DISCLAIMER: I did NOT think I was going to write this long of a post, and I get into some pretty serious detail. Just so you know going into this, I've gotten help and I'm WAY better than when I was when I was going through the worst of my condition. Shit was bad, but it's better for me now. Not with any help from the university, as I divulge, but don't feel any form of serious concern for me as a result of this post. As of right now, I am fine.
Student mental health service here is fucking awful. I was having full-blown panic attacks for a couple weeks and tried someone to get me an urgent appointment within the next couple of days to help me with a fucking full-blown existential crisis. I was told a month was the best I could do while being on the HIGH FUCKING PRIORITY LIST and telling my phone consultant that pretty much everything I was feeling was extremely urgent (Also, the appointment was with a therapist, not a psychiatrist. Wouldn't really help me with physical symptoms in the first place). This wasn't event the first call I had experienced. I had already gone through an initial consultation phone call a week and a half prior to this for general existential dread and depression.
I had to be taken to the emergency room after feeling a panic attack coming on and the CIT police officer (Who actually was very helpful. Kudos to OSUPD for having the closest thing to a mental health support structure) took me to the Wex emergency room. At least there I thought I could get some help. NOPE. Even at the general level for how Ohio State manages its health services in one of the highest rated hospitals in the state of Ohio, it seems mental health care and psychiatric availability is STILL starved for resources.
I had to settle for speaking with a general practitioner because it would be a 6 hour wait before any psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse/aid would be able to speak with me. After already sitting in a waiting room for around 3 hours and having to miss a class. Any presence of my physical symptoms had already faded by then, and any advice they would give me would pretty much be for nought. They gave me a seemingly miscellaneous anxiolytic prescription and sent me on my way. Every resource I had seemingly turned to and was available to me in the university was in that moment proven to be entirely worthless.
All the goals of those bullshit classes and group sessions, for what it's worth, would not even be remotely helpful with what I was dealing with, nor would they give me any active consultation. Beyond simply a productive discussion about my general feelings, I needed a baseline level of help for me to function on a day-to-day basis that the university simply had no safety net or infrastructure to provide for me. That shit just seems so remotely juvenile, and intended for people who don't have full-blown mental conditions or disorders. Rather, they're just for people who need to work through some stuff (grief, stress, etc.) for a while. And that's fine. People have feelings and the university does have some duty to let its student populous reach out and deal with them in a productive manner. But it's nuanced, serious cases like mine that fall off completely to the wayside because they require actual effort, money, specialized practitioners, and frequency of visits/follow-ups.
I had to go home and meet with a family psychiatrist while missing multiple days of class because Ohio State's help simply doesn't cover it. I understand completely that there's probably no maleficence on behalf of the university with regard to mental health support structures, otherwise they wouldn't even bother to try and have one to begin with. My conditions and feelings can't wait two weeks in between meetings if something serious happens or I start to struggle again. I also don't need someone to pet my head and tell me I'm going to be okay in a bullshit, hour long consultation session that results in me feeling the exact same way as I came in, aside from the one co-pay's worth of money taken out of my wallet. EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE CHANGED AND GIVEN SOME FUNDING. If I had not gone out of my way to reach my family and solely depended on university systems, I either would've had an even worse of a full-blown mental breakdown or I wouldn't be here writing this. That's scary to write, but it's probably true.
I've expressed these grievances to CCS already.
TO THE ADMINISTRATION AT LARGE, IF YOUR DIVINE PRESENCE CAN HEAR THIS: Get your shit together and stop building fucking clock towers.