I asked an expert why so many college kids have anxiety

I have always been a pretty calm person. I almost never experienced any anxiety or nervousness in high school, whether it was before a huge test or a social outing. I even took an anxiety test during my AP Psych class senior year and my teacher asked me if I was alright because she’s never seen a score that low.

Honestly, maybe that wasn’t too normal… but as soon as I came to college something changed. I’m not sure whether it was the new atmosphere, the harder classes or having to meet all new people but I started experiencing random bits of anxiety here and there. Definitely not enough to be diagnosed with an actual disorder, but something was different. Something was off.

I decided to get right down to the point and ask an expert about why so many college students start experiencing anxiety even if they haven’t before. I also wanted to find out not only why college kids begin feeling anxious and overwhelmed, but why many have no problem sharing this to their peers as well as the world.

The actual definition of an anxiety disorder, as defined by The DSM-5, is “The presence of excessive anxiety and worry about a variety of topics, events, or activities. Worry occurs more often than not for at least 6 months and is clearly excessive.”

Now that you have kind of an understanding of what it takes to be actually diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, our expert comes in, Geralyn Gulino M.Ed., NCC, LMHP-E (Master of Education, National Certified Counselor, Licensed Mental Health Professional eligible), who also happens to be my really cool and much smarter older sister.

After telling me The DSM-5 definition, she also stated that, “To be truly diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, it has to affect all functioning levels of your life.”

Which totally makes sense because, come on, she’s an expert.

Me, my other sister, and our wonderful expert all the way to the right

After telling Ms. Gulino about my experiences, first about never having anxiety and then experiencing it sometimes when I got to college, she had the perfect response and understanding to why it’s so common for college kids to have anxiety.

Gulino started out by telling me, “[Anxiety] is almost ‘cool’ to people, it’s like a competition between you and your peers, especially when people are in college.”

It’s something college students bond over. How many times during finals week have you seen Snapchat stories of kids in the library until 5am? It’s all a competition on who has the most work, who’s major is the hardest and who pulls the most all nighters in the library. College kids are pressured to over exert themselves so they can match up to their peers, almost like they’re saying “Hey,  I work hard, too.”

“People are attention seeking, and they’ve found ways to utilize social media in that aspect. Genuine anxiety has always been there and people have always had it, but now it’s just so much more out there because of social media. People are more comfortable sharing,” says Gulino.

While social media has become an outlet to share one’s worries and anxieties, it can also cause someone to start to feel anxious about other things. When you see your peers staying up late, working hard on projects and even posting about their acceptance to an internship it can affect people in certain ways. Why is this person so much smarter than me? Why are they more successful? It can cause unwanted stress and a feeling that they’re not trying hard enough. Trust me, I know from experience.

Gulino also touched upon how celebrities have come out about having anxiety disorders like Lena Dunham, Emma Stone, and Scarlet Johansson. More and more people are more comfortable with sharing their anxiety disorders, no matter how severe, because they see some of their role models up there doing the same thing.

Fortunately, I have never tried to over exert myself. Maybe it’s because I’ve lived with my sister who’s qualified to be a therapist all of my life, but I also know that mental health is the most important thing to keep in check while away at college. Some other kids don’t realize that, and they pay the price. It’s important to find something that calms you down and flushes out all of the stress in your system, especially during hectic times like finals week.

My friend Dominique and I trying to de-stress with yoga

When asked why some students who have never experienced anxiety before start feeling it in college, Gulino answered, “Some people are so used to having things come easy to them, whether it’s with sports or academics. Everything kind of spirals out of control for someone when that changes and you have to work harder to succeed.”

Another bingo. When I was younger, and also throughout high school, I never had to try at anything. School and sports were a breeze for me, and as soon as I reached college everything kind of crashed down. Now I had homework on homework, tons of extracurriculars and I didn’t know how to handle it. Cue occasional feelings of anxiety and also the world ending!

It’s also extremely acceptable and normal to be on anxiety medication in college. Gulino remembers, “when I was in college everyone was like ‘I have to go take my Xanax’, etc.” More and more kids are being put on prescription drugs, and it’s become the norm to talk about them

While having anxiety in situations like right before a big test are extremely normal, please talk to someone if your anxiety is hindering your every day life. Your mental health is the most important thing to take care of in college and it’s an important thing to talk about.