This is part of a series of interviews with young Utahns making a meaningful impact on their communities’ — and their own — mental health. Read more.
The percentage of college students experiencing mental health challenges has increased nearly 50% since 2013, research shows.
The stress of classwork, the impacts of a pandemic and a prevalence of perfectionism has made clear the need for mental health resources on campuses like Brigham Young University, says junior Makaylee Moore.
After struggling with body image and anxiety, Moore called Counseling and Psychological Services and was set up with a dietician and a therapist — free of cost.
Now Moore works with the Student Outreach Council at the Counseling and Psychological Services to help spread the word about the mental health resources available to BYU students, including individual counseling, couples therapy, group therapy and a biofeedback service that measures stress.
Moore recently spoke with The Tribune about how CAPS is helping students like herself access those resources free of cost — and how she and her peers are working to fight misinformation. This Q&A with her has been edited for length and clarity.
Sara Weber: Is the need for mental health support unique to BYU college students?
Makaylee Moore: One hundred percent. I think BYU is definitely a hodgepodge of perfectionists and overachievers. Everybody gets there wanting to do their best, but they also get down on themselves a lot. I think every college and every school could benefit from having some sort of office like CAPS.
What challenges do you face in your day-to-day work?
It’s kind of shocking how many people don’t know about CAPS. I think maybe because I’m a psychology major, I was, like, “Oh, those are my people.” But we do presentations in classes where we ask who knows about CAPS and give a 30-second rundown.
So I think it’s that lack of information and then misinformation. The crisis walk-ins — a lot of times people hear that and they’re, like, “I need to be in an actual crisis for that to qualify for me,” or it’s like, “I need to be like an actual peril to get group therapy or individual therapy.” I wish that I could just tell everyone if you think you could benefit from it, you deserve it, you qualify. If you think it would help you, you should get it.
What advice do you have for other young adults who are looking to help improve their peers’ mental health?
My advice for BYU students specifically, if they wanted to get involved with CAPS, they could join the Student Outreach Council.
I would say to the general public: First, take care of your own mental health. You can’t draw water out of an empty well. Educate yourself. Reach out and get some training. CAPS does QPR training every couple of months.
Educating yourself about those things, and then talking about mental health and trying to open up that conversation ends those stigmas that I feel like unintentionally people put around mental health and depression, anxiety, suicidality, eating concerns — all those things are very real things that people around us are experiencing them. And by not talking about it, it just helps those things live in shame and secrecy.
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