James Loy 

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast by the hosts and guests may or may not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Miami University.

Maggie 

This episode of Major Insight also includes themes and conversation relating to mental health that may be distressing to some listeners. Listener, discretion is advised.

Student 

I'm a senior. I'm about to graduate, and I've done a lot of cool things in college.

Student 

I never thought that I was gonna be an intramural curler. I never thought that I was gonna be the student body president.

Student 

These four years have been the biggest amount of growth I've seen in my entire life.

Student 

It's not just about the academics, but like, what kind of person you turn into, which is super cool.

Andie 

So yesterday, I just reread the journal entry that I made on my first day of college. That's cute. I remember writing the words, it feels like summer camp. It feels like summer camp because I was in a all of a sudden, in a dorm, a cabin with people I didn't know, my cabin mates, and it didn't feel like school yet or like home yet. So it was like this weird liminal space where I was like, I don't know what this is or who I am yet, or who I am going to be in this space, but we'll figure it out. Because it's summer camp, and you just, you're here, your parents dropped you off, and they're gonna come and pick you up at the end of the week eventually, yeah, but you gotta make the best of it while you're here. Yeah, wow.

Maggie 

College experiences are all so unique, and they're so informed by who you are as a person and what's going on in your life. And you know, we talk about it on this podcast a lot. We've talked about it a lot just now, how you know your feelings change, your personality changes, like who you are as a person changes while you're here, and on this very special episode of Major Insight, we are going to be talking about mental health, how it informs your college experience, how it affects your college experience. My name is Maggie Snee, and who are you?

Arianna 

Yes, so I'm Arianna. I am a Senior Social Work major here at Miami.

Andie 

and I'm Andie, and I'm also a Senior Social Work major at Miami.

Maggie 

Lovely. All right, so how have your experiences here the things you've been involved in since you've started? How have they led you to this interest in mental health on college campuses?

Arianna 

So my main involvement is definitely my sorority. It was the thing I found when I was very new here, and they everything that they stood for, was things that I stood for. So that's been my main involvement. But truly coming in, I already had my own mental health struggles, and within my Freshman year, I got diagnosed with ADHD, and I found great support in my sorority. And like just the idea of women uplifting other women was new to me. I came from an area where we are, like, very naturally mean to each other, not even like, always meaning it, but like you talk to your friends, really mean and things like that. You call them names, like, we just weren't very nice to each other. So I think feeling that positivity made me realize, like, Okay, this isn't normal. And then I saw within the Greek community that there was a huge mental health problem. So I then took it upon myself to become a huge advocate within the Greek community, to try and my best to spread this information and let them know, like, hey, the school has resources, and we have resources, and we need to do better as a community in supporting each other. And so that was, like, very exciting, and was a way that I got into that, yeah.

Andie 

I think for me, my my interest in mental health on college campuses came from my major, truly, as a social work major, what we talk about is a lot of mental health. We talk about, you know, how to administer that to other people in, like, a clinical setting. But also we talk a lot about how to manage your own personal mental health.

Maggie 

Yeah.

Andie 

And then I had been attending therapy like a year before, in like 2020, so my current therapist is still with me. She was there with me before I even joined or went to college. So she saw me through that transition. She saw me through every transition since.

Andie 

And having those skills beforehand and continuing to build on them has really informed how I go about my college experience. And then also in terms of involvement, I am really involved in the Phi Alpha Social Work Honor Society. I'm Co-President right now, and our goal is to build community between social work majors and build each other up and really enforce that we need community and we need each other. So that has informed also my mental health. My interest in mental health has also informed my involvement on campus.

Maggie 

Yeah.

Maggie 

Yeah, truly in my own experience. And then I think, you know, a lot of experiences of college students on on campus is big things like how your mental health is affecting you. You can't leave that at the door. You can't not let that inform how you are in an academic setting, especially. But it can be really scary to do that on a college campus. You know, of course, especially when you're surrounded by industry professionals like your professors or like advisors, who always seem so poor. Together, and they know what they're doing. And you know, they never seem like they're ever going through anything, yeah, and so you kind of expect yourself to behave that way too, you know, until something happens or something changes, that requires you to address the things that are going on outside of school. How have your own experiences with mental health kind of affected you at college, whether that's academically, personally, socially, like, how has that affected you throughout these last four years?

Andie 

For me, I... I'm a crier.

Maggie 

Me too.

Andie 

I'll say it again, I'm a crier. I cry all the time, and it's not out of a sense of sadness or a long term depression or long term anxiety, it's that is how my body reacts to stress. And Arianna saw just the other night, like I can't sometimes I can't control it, and in social work, I want to be able to control that, so I am not letting my tears control me in a setting with a client. But overall, I am just an emotional person, and figuring out how I can manage those emotions and not let them manage me, not let them control me, is just a big part of me learning how to be an adult. For me, it's less about being on a college campus and being now I'm on my own and I'm feeding myself and making sure I am doing my homework and making sure I address my social needs and my physical needs and all these different things. You got to figure out how to balance all of it. And for me, figuring out how to balance all of that was just figuring out how I react to stress, how I feel about that and and I think that has really helped me realize, okay, I'm only in control of myself. If I can figure that out, I'm good, and I can move through life, and it'll be easier to be in relationships with others once I know myself.

Maggie 

Definitely.

Arianna 

Yeah, I think for me, it was definitely a shock of okay, I really have to get myself together, because I was diagnosed at 12 with depression, and I've been dealing with that for a very long time. And I now know that I was also dealing with ADHD and all the things and feelings that come with being undiagnosed and not knowing what's wrong with you and why am I like this and a lot of that, like lack of understanding of who I was and why I was doing the things that I was doing, I now know, like emotional regulation that's really hard for people with ADHD. Every feeling is really huge. And when you're having depression too, and you are constantly locking yourself away, like you can do that in high school and in middle school, like you can come home from school and just sleep all day. And, you know, not healthy, but you can do those things. Yeah, you know, especially with me, I had a single mom who was working all the time like she did not have the resources to even tell that something was wrong. So I think it was a huge shock when I came here and it was like, oh, I really can't do that anymore. And all these coping mechanisms that I was taught that I haven't been using, okay, now I actually need to use these. And I think the it really hit when I lost four people in one summer and I came back to school and I was failing. I was not doing well at all, and I was not using any of the resources that were available. I was not doing any of the things that I needed to take care of myself and fill my cup. And again, in social work, they emphasize like, you have to have your cup filled. You need to be okay. And if you're not okay, you need to talk to somebody about that.

Maggie 

Yeah.

Arianna 

We say every therapist has a therapist, and that is true. They should, because this is heavy stuff. So that was like, the shock. I needed to be like, okay. I need to do something about this, and I need to start changing my thought process and who I lean on and I need to use these resources, like my sorority sisters, and let them know, like, I'm doing really bad right now. So if you're at the library, tell me you're at the library and make me come like.

Maggie 

Yeah.

Arianna 

You know, come hang out with me. If you see on self isolating, tell me to come outside. So being honest and open with myself and my supports. That was, yeah. That was like the change that I really needed. Yeah. It's been a journey, and it was a huge shock coming to college, but I think it changed me a lot for the better, and now I'm teaching these things to other people. I'm teaching them how to emotionally regulate and stress management, and so it's like, okay, I really need to have it together, because now I'm teaching other people do that.

Maggie 

Yeah

Andie 

You have to know what you're doing.

Arianna 

So that, yeah, it's been a huge shift, but definitely a shift for the better.

Maggie 

Well, I mean, two things that you mentioned there, I'd love to go deeper in, but one of the things that you said, you know, as you're maybe a kid, but like, regardless of age, when you when you start to notice that, okay, like something is not, you know, like something's wrong.

Arianna 

Yeah.

Maggie 

And what you said about like, why am I like this as someone who like me personally. I mean, the whole reason that I love science so much, and it's it's such a big part of what I want to do in the future is because I like understanding how things work, and I like understanding the why with mental health. It's such, especially at a young age, it's such this like a morphic thing. That it's not really talked about, you know, like, it's not really addressed, you know. And if it is, it's in like, layman's terms, of like, yeah, oh, well, you just, you just need to lie down and you just need to sleep, or you just need to get better.

Arianna 

Everyone has a bad day. Yeah, everyone gets depressed.

Maggie 

Everybody has a day like that, you know. So, it's, it's something that is very, you know, it's, it's minimized, especially, especially in young kids, where it's like, oh, well, you're just figuring out emotions.

Arianna 

Yeah.

Maggie 

Figuring out how to be a person, you know. And so I think that there is this really big, you know, block when it comes to understanding your own mental health, because oftentimes, like, that is not something that can necessarily be explained to other people.

Arianna 

Right.

Maggie 

You know, like.

Andie 

You don't know what's going on in your brain. How can you explain it to other people?

Maggie 

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. Like, I did not get diagnosed with anxiety until the ripe age of, like, a week before I turned 20, um, and it was following a three day long, essentially extended panic attack. Is how my now psychiatrist described it to me, was I and I can tell you exactly how it happened. I woke up one morning for work. I didn't feel my best. Something was odd. There was this tight feeling in my stomach. I was like, something's wrong. Took my temperature, it was a little high, and I was like, why is my temperature high? So I was like, oh my god, something's wrong. Something's wrong. Text my manager. I was like, I can't come in. I'm so sorry. Three days, the entire day, like my stomach is in knots, like, I feel clammy, I feel sweaty. Like, three days long of this, like, and eventually got to point where I was like, I need to go to a doctor.

Andie 

Yeah. I think must be medically wrong?

Maggie 

Yeah. I was like, something has to be medically wrong.

Andie 

Our first assumption is, if something's medically wrong, not something...

Maggie 

It's physical, you know, it's biological. So I called my doctor's office, I explained what happened. They were like, so how are you feeling? And I'm like, well, something feels wrong, and I don't know, like, I mean, I had mono a couple years ago, so I don't know if, like, I was finding anything to be like, it has to be this. Like, it has to be this, because that's what makes sense. And they're like, Well, you know, like this feeling you're describing, and based on your questionnaire, like this actually sounds a lot like, G.A.D. and a panic disorder. And I was like-

Arianna 

You're like, okayyy.

Maggie 

Right. And-

Andie 

Where you're like, in denial about it at first, like, that, can't be it, or was it like-

Maggie 

Definitely was in the moment. I was very like, there's no way, yeah, you know. And then as I was talking to her, and as she was kind of explaining, you know, like, how that can manifest in people, I was like, that's kind of stuff has been happening to me for years.

Arianna 

Yeah.

Maggie 

You know, like, and it really like, it makes you consider and think and go back on the stuff that's happened in your life and kind of reevaluate, like, how you reacted in the moment and like how you felt after it. Like, it really forces you to come to terms with that is part of how I function-

Arianna 

Yeah.

Maggie 

As a person, but it, it's so frustrating still, that. Like, why? Question. And they also did ask me, like, Well, why, why do you feel so anxious all the time? I don't-

Andie 

Like, no, I can't. That's the point.

Maggie 

Yeah, I'm like, that's, that's the thing is, like, I shouldn't feel this anxious all the time. That is not part of what a normal functioning brain. I like to use normal in quotation marks when talking about this stuff. And so, you know. And obviously there's also the aspect of it, it's like, you can't explain it to someone who hasn't experienced it.

Arianna 

Yes. And I think that's the hardest disconnect for like, my parents had two different reactions, extremely on the opposite ends of the spectrum when they found out because trigger warning. But like, the whole reason my depression even came to light was because I was self harming and I got caught up in school. Someone saw it and reported it, and, like, thankfully they did, because I got the ball rolling on the resources I needed. But yeah, it was my mom was very much more so like, internalizing it and couldn't understand and it's like, what did I do? Like, what did I do? How did I contribute to this? Why are you like this? And you know, we can now both look back and see that things should have been handled differently, and she's a lot better now, which I love. I love for myself and for my nieces and nephews and all these other people who get the benefits of her understanding and having a better understanding of the fact that she doesn't understand, and that's okay. She just needs to support but my dad, he was very much like, I don't understand and I will never understand, so explain it to me, and if I don't get it, I still don't get it, and let me know how I can support you. So yeah, it was two extremely different reactions, and I think you kind of need that understanding of maybe it is somebody's fault. Maybe it's not. That's not the point right now. It's, it's, how do I support you? Not even to help me understand, because you can't. It's a, how do I support you.

Andie 

And where do we go from here?

Arianna 

And where do we go from here? That's like, that's all that needs to that's the support that we need.

Maggie 

And I think that's definitely something going through college too, because, you know, so much of your life at college is consumed by academia, you know, like-

Andie 

That's why you're here.

Arianna 

Yeah.

Maggie 

You are here to-

Andie 

Presumably.

Maggie 

 Yeah, you know, for I would hope that to anyone listening. I hope you're going to college to be at school

Arianna 

To get the degree-

Maggie 

You know, and so I think that that really affects how you talk about it at school as well. Because, you know, if you're going through something and it starts to affect your ability to perform at the level you want academically, that can be terrifying.

Arianna 

Yeah.

Maggie 

As a as a former gifted kid. Don't know if anyone else is in the same boat. There's a lot of high expectations as a former gifted kid, and as someone who did like, you know, honors and CCP and AP in high school, when you get here and something happens that affects your ability to perform at the level you're used to, or at the level that people expect of you.

Arianna 

Yeah.

Maggie 

That is like, oh, no. What do I do? Truly, it's something that. One, you never see it coming. And two, maybe you haven't experienced that before. You know, when that happened to me in high school, I was like, Okay, so I'm gonna ignore this, and then when I crash out really bad in a month, I'll just make sure I do it on a Saturday, you know, like, that was how I handled.

Arianna 

I'll do it on a school night, and I'll be fine.

Maggie 

I was like, okay, well, okay. And also, as long as it's not a Saturday of a band competition.

Andie 

And that was the Undiagnosed G.A.D. in you...

Maggie 

Seriously!

Andie 

Because you it was so normalized to you that you're just like, yeah, I'm just gonna schedule my crying session.

Maggie 

Looking at my calendar like, okay, well, there's a band competition that Saturday. I push it to Sunday but I'm gonna have to finish that paper Sunday. I'll just wait until next week.

Andie 

Yeah, I like the the change in expectations is something that is part of that really big change from from high school to college. I remember in high school, they were always saying that the professors at college were going to be more strict and more serious. And I think for some majors, that's very much true. For some professors, that's very much true. For a lot of others, it's not for a lot of others, it's like, okay, our professors are adults, they're people, they're human beings. So are we now.

Arianna 

Yeah.

Andie 

I mean, we're a different version of an adult, because we're in a different part of our development, right? But when the expectations change, it is a view aid for a UNV 101 class a couple times, and UNV 101 is exactly what it sounds like university one on 101, yeah, exactly. And there were several times where people came up to me being like, I don't know what to do. I got a C on a test, and I've never gotten a C on a test before, and that means I failed. And blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, okay, let's put it into perspective. This was a biology test that's probably average, if not better, than most people did. Like, yeah, put you need. It's changing your own expectations as the expectations that are put on you changes, and trying to balance that and realizing like, okay, it should not inform who you are. And it does not mean you are valuable or less valuable as a person-

Maggie 

Yeah.

Maggie 

Absolutely.

Andie 

Depending on what grade you get in whatever class you're really hoping for, that A for, listen, don't adhere your self worth to it.

Arianna 

Yeah.

Andie 

Yeah. Don't link your self worth to your grade.

Maggie 

Yeah.

Andie 

 It's a common pitfall.

Maggie 

I agree. I think one of the most important things is that we talk about those bad experiences too, like the bad things that happen along the way, if you never talk about them with other people, then, like, what if it happens to someone else? What are they gonna do?

Arianna 

Or you think it's normal because you haven't talked to anyone else about it?

Andie 

Absolutely.

Maggie 

It was like, one after the other the fall semester of my second year. And then last spring, I had two grandparents pass away, one in the fall and one in the spring. And in the fall, it happened right before finals, right after Thanksgiving. So I was emailing my professors like, hey, I'm so sorry. Like, I know I said I thought I was gonna come back to campus tonight, but I just can't, like, I need to be at home. And every single time with every email I sent, and I sent a lot of emails, they were like, take your time.

Arianna 

So understanding.

Maggie 

Take your time. You know, like, you can catch up on what you miss. I will help you catch up on what you miss. Here's the material you missed. You know, like, I had friends in my classes who were like, hey, like, Here's the slide show notes. You know, all that, like, support is so abundant when you have those networks in place at college. And then I remember, I looked back at the email I sent to my professors, and I I was so apologetic.

Andie 

Yes.

Maggie 

I said, I am I'm so sorry. My grandma passed away.

Andie 

That's yeah. Like, that sounds so ridiculous.

Maggie 

Yeah, like, I was like, I'm like, I'm so sorry, but like, I need to go home. And like, I'm so sorry, I'm gonna miss class. Like, please let me know if there's anything I can take care of. You know, like, I told my professors, like, if you want to send me something to do while. I'm gone.

Arianna 

Yeah.

Maggie 

Please feel free. They sent emails back, and they were like, be with your family. Do what is best for you, come back, and we will figure it out, you know.

Andie 

And I want to speak on the point you said, we're like, these resources are here, the support is here, yeah, but you reached out for it, even if you were apologetic in it, you reached out for those supports. You had people that you talked to in class so you could have people to send you notes. Yeah, I think where a lot of people struggle in college is when you are struggling with your mental health or a death in the family, or anything else that is adding a load of stressor to your life. If you don't reach out for those resources that are there they won't know to help you.

Arianna 

Yes, yeah.

Andie 

So you won't get that help, so you're gonna be stuck in the same place you're gonna that you are right now. Yeah, if you make that conscious decision to reach out for help, even if it's it's coming in a very apologetic way, you have to reach out for it. And that is, I think, a really tough barrier for people, especially if you grow up thinking, if I ask for help, that's a failure.

Maggie 

Yeah, and I think in, like, in everything we've talked about, there's this really big, like, through line of accountability you know, not only for yourself, but for other people you know. Kind of goes back to what both of you have said about your support system and the people you surround yourself with at college, like it is okay to lean on those people when something is going on or you need to do something that is scary. You know, it's so important to lean on those support systems and have those in place, because something will happen. No one's college experience is going to be unmarred by, you know hard things, by, you know, the loss of someone you love, or by maybe personal shortcomings, maybe you didn't do as well as you wanted. It something, spoiler alert, it's gonna happen at some point. Sorry, it's gonna happen.

Andie 

Yeah, it's going to happen in life.

Maggie 

Yeah, that's part of life.

Arianna 

It's those lessons, yeah.

Maggie 

Yeah. Having those sports systems is, is huge. It's so important.

Maggie 

One really big thing that affects mental health on college campuses today is social media.

Arianna 

Yeah.

Maggie 

And the Internet and being perceived online, other people you know, and how you perceive other people online. Do you guys think that in your own mental health experiences, your own experience in academia? How do you think social media has affected that as a whole, has it? Or-

Andie 

I remember vividly posting my like graduation post in high school and getting off Instagram so fast, because I think my caption was something, something blah, blah, blah, graduation, big changes. And then at the bottom I put, okay, now let me get off of Instagram before I get too anxious. Because it made me anxious to post my life and a version of my life that didn't feel true to how I was actually living it and how I was feeling.

Maggie 

Yeah.

Andie 

I saw, I mean, my account has always been private because security, man, you privacy is important, yeah, but so not many people saw it. But even the small amount of people that were seeing it, I I did not want that. I don't, I want, I don't want people in my business, not out of a sense of secrecy, but just out of, that's-

Maggie 

That's what you need for you.

Andie 

Yeah. And I'm always thinking about how people are perceiving me, and if I'm putting myself out there on social media, more people are perceiving me. That's just more anxiety. I don't want that for me. My favorite social media app is Pinterest, so yeah, but I also I am on Instagram reels when I feel myself going towards that button at the bottom, I especially this year, it's been an intention of mine to not reach for a doom scrolling-

Maggie 

Yeah.

Andie 

app, whatever that is going to be, and use my time more intentionally, because I'm realizing all the downtime I have between classes, between events, between going to sleep and waking up and getting out of bed. All that time it can be using for things that build me up and the things that I feel like I don't have time for, like, breathing, and and doing some stretches in my bed. Not, not anything crazy, not-

Arianna 

Right.

Andie 

Yoga, or any that I don't know anything, but I do know that stretching my body and moving my body is a better use of my time than doom scrolling.

Maggie 

Definitely, at this point, I refer to Instagram reels sometimes as like a happiness pump.

Andie 

You know, absolutely, I mean, it's, it's a happiness fountain.

Maggie 

Yeah, seriously, and it. I have also been trying to be really, really intentional about. One thing I have been trying to do as often as I can is every day when I wake up, I do not use my phone for an hour.

Arianna 

Oh, that's good.

Andie 

I love that.

Maggie 

I do my best to because obviously my phone is my alarm clock. So same, you know? But I do my best, you know? I sleep with my curtain shade up so that when I wake up there's natural light coming in. Yeah, like, I'm trying to have, like, my Disney Princess morning routine, where I wake up and I'm like yeah, I do my best to just set myself up for a good day where I'm gonna be productive and I'm gonna get things done. So I wake up, turn my alarm off, and then, literally, and I've been doing this for a while now, and it genuinely helps. I sit up straight and I drink water.

Arianna 

Yeah.

Maggie 

And sometimes it is like five minutes of like, I can imitate it as best I can in here. I'll sit in bed and I look like this. This is horrible for an audio medium, but for those for those who can't see it, imagine, like, very tired, you know, just kind of sitting.

Andie 

Sometimes you need that. And for me, I call that just like turning my face off.

Maggie 

Yeah!

Andie 

Well, anytime you're in a community, which is always because we're social human beings.

Maggie 

We do live in a society.

Andie 

And that society makes us speak to people and present in a certain way when we are around people, and sometimes having that time where you are intentionally turning off all those muscles in your face that are always tense in some way. And turning it off and allowing yourself to just be without the expectation of you should present this way, you should feel this way, you should think this way. Just letting yourself be is a crazy phenomenon, and there's a word for it, and it's called mindfulness. And we talk about it all the time, and you've probably heard that word before, maybe you know what it means. Maybe you really need to know what it means.

Arianna 

Yeah, the idea of being with yourself and what you're doing in that moment is, is overall mindfulness. And I think we think of like meditation and all these different things, like-

Andie 

I can't meditate.

Arianna 

No, it's literally, like, if you're brushing your teeth, think about how you're brushing your teeth, like, the different things that you're doing, the toothpaste you're using.

Andie 

How does that feel?

Arianna 

Yeah, like, what is do you have any cavity? Like, think of what you're doing in that moment and stay actively within yourself. It's so easy for us to be doing one thing and constantly thinking about another. It's like, okay, I'm doing this, but here's like, 50 other things I need to do after this that are running through my head.

Andie 

Oh my gosh. And sometimes, obviously yourself, being with yourself and clearing your mind. I know for clearing clearing your mind.

Arianna 

That's hard.

Andie 

And meditation is hard, especially when you're neurodivergent.

Arianna 

I use Guided,

Andie 

Yeah, it's beautiful. What I've been doing is just trying to focus on the five senses and bring my attention to them genuinely. When I put it in this perspective of all it takes is your attention. It brings it back to the social media piece you're giving your attention is going somewhere else.

Maggie 

Your attention is valuable.

Andie 

It is. We're learning that it's a currency in this new technological world that we're in. And we're all navigating it for the first time. So we're learning these things as we go. But yeah, all it takes is your attention back on yourself, back on your life. I try. It doesn't happen all the time. I try at least a couple times a week to sit outside, because I know that, for me is is a reset.

Maggie 

Yeah.

Andie 

And I got this app on my phone. I know we're talking about not being on social media, but I got this app that's Merlin ID, and it's, you know what this is, of course, oh, yeah, you're saying. It tells you the bird sounds that you're listening to. So I will go out, and if I hear a bird and I'm curious about what it is, I'll turn it on.

Maggie 

Yeah.

Andie 

But the only reason I remember to do that is because I've tuned into the bird sounds, the nature sounds, to the sounds of the people laughing across the street, to the car door slamming like even stuff that seems so mundane, bringing your attention to it.

Arianna 

Yeah.

Andie 

It makes me feel so much more grounded and makes me feel it fills me up way more than a social media doom scroll ever will.

Maggie 

Yeah, I think there is a really, really big phenomenon when it comes to social media of the idea that who you are as a person should be made up of what's popular. Following trends, getting some product because your favorite influencer told you to use it, or they use it, and it works for them. And, you know, it manifests itself in things from, you know, skincare, like I've struggled with acne for years, basically ever since I hit puberty, and I tried so many different products based purely off of what other people said worked for them.

Arianna 

Yeah.

Maggie 

But then it goes all the way to to like you should start working out so your body can look like mine.

Andie 

And this is, this is a certain way you should work out, and this, this is how your body should look. And this is how you should feel.

Maggie 

This way you should work out, this is how you should eat, this is how you should sleep, this is how you should do.

Andie 

You don't always say that, and most of the time they don't always say that out loud. This is how you should do it. It's by example. And when that's all you see, because you're doom scrolling all the time, and you're living half your life in a virtual space, and because that's all you see, that's what you think life should be.

Maggie 

Yeah, I think it's so important to remember that, like, especially what we talk about, like you mentioned it earlier, like your actions to better your mental health have to be motivated by your want to get better.

Andie 

Yes.

Maggie 

You know. Like, obviously, like, I have friends who sometimes can recognize that I am headed towards, like, hey, you know, like, whoa. Like, take a step back, you know. Like, we're really, like, we're starting to spiral here, you know. Like, I have friends and I have members of my support system who can help me recognize that and bring me out of it before it even starts. But that's not always going to be the case. My friends are not present when I'm doom scrolling at three in the morning.

Arianna 

That's really true.

Maggie 

You know? Like, I live by myself. I'm an RA. I have a single room. There's no one around to say, like, hey, you've been on your phone for four hours. Go to bed. Yeah? Like, there's no one around to say that anymore. So, like, I have been cognizant of the fact that it's on me. Yeah, I am the only one who can stop my doom scrolling. Not that little apple notification that's like you've reached your screen time limit for this app

Arianna 

By the way so fast. Yeah.

Maggie 

Yeah, no, because at the end of the day, I'm going to indulge in my own self win, right?

Andie 

Like, especially if you're already in that loop, you're getting that dopamine with every new TickTok or Instagram reel or whatever it is, if you're getting that dopamine boost, the first thing you're gonna do, it's gonna take a lot to get you past that barrier, to stop you and to get you out of that. And sometimes I will be screaming internally in my head. And I think a lot of people can.

Maggie 

Yes.

Andie 

A lot of people who doom scroll can think this, screaming to myself, get off the app.

Arianna 

Yeah. I always say, you know, it's bad when the app is telling you to get off. Yeah? Tiktok has that, hey, you've been scrolling for awhile.

Maggie 

Dora from headspace. That's some of her meditation. She was like, hey, you've been scrolling for a while now. Yeah. Like, I know I scroll

Andie 

Scroll, again. Scroll, again,

Maggie 

But if we want to get scientific for a second I just I gave a presentation in my capstone class about friendship yesterday, so it's fresh.

Andie 

Oh yeah, go for it.

Maggie 

But there is a lot of talk around how like social media and how interacting with people on social media affects dopamine and especially oxytocin production in your brain. Um and it affects how we interact in real life, like it has real life consequences for how we interact with other people. They're not always bad consequences, but it has changed things. You can get the same amount of oxytocin produced in your brain. We talk about like social interactions between people. For baboons, social grooming is like, it's a huge, huge oxytocin. Oxytocin producing action, you can get the same amount of oxytocin in the human brain from singing, dancing, laughing, hugging that a lot of primates get from social grooming, from social activities. And maybe it's just because I'm so in this kind of stuff, that this is the kind of stuff I know about and I learn about in school, that I will now catch myself when I'm doom scrolling. And I'm like, I could be with a friend right now, even if I can't be physically with a friend. I should call my friend like, I should do literally anything aside from this. In the four hours that I have been doom scrolling, I could have finished that one assignment that I need to do for you know, tomorrow.

Andie 

 Take 10 minutes, but feels like it will take hours.

Maggie 

Yeah, yeah.

Arianna 

I think it's important to remember that balance too. Of like, you know, there's so many people who weren't able to find a sense of community until social media. So it's, how do you balance that? How do you balance that community that you find with all of these, like, really awful, negative things and comparisons and this fakeness. A lot of it is fakeness. You know, I'm very grateful for Tiktok, because we're getting more news than we could ever get before we get our brains were not made to receive all of this news. Like, our technology is developing a lot faster than our brains are, and it's overwhelming. So it's like, how do you it's balancing those, and it's understanding that, you know, there are a lot of pros, but the cons are so heavy they have to be watched.

Maggie 

Yeah. Wow, we're gonna kind of navigate into the last part of the conversation here. But I mean, like we've talked about a lot, and all of this is so round about to like, there is essentially no thing you can do in life that will not have an effect on you and your mental health.

Arianna 

Yes.

Maggie 

You know it is. It's present in everything we do and everything we say and every interaction we have and and I feel like that is one part of it that is kind of overlooked, is that mental health is so omnipresent in our lives. You know, whether or not that's something that you have come to terms with, yet doesn't change that.

Andie 

Right.

Maggie 

 You know. So I guess if we want to kind of move into this conversation of what we can do, you know, on our ends of whether it's helping others manage their own mental health, whether it's you managing your own mental health, or just helping other people to understand that it's such a big part of so many people's lives. What do you think is one of the best things we can do to like normalize conversations like this? We talk about, like normalizing hard conversations a lot like and on college campuses that can be hard.

Arianna 

Yeah.

Maggie 

A lot of different people. So, you know, maybe what are some first steps that we can take?

Andie 

I think recognizing that mental health and physical health are intrinsically linked. Is such a big first step because we value our physical health and we recognize that it is it impacts how we live in our day to day lives, we need to place that same sort of importance on mental health.

Maggie 

Yeah.

Andie 

And if you've ever dealt with either a physical ailment or a mental health struggle, you feel it. And for people who haven't, maybe you have felt a physical ailment and not realized how much it affected you mentally and vice versa. Take some time to think about that, because once you recognize that they're both an aspect to your health and your living and your ability to be a human being in this world and be safe and be healthy, once you start to recognize that importance, you can start to work towards how do I better that internally, and how do I work externally to reduce that stigma?

Arianna 

Yeah, I think it's, it's continuing to have these conversations. I think overall, we are doing what we can, and we are doing a really good job. Like, I see the shift happening in the younger generations. They're a lot more open about mental health. They're like, hey, this is my therapist, and you should try therapy. And they are speaking about these things. They are not nervous about these things. And I think we need to teeter the line, because then there's like that, the people who think it's cute and quirky to have a mental illness, and it's like, if you're not actually mentally ill or you're not dealing with something at the moment, don't act like it.

Andie 

Don't romanticize it.

Arianna 

Don't romanticize it, because it feeds into all these negatives, like narratives and stereotypes that we're constantly fighting on top of fighting with ourselves for being mentally ill. So, you know, but I think it's most of us who are doing this work are also struggling with mental health. So it's giving that grace to yourself and knowing that, like we are currently doing a lot of the things that we can do. I think the biggest thing for me was I cannot fix anybody like I cannot make this pain go away, but I can provide you company and support. And if I'm having a bad day, you had a bad day. Okay? That means we can sit here and do something like Legos or margaritas or whatever it is that is gonna make us feel better. Yeah, like I don't have to put on a happy face to make them happy. I think that was a huge thing. Like being a sorority and a small one is, is we all depend on each other a lot. And it was learning, like, okay, if we're both having a bad day, obviously, you know, I don't expect you to come and make my day better, and you don't have that expectation for me. It's okay. Let's just be sad together, so we at least have company. Yeah, like, at least you have that other person. And nine times out of 10 we do end up laughing, and it ends up being all okay. And if it doesn't, that's okay. We got to spend time with each other, and we supported each other in that. So it's having more conversations and being a lot kinder to ourselves of how we show up for others.

Maggie 

Yeah, well, we're kind of at the end of things now. We have, we've hit so many valuable points we've had hard conversations, you know? So I guess to kind of wrap things up, if you have any final thoughts or advice that you want to give to someone, you know, what would you say? Maybe it's, it's a younger version of you, you know, if you could go back and give yourself advice on what navigating mental health in college looks like?

Andie 

Yeah, do what works for you. Yeah, man, yeah, what I am gonna tell you works for me is probably not gonna work for you, but if you try something and it doesn't work for you, then you find something else. It's all about looking internally, doing a lot of introspection. That's something I do every day as a person, and every day as a social work student. Is okay. How do I think? Why do I think this way? And-

Arianna 

Yeah.

Andie 

Do some introspection and think about really, take a moment and think what works for me? How did this feel in my body? That's something that I'm trying to do. So this might not work for you, but it works for me, checking into my physical sensations, my senses, as I said, like it helps ground myself and feel more at peace. But then from there, I can think more clearly. Why do I think this way? Why am I acting this way? I can start to analyze the behavior that I don't like that. I feel shame about that. I feel guilt about. Why do I do it and why do I feel shame about it?

Arianna 

Yeah.

Andie 

Starting to do that introspection, for me. I do it just silently when I'm listening to nature sounds. I do it while writing in my journal. I do it while speaking out to my friends. I do it when I call my mom, like, do it however you need to process. But process and think about your life and your mental health. Just tune into it every once in a while.

Maggie 

Yeah.

Arianna 

Yeah, you kind of took my answer.

Andie 

Sorry haha!

Arianna 

I think, like, ultimately, yes. Like, you need to, kind of, like, figure your stuff out and what works for you. And at the same time, my biggest advice would be to stay open minded. You don't always know what's best for you. There's been plenty of times I've had clients be like, okay, I definitely was full on doubting you, but I love this, and I'm like, thank you for giving it a try. Like, thank you for just simply being open minded to it. You never know. I feel like box breathing is the best example. Like you said, for you, you don't do it because that doesn't work for you.

Andie 

Doesn't do it for me.

Arianna 

I know some other people, it's life changing. They're like, wow, wow. Like, it's a huge concept to them, and it is something that is, like, very helpful. So you just never know what's gonna work for you. So be open minded and try different things. And you know, that's something I wish I would've done a lot sooner, and that I would say to anybody else is, stay open minded.

Maggie 

I also feel like, you know, we've talked about the stigma. You know, behind mental health and how you know others opinions can manifest in your own mental health journey. And I think if I could go back and tell myself something, it would be you don't have to know the answer to why?

Arianna 

Yes.

Maggie 

You do not have to know that answer. And it's also an answer that you don't owe anybody.

Arianna 

Yes.

Maggie 

You know, like, if I'm having a really bad anxiety day, or I can feel myself beginning to spiral into panic over something that maybe it is a big thing, or maybe it's not a big thing. A lot of people love to ask, like, okay, but like, what's making you feel this way? Why do you feel this way? Your answer to that can be like, I feel this way because that's how I feel right now.

Arianna 

Yeah, and I don't know, as a solid answer, like, be open about that. Say, like, I don't know what I need right now. You know and and know that that's then the expectation. But like, it's okay to say I don't know. It's okay to I don't know why I'm like this, or I don't know what I need right now. Then just making sure that you're also being self aware to then not having those expectations for other people. I've had somebody tell me you're not meeting my needs. And I said, well, what do you need? And they didn't know, like that is an unrealistic expectation, right? But-

Andie 

That's frustrating.

Arianna 

But yeah, if it's a okay, you're not meeting my needs, but I don't know what I need, so I understand. And okay, then we can work with that of.

Maggie 

Yeah.

Arianna 

All right, what are these things that we think you might need? And who can we talk to to figure these things out? Like it's okay to be open and say, I don't know. I don't know what I need, I don't know why I'm feeling this way, and that's okay, yeah. It's okay not to know. And I think we need to normalize that too.

Maggie 

Yeah, and I mean normalizing it, having these conversations like this, is one of the first of many steps that needs to be taken. Is being taken to, you know, normalize the conversation around mental health, mental health struggles, especially mental health struggles on college campuses. You know, one thing that I talk about a lot outside of this podcast, but especially in my job as an RA is a your hierarchy of needs.

Arianna 

Yes!

Andie 

We love hierarchy of needs!

Arianna 

Focal point.

Maggie 

In kind of like the the layman's terms of it is, at college, you are a person first. You are a student second.

Arianna 

Yep!

Maggie 

Wooow!

Arianna 

Yes.

Maggie 

You are an employee, an organization member, a president, a VP, after all of that.

Arianna 

Yes.

Maggie 

You know. And it is, is truly, if I could just end this one thing, it is not selfish to center yourself.

Arianna 

It is not.

Maggie 

It's not selfish to put your needs first because you cannot function properly in anything if you are not doing okay. It is okay to not be okay.

Arianna 

Yes, oh my gosh, yes.

Maggie 

Arianna and Andie, thank you so much for coming in.

Arianna 

Yeah, thank you!

Andie 

Thanks for having us.

Maggie 

Of course, we want to thank Miami University students, Andie Karrenbauer and Arianna Nooks for this illuminating conversation on the mental health and wellness of college students today. If you or anyone you know is struggling with mental health, know that you are not alone. More information and helpful mental health resources and available services are included in the show notes of this episode.