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<p>I wish that colleges were more proactive about this… my school talked as though this was an issue they took very seriously, but when I alerted the school that my roommate had refused to get out of bed for more than a few minutes a day for two months I couldn’t even get anybody to check on her. Thankfully for her it appeared to be a temporary episode and she eventually seemed to revert to normal. </p>
<p>I do wonder what depression awareness on campus would look like in a perfect world. The boy that I dated throughout college had been diagnosed with depression, his family and friends knew it, his RA knew it, and I managed to get him to go to sporadic counseling visits… but more or less, he refused treatment, and being over 18 nobody was going to make him unless he was a danger to himself or others. Which he was, to himself, but nobody would know that until it’s too late. I drove him to the ER on more than one occasion because he was threatening to kill himself, but all he had to do was say he wasn’t really going to and the doctors would send him home same night with the suggestion to seek counseling… which he continually ignored. I called 911 once because I was on the phone with him and he told me he had a knife to his wrist, and the police went over, asked him if he wanted an ambulance, and left when he said no-- end of story. He thankfully never actually committed suicide but had suicidal episodes fairly regularly. Everybody knew it but nobody could make him help himself. I am sometimes frustrated when people say things like oh, if only somebody had noticed… what would they have done? We all begged my boyfriend to get help, relentlessly, but he wouldn’t do it… then what? Awareness is the first step and is one that needs to be taken, but a lot of the time we do know someone is depressed and we are completely powerless to do anything about it. We really need help with THAT on college campuses, too.</p>