MEGHAN FRICK

My first senior semester was an absolute disaster.

I'd like to attribute that to my slightly obsessive involvement with The Appalachian. And it's true - if I wasn't eternally focused on headlines and cutlines and deadlines and yelling at reporters...well, it probably would've been easier to get back on track.

But it's not the newspaper's fault that I was a wreck last semester. And, as much as it may sound like a copout - it wasn't mine either.

I can't remember a time when I didn't struggle with clinical depression. Well, that's a hyperbole - I can, but I was very young. Mental health has been a constant struggle for most of my life.

That's why I'm grateful we live in a world with enormous medical options for people with depression. The little blue pills I swallow every night have done wonders for my everyday well-being, for my overall joy in life and for my ability to get anything at all accomplished.

I am not a victim of depression - I am a survivor. I have healed.

But no matter how much better you are, it's unbelievably easy to backslide. All you have to do is stop taking those pills and stop going to therapy.

And it would be easier to go to therapy if Appalachian's on-campus counseling center had consistent availability.

It's wonderful that our university offers free counseling. But it's harder to access that service than you might imagine.

By the end of last fall, my desperation was massive and my motivation was nonexistent and my dorm room was full of the physical debris that accumulate when you've stopped caring about absolutely everything.

And one day, my life came to a breaking point. It involved a lot of tears and a lot of stubborn refusals of counseling. And finally, it involved my most stubborn friend - the kind of friend everyone needs, the kind who absolutely will not put up with your crap - literally walking me to the front desk of the counseling center and making sure I stayed.

I made it to a therapist's couch that day and I was offered services. But I was told they'd be sporadic - that the center was simply understaffed and overbooked and I likely wouldn't see a counselor more than a few times a month.

That's a problem.

See, my parents have insurance and they're willing to support me. I'll be seeing a referral counselor soon and finding help within the community instead.

But what about people whose parents refuse to believe mental illness is a real threat? What about people who can't afford outside therapy?

Those students need options and they need them consistently.

This is by no means an attack on the counseling center. Everyone I've encountered there has been genuinely lovely to me and I'm sure they'd offer the world to Appalachian if they could - more sessions, more counselors, more services.

Instead, this is a plea to the university, to whoever makes this particular decision - no matter how tough times are financially, please carefully consider the counseling center when budgeting decisions are made. Please make students' mental health a priority.

There are people here who need that consideration. They need it desperately.