Depression Talk

Did they really need to do a study on how many college-age Americans have personailty disorders? I think we already knew the results to this one. According to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the New York Psichiatric Institute, every one in five college students has a personality disorder to the extent that it screw up their ability to try and lead a normal life.

College age students studied had ages ranging from 19 - 25. (And yes, you can start college or uni much younger or older than that). The study interviewed 5092 college kids in order to get their findings. The interviews were done in 2000 and 2001 and apparantly the kids must have talked a long time, because the findings only came out this week. The study only looked at college kids. So, the study doesn’t mean the one in five Americans have personality disorders (which may be mistakenly implied), just one in five college age kids.

What’s a Personailty Disorder?

There is a lot of quibbling over just what constitutes a personality disorder and I’ll admit up front my opinion — if you are alive, you probably have a personailty disorder. Here’s the Mayo Clinic’s definition of a personality disorder:

“Personality disorder is a general term for a type of mental illness in which your ways of thinking, perceiving situations and relating to others are dysfunctional.”

The study included a variety of mental conditions under the heading “personality disorders”. These include bipolar disorder, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, phobias, alcoholism or drug abuse. There is some debate in medical and social care circles as to whether alcoholism or drug abuse is a personality disorder, but the study includes them. I’d consider alcholics and drug abusers to be mentally ill, but then again, I’m not a doctor (but I am mentally ill).

The Practical Upshot

The finding of so many young Americans with personality disorders isn’t what’s disturbing. It’s the study’s findings than only about 25% of college kids with these problems actually go get help. It seems a lot of the kids didn’t get help because they didn’t want to be branded as crazy.

I remember college. It was the one place where you never had to worry about being crazy because everyone else was, too.

All kidding aside, most college campuses (even community colleges) have counseling services free or low cost for their students. The good news is that at least there is someone for college-age kids to talk to. You can also call 1-800-SUI-CIDE or 1-800-273-TALK for someone to talk to if you don’t go to college.