My Artist Statement:
Hello Professor Polish! Welcome back again on reading my second essay. This essay will demonstrate my research on the topic community college students who are diagnosed with a mental health condition using Marijuana as a peace of mind. My essay can target for the people who can relate on being a marijuana user and individuals who have/are experiencing with depression. Also for the people who have a friend that is struggling just as the characters in the play and want to be there for the person. My audience will learn about depression, maladaptive perfectionism, marijuana and lack of supportive among community college health center. My audience will be able to learn that because they will learn that depression is the major cause of students not graduating in community colleges, due to lack of health related resources. In which it is a serious issue. My perspective toward this topic is that I can relate to experiencing depression, not in my college year but my high school year. If I talked more about the other characters stories, most people would connect to how they are feeling, behavior and thinking. I’ve learned how to do my research paper on using the library academic databases to find scholarly articles. I dislike doing research paper because it takes patience to come up with a question/topic you wan to discuss about. The peers that I’ve worked with were really helpful. They gave me good advice on what topic I should primarily focus on. They told me to chose a topic I would feel more comfortable to write about in which I did. Doing a research paper would always make me want to pull my hair off, but I’m glad I’ve finished doing one because it’s preparing us for the future research paper we will do. If I had another week to finish my essay, I would want to mostly work on community college health center resources. I would go more in depth about this issue. Overall, Enjoy reading my essay!
College Students Coping Through Depression
Intersections is a play written and performed by students at Laguardia Community College. This fascinating and engaging play has captured my attention when I started reading the script given out in class. It captivated me and other students because it brings out different stories about college students going through troublesome in which can relate to our daily life experiences. Janelle which is one of the characters in the play, tells us a story that can relate to an individual who’s going through mental illnesses due to losing someone important. Stories like these can engage the audience because it’s a play giving us a reality check about college students situations, emotions, and handling their behavior on issues like Janelle and other characters in the play.
College can make an individual feel honored and rewarded for getting accepted to the college they’ve applied to. It’s a new beginning chapter in an individual’s life, opening doors to opportunities, new knowledge, reaching their goals, and experiencing life in a new way. Furthermore, it can be challenging for students being under pressure with the amount of work especially the ones who are at risk developing or already diagnosed with mental illness known as depression. Depression is a common mental illness that an individual feel moodiness, anxious, loss of interest activities, irritability, difficult to concentrate, and memory loss. In addition depression peak at any age, but often begins at a young age, early 20’s or early 30’s. People who go through this experience shouldn’t take is as a sign of vulnerability or a negative personality, in which it’s natural to feel down sometimes. Plus. depression is a treatable medical condition.
As a Laguardia community college student myself, I can relate the feeling of being overly stressed out about how much work needs to be done in order to get the best grade in class. Being a college student is very challenging because you want to prove yourself that you can be a responsible adult managing your time on being committed on getting things done. That way you can have a successful professional career. However, it’s the hardest job in the world. It’s a continuous battle to organize, study, understanding the subject, and to truly understand how to be successful with the education you are needed for your major. Situations like these can cause students to weight themselves with stress over how difficult the class can be. Similarity, community college students often appear to lose their motivation on completing their assignments due to misunderstanding their professors / subject. Once students start to lose their desire to continue their work, they begin to lose interest in attending their classes. This particular issue associate with students experiencing depression.
In the play, Janelle similarly is dealing the same pressure as a college student. In her scene, she is having a conversation with her professor, they both discussed about Janelle disappearance in her classes. For instance, Janelle professor states “I hope you don’t drop the class. You have so much potential” (Intersections 20). Her professor sees Janelle as an intelligent women that don’t deserve to fail her class because of likeable perspective. However, Janelle is not in the right mindset to be attending classes due to her grandma’s stage 4 lung cancer. As she stated, “If I come to class anyways I can’t focus” (Intersections 20). Janelle lack of concentration and motivation is one of the symptoms of depression. Her character can make a connection with someone who’s dealing of losing a significant other. Also, Janelle characteristic of wanting to help her grandma show she is willing to give her all the love even if she’s dealing with her own inner issues. An example, she implied “Nothing can stop me from helping” (Intersections 21). Any individual is willing to support the person they care about the most, and that is what Janelle wants to do.
Perfectionism plays a huge role on having negative reactions that lead to college students experiencing depression. On the next scene, Janelle is experiencing an unhealthy performance to her sister Danielle. It all started off by Danielle asking about school, instead Janelle primarily asks about grandma well being. Danielle later on said “The nurse gave her the last of it before she left. There’s no more medicine” (Intersections 20). Janelle then develops a negative attitude by stating “You dare to ask me what’s wrong? Why I can’t focus? Why I’m not going to class? Our grandmother is dying! You or I, or that bullshit of a nurse can’t do anything about it” (Intersections 21). Janelle is aggressively throwing her anger about the illness to Danielle face. For this reason, I consider Janelle high performance as maladaptive perfectionism. Maladaptive perfectionism is defined as “Perfectionists possess high standards, view their accomplishments as consistently falling short of their lofty goals, and experiencing distress as a result” (Noble, 81). It can associate with depression because it can “lead to negative psychological outcomes” (Noble, 82). Such as anxiety, stress, and less desirable academic performance. This demonstrates the act of an individual who are behaviorally distress about a personal issue.
Depression is a serious medical condition that can happen to any individual by a traumatic experience or is passed on genetically by a family member. Being in the phase of isolation between the people you are close to, in which makes an individual feel lonely and weak. Individuals who experience depression, are often prescribed to “antidepressants to help relieve the stress” (Hutchmaker, 2015). However, other individuals use Marijuana substance as a way to cope their certain pressure in their lives. Such as stress, relationships, exams, and deadlines. Marijuana is referred as a cannabis plant that contains chemical tetrahydrocannabinol. This substance is being used on people who experiencing depression, anxiety, stress. It allows an individual to “Focus on the situation objectively, by offering peace of mind enough to forget for a while” (Hutchmaker, 2015). In addition, marijuana is resourceful for the ones who need to feel more marvelous and calm rather than having a repetitive negative thoughts.
Individuals smoke marijuana want to have the sense of clarity when it comes to having a stressful day. There are users who use this substance to forget about their own issues on their daily basis. Stress is the most common reason why people use this drug every day. In the play, one of the characters name Mike uses marijuana regularly. Mike is introduced in the play talking to his girlfriend Bethany finishing their meal at a restaurant. They both had a conversation about Mike’s financial issues, and later on turns into an argument. Bethany claims smoking marijuana is one of Mike’s hobbies. Mike admittedly stated “I smoke” then Bethany responds “Like every hour” (Intersections 13). Furthermore, Bethany knows Mike is unsatisfied with his life by claiming “You’re unhappy. So smoking makes you happy” (Intersections 14). Then Mike gets upset sounding as if he is addicted to smoking marijuana every day by saying “So what if I smoke a little bud, Shit, It makes me feel better” Bethany responds back saying “I hope it keeps you happy.” (Intersections 14). Marijuana makes an individual feel like your head is in the clouds and stress free with the problems you don’t want to think about.
As students begin their journey in community colleges, it often makes them feel anxious about how will they survive college. Moreover, community college students at the age of 25 and younger are at the highest point of developing depression. Community college open doors to a diversity college, however have “fewer resources” that can lead to low graduation rate. Students attending community colleges are diagnosed with depression are at 49% in 2016. On the other hand, 4 year university colleges are at 11% of showing symptoms any mental health condition. The reason why community college has a higher percentage than a four year college because the lack of mental health services and programs unlike the four year colleges. Furthermore, “many community colleges do not have any mental health counselors” (Eisenberg, Goldrick-rab). This shows that students are lacking support from their own college. In the article, “Here’s Another Reason Why Many Community College Students Do Not Get Their Degree” comes up with possible solutions to reduce the percentage of college student not receiving medical attention sources. For example, a national non profit name “Non Stop” is assisting community college students “assessing public benefits and services” (Eisenberg, Goldrick-rab). Making and building an organization to help and prosper mental health communities for individuals to show effort on attending classes in college.
To conclude, depression among community college students is a constant battle with yourself because individuals are not mentally prepared on balancing responsibilities such as homework versus having repetitive negative thoughts. Plus, Marijuana makes an individual like the feeling of more relaxed phase rather than consuming yourself with dark thoughts. Intersections is inspiring yet emotional because it demonstrates our daily basis situations that we as humans struggle to go through. Especially, among community college students are overly stressed out about getting the grade they want for the class. This play made me realize that I’m not alone on having this feeling of being overwhelmed with the amount of work we get in our classes, and sometimes it’s okay to have this feeling because we all need to arise, stay focused and keep moving towards your goals.
Citations
1. Eisenberg, Daniel, Goldrick-Rab, Susan. “Here’s Another Reason Why Many Community College Students Do Not Get Their Degree.” https://www.higheredjobs.com/articles/articleDisplay.cfm?ID=853
2. Hutmacher, Abby. “Cannabis As A treatment For Depression.” https://www.coloradopotguide.com/colorado-marijuana-blog/2015/march/16/cannabis-as-a-treatment-for-depression/
3. Noble, Christina L., et al. “Multidimensional Perfectionism, Coping, and Depression: Differential Prediction of Depression Symptoms by Perfectionism Type.” Journal of College Counseling, vol. 17, no. 1, Apr. 2014, pp. 80-94.
