"These are the best years of life’ are what we’re told frequently by adults; "I wish I could grow up’ is what little kids continuously express. It’s almost like the universe is forcing ironic reminders at us that being at the ripe University-age is anything but easy. Take away the fact that we’re constantly reading and working on papers, there are a lot of other things that plague our lives — some are unavoidable, some we inflict upon ourselves, some we can face head on, and some aren’t too visible, but are maybe the worst of all.
As found in various studies, stress and physical health are in a correlation. The more we stress ourselves out, the worse our physical health gets. It’s very common that students get sick the closer they get to important exams or assignment due dates — the worse we worry ourselves out, the more our immune system seems to rebel and give a big, loud "Nope!’ before collapsing in on itself and forcing us to stay at home, bundled up in a blanket and with a mug of soup, still working on that bloody assignment anyway!
Our physical health though, isn’t something that we can actually do much about. Everybody gets sick — it’s the simple rule of Life. Just like everyone has had to suffer through the chicken pox at least once in their life (fingers crossed for me — I still haven’t actually caught it!), that means that at our age, we’re still very vulnerable to the accursed common cold and flu.
We don’t actually do much to help our physical health, however. A common practice picked up by University students is cigarette smoking, which we all know from our secondary school years, is incredibly harmful to our bodies. While not all University students smoke, you do find an impressive number of people who have at least tried it, and quite a few of them actually keep the habit up. Don’t try to tell them how bad it is for them though — they are fully aware it is, but that won’t stop them at this point.
Hand in hand with cigarettes comes alcohol, which we are all painfully guilty of. Who of us hasn’t gotten drunk at least once in their life so far? You’d be a liar to say you haven’t. Drinking is a student’s way of socializing, and also a cleverly disguised form of escapism — nothing like a few shots of tequila to make you forget about how badly you did in your last presentation. Drinking may be viewed as a solution however, but it can also become a serious problem: addiction, liver failure, alcohol poisoning. There are various risks that come along with drinking, even if some of them aren’t directly related to the alcohol itself. As we all know, sometimes alcohol makes us do stupid things, and it’s probably not the first time you’ve heard a friend start up a story that started with "One time, after I drank like 6 shots of Jaeger’, or heard a story that ends with "…and I ended up kissing this total stranger’. But really, is it all worth it? Do we really need alcohol to make us bold enough to do things like socialize? I agree that it makes it more fun, but there’s also a limit to how much fun can actually be had. It doesn’t actually help when you remember that we’re (most of us) on a student budget, which means that the more we drink, the more our livers cry in pain, and the more our wallets shrink.
Speaking of "shrinking’, eating disorders are also a danger. As young adults, we’re expected to eat a certain amount each day to stay healthy, and also to keep a balanced diet. But really, who has the time for that? With all the readily available food around our campus, it’s kind of hard to keep yourself from indulging in a greasy, oily pizza rather than go for the salad (seriously, why would you go for the salad when there’s a pizza like that?!). However, eating unhealthy foods isn’t the only worry. There are people who don’t eat at all. Anorexia nervosa and bulimia are common, and chances are you know someone who has suffered through, or is currently suffering through it. The two eating disorders are classified as mental disorders as well, for the incredibly severe impact they have on a person’s self perception and world view.
Mental disorders are, quite possibly, the most invisible and most worrying in a student’s health. Depression and anxiety are the most common — we have probably all brushed with one of the two at some point in our lives. Depression is classified as immense feelings of sadness, and is a real problem if the mood suffers for longer than 6 months. Sadly, depression has claimed lives, and 90% of students who suffer from depression eventually commit suicide. Anxiety, on the other hand, can come in various forms, and the one most suffered by students is cognitive anxiety. (To give an example, it’s like that nagging feeling in your brain that you forgot to do something, only you get it all the time.) While the University has an effective Counselling Service that is free of charge for all students, most students seem to never actually deal with these issues — partly because of the stigma of counselling, partly because of the fear of being diagnosed with something.
Psychologically, University is also a time of self discovery — "Am I in the course I want? Am I happy? What do I want from life?’ Apart from actually trying to figure our lives out, we’re also trying to figure out things around us — our friendships, our relationships, our sexualities. Let’s be honest, being stuck on a campus ripe with thousands of hormonal teenagers is not the best thing in the world, and experimenting sexually is a common practice (including, of course, experimenting with people of the same sex).
(A study conducted by Prof. Carmelo Cefai and Prof. Liberato Camilleri of the University of Malta in 2009 has actually confirmed that sexually transmitted disease/infections and HIV is almost negligible amongst the student population, with only 7 students in their sample admitting to having an STD, amounting to 1.4%, and 0% of them were HIV positive.)
As we can see, the problems are endless, and I’ve most probably only covered about a quarter of what there actually is. While we are aware that these issues exist, as young adults we are plagued by The Personal Fable — the belief that this will never happen to me. While we know that there are students who have mental breakdowns, who pop anti-depressants, who drink themselves into a stupor, we constantly tell ourselves that it will never happen to us. Until it does. Until we are the people others have heard about, and we’re suddenly the ones realizing that we’re not as invulnerable as we thought we were. And most of the time, we will keep telling ourselves that we’re not one of them, even though we’ve got a bottle of vodka in our hand and a packet of prescription pills sitting in the medicine cabinet for when we have another panic attack.
Nobody ever said that young adults weren’t so prone to difficulties, but nobody ever warned us that we were in the first place. We’ve grown up believing that we’ll grow up, get a job, maybe a family. We’re told that we can do anything, that we are the superheroes of our own personal stories. TV shows and movies show us that we’ll come out stronger every time, that our difficulties can be solved in a matter of days. We’re shown, day in day out, that people have it worse than us. The problem is that every super hero has a weakness. But that doesn’t mean that everything’s at a loss. Far from that.
While issues arise in our lives, it doesn’t mean that we have to let them win. Sure, it may feel like the end of the world, but believe it or not, we don’t have to be superheroes to survive. Not everyone’s a Clark Kent or a Peter Parker — and thank god for that! So what if we’re mere mortals? We’re still pretty capable of managing on our own.
If you have an issue, speak up about it, seek help. Physical illness can be avoided if we look after ourselves better — eat healthy, exercise, maybe stop smoking so much and drinking to excess. If you think that you have some sort of mental problem, talk about it. It doesn’t have to be a counsellor or a therapist — sometimes, a friend or a family member can lend the best ear, or the softest, most absorbent shoulder to cry on. The best thing you can do about a problem is acknowledge that it exists, and talk about it to someone you trust. As for self discovery, it’s a good thing. We’re young, barely out of the house and expected to have our lives in order. Making mistakes is a product of that, and we can’t help it. So yes, date that guy or girl who you think is cute and then break up with them after a week; switch courses next year if you’re not happy in the one you’re in now; take a year off from studying if you feel like you really need the time to yourself. Getting to know yourself is probably the most important thing you need to do at this age, and you can’t do that if you’re too stressed to breathe.
So yeah, maybe we’re not Superman, or The Flash, or Wonder Woman. Maybe we’re not genetically enhanced, or super strong and super fast and super smart to boot. Maybe we are just mere mortals. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t be heroes in our own right. Every superhero has a weakness, but for every one thing that brings us down, we’ve got ten that can get us back to the top again.
If you or anyone you know is suffering from any mental health issues and needs assistance, please contact Counselling Services at the University of Malta. Their building is located close to the Art Lecture Theater. It’s never too late for help.