Mental health has been a hot topic at Western for the past couple of years, especially in regard to student suicides and inadequate services for those struggling. It seems that everyone you talk to on campus about mental health groans whenever Western’s services are mentioned, and yet, while Western claims they are taking steps to change, people are still angry.
Why is it that so many students are afraid, discouraged, and enraged? Why is it that more and more students are in distress, and feel unable to ask for help? Well, it turns out, many of these students are asking for help, and are being turned away. Here are 11 stories from people who have tried to access the mental health resources at Student Health Services (SHS), and the horrifying results of what happened.
*all names have been changed
“For about a year I had a psychiatrist at SHS. The psychiatrist was qualified to do therapy as well as prescribe medications, so she was supposed to be starting therapy with me at some point during my treatment. However, whenever it was brought up, she told me she ‘didn’t think I was in a place to begin therapy yet’ (i.e. I wasn’t stable enough, I guess?).
When I asked her for about the third time about starting therapy, she insisted that I had been saying I wasn’t ready rather than the other way around, which was just… not true.
Last year while I was hospitalized in my hometown, I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). After years of trying to figure out what exactly was wrong with me, this was finally the answer. The hospital staff in my hometown were very helpful in answering questions and explaining the diagnosis to me. I’ve never been more relieved in my life, to be honest. Once I was out of the hospital, I made a regular appointment with my psychiatrist at SHS. It’s a nightmare trying to get an appointment even when it’s an emergency, so it took a while.
In my eventual appointment, when I brought up the diagnosis, my psychiatrist immediately dismissed it. She wouldn’t even go through the symptoms with me to see if I fit them. I would have been fine with this if her other reason for refusing to diagnose me hadn’t been—and I quote—because, “In the medical world, BPD doesn’t have a good reputation, so I don’t want to diagnose it.” She literally refused to acknowledge my diagnosis because of a stigma.
Stigma is already something mentally ill people have to deal with regularly, and hearing it from the mouth of the person I was supposed to trust to treat my mental illness was extremely upsetting. What sort of reputation my disorder has ‘in the medical world’ shouldn’t matter. I needed treatment, and very desperately (I was being hospitalized every few months due to my BPD), and she was refusing to even acknowledge the disorder because of its reputation.
Had I continued to go to my psychiatrist at Western, I would never have been put into the correct type of therapy to treat my condition. That therapy has quite literally saved my life.”
—Rory
“I experienced suicidal thoughts and nearly attempted it in my first year in residence. The Rez Manager forced me to go to Residence Counselling (an awful experience had by many).
After I didn’t connect with the residence counsellor, I went to SHS to speak to someone there. They wouldn’t allow me to speak to anyone because I had used the Residence Counselling service (against my will). I couldn’t get another appointment with the residence counsellor for weeks and couldn’t get help from SHS, either. At that time, I wasn’t aware of the other resources on campus and felt alone through my struggles. I am honestly surprised that I am still here today, as suicide was a very real possibility at that time in my life.”
—Jordan
“It felt like I just was another case and the psychiatrist was clearly bored and really just sat there because she had to.”
—Riley
“The first time I reached out to SHS was after time spent in a London hospital following an episode of self-harm. The hospital reached out to the clinic on my behalf and explained they would send over my health record, along with a referral from my doctor which included the care he wished I would receive. The hospital explained that SHS needed a referral before I could see anyone and that they would contact me and set up a time to meet.
I waited a week without hearing anything. Finally, I emailed the health clinic asking for an update and, for another week, received no response. I then called in, asking when to expect a follow-up. The clinic said they hadn’t received any paperwork or my email, and then very rudely told me that they had no idea what I was talking about.
I called my doctor at the hospital to ask why SHS had not received my documents yet, to which they replied that the clinic did have my documents. I then, while still in a severe depression, went to SHS to speak with someone in person because my parents made me. Please note: to get dressed and out of bed, to walk across campus, to then directly ask a stranger for help after being ignored by the system for weeks was very difficult.
I asked the clinic if they had gotten my documents and they said no.
My parents convinced me to go in again, having now called SHS themselves and with intense anger explained how outrageous this service had been. I cried the entire way there. I too explained that this was completely unacceptable and that I desperately needed help. The intake nurses then suddenly took more care looking for my documents and BOOM there they were.
They apologized extensively, which I know was only because my parents had raised hell and threatened to go above them with a complaint. My intake documents had been in their office all along and yet they had not taken enough care to process them in order to get me immediate help. They said “they must have gotten buried”—yes, that was their excuse.
I ended up being placed with a psychologist who was male (I had requested female), looked like he was fresh out of school, was completely socially awkward, and with whom I didn’t connect with at all.”
—Alex
“It took me a week to see my psychiatrist after I was raped last semester because wait times are so long.”
—Jess
“I was on a particular kind of birth control that had heavily aggravated my depression and was giving me regular panic attacks (something I’d never experienced). When I told the doctor, he said I should just stick it out and stay on that brand of birth control for three more months to see if it evens out. When I said I wasn’t totally comfortable with that and asked what his suggestions were, I was prescribed a dose of antidepressants which also did not help and made me feel like a paper version of myself.
When I finally decided I should seek treatment for the mental health problems I was experiencing, I was nervous to go book an appointment in person as I worked for the SDC at the time; my supervisor’s office was right beside the counselor’s main office. So I decided to phone in.
When I did, a voice greeted me on the phone that could’ve easily been an automated recording. After, hello, the first words out of his mouth were: “Are you suicidal.” At the time, I was. But to have it spat right out at me like that took me off guard so I did what I assume most people do—”No…” I said.
After that, he asked me why I was calling and I told him about my persisting depression that was making it difficult for me to go to class. He breezed over most of it in a happy go lucky tone and told me I should try sleeping more (this was after I told him I was having difficulty sleeping). When I asked how I could be helped further, he told me the wait time to seek a counselor was four months—at which point I would have been a graduate and no longer eligible for treatment.
I told him what was bothering me in a broad sense and he told me to try and be more positive. He told me again to try and get more sleep and said he’d email me a list of resources. This list was comprised of private practice counselors which were way out of what I could have afforded. And that was that. I never tried again.”
—Morgan
“This past August, my mental health was the worst it had been since I was fifteen (a time when I developed an addiction to self-harm and attempted suicide). I had been taken off of my medication at the beginning of the summer and was supposed to frequently check in with my psychiatrist to monitor the effects (especially because my anxiety and major depressive disorders are largely from a chemical imbalance), but was unable to schedule an appointment that was not over a month away. At the end of July, after having to cancel an appointment because of my mental state, I went into student health to ask for help because I had been derealizing for over a week. As most people are unfamiliar with that term, derealizing basically means that nothing around you feels real. I would look in the mirror and see a body that did not belong to me, could not connect what I was seeing to reality, and was having over five panic attacks per day.
I was told that one of the nurses would come and speak with me, and in the meantime was placed in a room with one of the student nurses. When the nurse arrived, she refused to open the door more than a crack so I couldn’t see her, and spoke to the student nurse about me as if I were not there. She was fully aware that I was in the room, because when she referred to me by the incorrect name to ask the student nurse if I was there, I answered and corrected her mistake. She continued to ask the nurse questions about me and refer to me by the wrong name, which I would then respond to, yet she would not interact directly with me.
I explained that I was afraid that I was going to hurt myself or commit suicide because I felt like I could not control my actions, and that I needed someone to help me because I did not want that to happen.
The nurse finally opened the door slightly, and essentially blamed me for what was happening to me because I needed to reschedule my appointment. She took the student nurse into the hallway and spoke with her for a moment. When the student nurse returned alone, she told me I would have to wait over a month before I could even speak with my psychiatrist and that it ‘wouldn’t be fair’ for me to see someone else or be put back on my old medication until I had spoken with my psychiatrist.
Despite me telling them that I could not guarantee that I wasn’t going to harm or kill myself, and that I was afraid that I was going to, they sent me home with no suggestion of alternative care that I could receive.”
—Charlie
“I tried to get an appointment but was told the waiting list was three months, so I decided not to go through with it. While trying to get the appointment, the doctor examining me asked me questions as if I was making my mental illness up and it was all in my head. His questions were condescending and it was as if he didn’t believe a word I was saying.”
—Parker
“My counselor basically told me he was just a Masters student and could only help to a certain extent, and then said he’d refer me to someone off campus. It felt like he wasn’t even trying and didn’t care about my mental health at all. The counselor also seemed to be using blanket approaches to the issues I was talking about, and didn’t really personalize anything. He ended up giving me a page of apps to get on my phone and telling me to go to someone outside of the university.”
—Jessie
“Near the end of my third year, I had stopped booking appointments due to my busy schedule (exams) and because I had been feeling really good. Then, back to school in my fourth year, a friend took his life and the shock of his death sent me into a difficult state of mourning. I reached out to the clinic to re-book an appointment with my psychiatrist, to which they told me that I would need a new doctor’s referral because I had not used their services in 6 months. They refused me care because I had been doing well.
I therefore asked if the doctor could just refill my same prescription for antidepressants until I was able to get in to see him; I had been taking these consistently in the summer but had begun to run out. They responded no. I then had to schedule an appointment with my at-home doctor to verify that I needed additional care from the school and to transfer my prescription back to my school doctor. Then I had to wait for this referral to be filed with SHS and then wait an additional two weeks on my psychiatrist’s waiting list before being seen.
I ended up not even going to this appointment and began traveling home three hours for doctor’s appointments because I was so furious and upset with SHS. I was then charged a fee with a threat to not receive my diploma for canceling that appointment under 24 hours in advance.”
—Lucy
“During first year, I went through a pretty rough patch and made an appointment to see a doctor at the University.
I got there and one of the triage questions involved my stress levels. When I indicated that they were through the roof, she asked if I was having suicidal thoughts. I was, and I told her that. I could practically see the panic in her eyes as I went off script; clearly she had thought I was going to say ‘no’ and we could carry on. Her reply, though, still bothers me to this day.
‘Well, it’s exam time so we’re all booked up. You aren’t actually thinking of hurting yourself, are you?’
The lady had a student work up the courage to tell her that she wanted to die and what did she do? Tell me to come at a less busy time. Because exam seasons are stressful for everybody.”
—Taylor