@Tkat97, hugs to you sweetie. It sounds like an unusually difficult period for anyone to manage and to deal with it during your freshman year is even more difficult. I don’t doubt your strength or that you are holding it together. But being touched by suicide and a roommate attempting suicide would take a toll on anyone, no matter how strong. Please try a counseling session. You may be surprised by how helpful it is just to talk to someone and find some support. Be kind to yourself. Thank you for sharing with us.
@3girls3cats thanks for the kind words!
It’s actually not rare. Not rare at all. Suicide is 10th leading cause of death for all ages, and for adolescents and emerging adults in your age group, it’s the second leading cause of death. And for every one person who commits suicide, another 25 have attempted it. It’s unfortunately all too uncommon for young college-aged people to know someone who has attempted or committed suicide. College is a ripe time for it - your changing brain chemistry means that this is a life period in which existing mental illnesses are most likely to manifest anew, but you’re also facing new stressors that you haven’t faced before.
A couple of things stood out to me:
This is the most interesting and sort of heartbreaking part here. You go to an excellent university, so I have no doubt that your K-12 experience - particularly the last 4 or so years of it - was probably an intense experience. School, extracurriculars, volunteering, whatever. But I think for a lot of high-achieving students, it unfortunately leads to an inability to relax and enjoy free time! It’s terrible when having a lot of free time makes a student anxious; to me it speaks a lot to how hard college-bound high schoolers are being driven these days.
Basically, my point is - free time is a good thing. On an intellectual level, free time is when your brain lets all the new stuff you’re learning settle in and coagulate into actual acquired knowledge. You have to let it breathe a bit. And from a personal level, it’s how you recharge and prepare for the next thing you have to do - and ironically how some of the best learning happens in college. When you discover things spontaneously that you haven’t planned, that can be some of the best educational experiences.
Here’s another side of the same coin:
.
You absolutely have time for counseling. There is ALWAYS time for counseling. You can make time, make it work. Your mental health is FAR more important than anything else you are doing. And that’s because if you are not taking care of yourself in college, it can come back to bite you later in life. I know - I lived it. I had a mental health breakdown in college, and I actually did get counseling and dealt with it. In grad school, it came back far, far worse, and it crippled me for over a year. Imagine how much worse it may have been if I hadn’t gotten treatment in college and didn’t go back into treatment in graduate school.
You don’t have to feel unstable to get counseling - counseling is just talking to someone. Heck, even students who feel 100% fine could benefit from some, but students who have had one friend die and another attempt to take their life can definitely benefit. Sometimes you can feel really bad and not realize it until you’ve slowed down to confront those feelings. And frankly, it sounds like you are deliberately not slowing down to confront those feelings. But they will catch up to you eventually, and I want you to be safe and in treatment and have somewhere to reach out to you when they do.
Counseling is 50 minutes once a week to start out with. You can spare less than one hour a week to take care of your mental health. If you really don’t have a spare hour in your week, you are probably taking on too much and need to drop something. Because free time is also when the counseling works - you need some time to let that percolate and start working. You don’t have to wall-to-wall book yourself to prepare for graduate school in college. That’s unhealthy.
@julliet - great post!
Listen to @juillet
YES YES YES - and you do not need to tell your parents you will see, or saw, a counselor. My D is a freshman and has several friends who see counseling for help dealing with the normal stresses of the first year. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, in fact it’s smart to take advantage of this service your school offers.
If you can’t make the time - an hour a week? - take a sandwich and do it at lunchtime.
I GOT A B IN ANATOMY LIFE IS GOOD
Just because you got a B in Anatomy doesn’t mean everything’s good. Go talk to a counselor, even if it’s just to read your first post out alloud and the last post above.
I can offer some insight to to you on 2 levels. I am an Occupational Therapist so I can speak to you on what to expect in the future in terms of rigor ,course load and expectations. I have worked in Mental Health with adolescents and young adults so I can speak to that as well.
The whole theoretical framework of OT is that you need to have an adequate balance of work, rest and play in order to have a healthy lifestyle. If this is going to be your profession , you need to embrace this philosophy , and take the necessary time for yourself to make this a reality. @julliet is exactly right. It sounds like you may have overextended yourself with ECs, school and work. You should really make some adjustments in your schedule for your wellbeing. You are only in your second semester of undergrad . Your classes will get harder as you progress through the program. Occupational Therapy programs are extremely competitive for admission. Are you willing to jeopardize your acceptance into a program by over extending yourself ?
In terms of mental health, this is the time in life when mental illnesses begin to emerge as @MaineLonghorn , @julliet and @romanigypsyeyes have already stated . This is not to say that you have a mental illness. It’s merely a reminder to be aware of signs and symptoms which may suggest that you need assessment . I also strongly suggest counseling NOW instead of later to equip you with some coping strategies for the future as the demands of your program intensify. It is not a sign of weakness to attend counseling. It’s a sign of self awareness and strength to admit that you can’t handle everything alone. And as an aside. I would consider a roommate change for next semester . You have your own things to focus on , and worrying about her could be a distraction . And lastly , @MYOS1634 is exactly right. While pulling a B in Anatomy is commendable ( especially after a rocky start ) it does not negate the other issues that you are dealing with and will face in the future. I recommend that you take some time to get some counseling to equip you with some coping skills to use now and in the future. Good luck with OT. It’s wonderful profession with many opportunities .
In another thread you ponder becoming a psychologist or a psychiatrist yet you rebuke suggestions to get counselling for your issues.
OP, first, I’m sorry for your loss. This is an awful situation and all too common.
Let me take the counseling from a different angle.
“I don’t really believe in Occupational Therapy or Physcal Therapy. I work too many hours and I don’t have time to go to OT/PT twice a week for someone to watch me do exercise. Just give me the sheet of exercises. I can do this on my own.”
How does that make you feel? You started this with “I just need to get this off of my chest.” Exactly. You need to talk this out and process it with someone who can help. Counseling has many levels. There is a school counselor up to psychiatrist. Sometimes, folks think everything is a psychiatrist. A licensed counselor at your school or a pastor who does pastoral counseling can probably help you greatly with just two or three sessions.
@sportsman88 @TomSrOfBoston @MYOS1634 @carolinamom2boys
Wow! Thanks everybody for your feedback. The thing is, I really do have an independent, self-sufficient mindset and I like to handle things on my own. I realize that this is not productive in the long run and I probably should seek some sort of counseling. However, I’m home for the summer now and doing a lot of exciting things. To try to get counseling would be really difficult, I’d have to talk to my parents and see what insurance covers and I need them to help me with other expenses so its just not going to work out. But, if I still feel weird next semester, I will find time to go to the behavioral health center.
As of right now, I am rooming with my original roommate and one other girl. I realize this may not be the best choice but she’s seeing a psychiatrist over the summer so things should be okay. They’re still both my very good friends. To be honest, I still look back on my freshman year as generally good! I loved the courses I took, made so many new friends, am involved in exciting things, and I also just love being in Boston!
The only thing that worries me is that I did suffer from depression throughout high school and intermittently during college before all this happened. However, now I feel on top of the world! I’m worried that this may be a coping mechanism and that it’ll hit me badly in a few months. If so, I will definitely seek counseling.
I really don’t think you made the right decision by rooming with her again - could you live in a room near her, so that young see each other as you wish, but wouldn’t be in contact as much and you could retreat to your own space if need be?
Can you go to your church and request counselling from someone? Just to talk? Your parents can’t be against your going to church surely c you can say it’s to discuss volunteering opportunities, to pray, whatever.
It really sounds like you’re in denial and need more than ‘do a lot of exciting things’.
This is a worrisome statement. Again I suggest counselling.
Good luck to you. I sincerely hope that it was a rough spot that you were going through . You say that you suffered from depression in HS and college . Did you ever seek treatment in the past? Clinical depression requires treatment; it doesn’t just go away .
I’m jewish haha @MYOS1634
@carolinamom2boys Nope, I’ve never been treated. I went to a depression screening at BU in September and was told I likely had clinical depression. The thing is, I didn’t even know I was depressed during high school because it was just kind of part of my identity, I’d felt pretty shitty since like 8th grade. But when I actually felt happy and content during my first semester of college, I realized I’d been pretty depressed for like the past 5 years.
But i don’t know, I feel so much better now! I feel like in a way, the rough things that happened made me put everything in perspective and recognize the great things about my life. I’ve never felt less depressed, to be honest.
@MYOS1634 The thing is, she had sophomore status when we chose housing so because I’m rooming with her I get to live in a really great location. If I tell her I don’t want to live with her, it’ll create a divide within our friendship and make everything bad again. The last week of school was good, we were all happy. I don’t want to ruin it.
I don’t know what else you want us to say. Posters have unanimously agreed that you should speak to a counselor. Some of us have had diagnoses. Some of us have loved ones with diagnoses. We know what we’re talking about. You can ignore us all, of course, but we don’t think it would be wise.
Go to shul/temple then 
and talk it out with someone you trust?
OK, hopefully it was just a rough patch, but be proactive. If you had a broken leg, you wouldn’t expect to fix it yourself. If you had a cough and a fever, young do something about it. So, if you start feeling down for more than a week, whether foe a reason or not, go see a counselor. Just to talk it out.