the grief she was experiencing when her mother passed. In retrospect, she shared that it may have been better to take a semester off from school, but she never even thought of it. I cannot begin to express the amount of pain, suffering, and loneliness that she felt. How can we expect that a person wouldn’t need help while dealing with such a loss and attempting to pass an anthropology class at the same time?
The fact is, we all deal with loss in our academic, professional, or personal lives. Here's how we can get the support we need as college students with often-limited financial resources?
If you are going through something, please consider counseling.
Most colleges and universities offer student counseling services and typically, these services are offered for free. If you happen to encounter difficulty accessing your school’s counseling services, consider contacting an administrator that you trust and have built a relationship with. See if they can help you navigate through services that are offered at your school or point you to outside resources.
If you do not think you can continue to successfully manage taking classes during a personal crisis, if it’s plausible, consider taking a break. However, do not just leave school.
It is important to remember that communication is crucial for your livelihood.
Meet with or call your academic counselor and come up with a plan. Having a plan will help you to get help and support your mental health. Consider reaching out to a supportive friend you can show your rawest emotions to and they will have the ability to embrace and love someone whose situation may seem inconsolable. Try finding a support group for those who are experiencing grief and life-altering loss. Even these resources can fall short, so consider finding books that deal with what you are specifically dealing with. Additionally, YouTube videos and podcasts on the subject are often a helpful and free resource.
These resources have been very helpful to me in the midst of life changes. So many students’ decline academically is rooted in other difficulties and mental stress. With COVID, it is challenging to push through on-again off-again in-person classes, canceled internships, and other academic milestones.
Going through a loss both personally and academically can have a great impact on your self-esteem and general desire to succeed. Take a step back and deal with what’s having the most negative impact on your life. No answer or solution is going to be easy, but dealing with loss never is. Remember that you are a dynamic individual whose worthiness exceeds your current situation or what you have or are going through.
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Elise was born and raised in Pasadena California and attends Pasadena City College. She is currently a Communications major. She loves writing poetry, reading, doing anything nature-related, and dancing by herself till odd hours in the night. Leave your judgments elsewhere.
