Student group aims to combat stigma against stress, mental illness

College students know the feeling of going to class unprepared. They know they haven’t studied as hard as they would like, and they are stressed about it.

Stress can cause mental illnesses. Mental illnesses include anxiety disorders, which a large number of college students suffer from, said Alexandria Hayat and Rachel Agin, co-presidents of the IU chapter of the Active Minds Organization.

“People don’t like to talk about it,” Agin said. “Our goal is to make people comfortable enough to talk about it.”

The organization’s IU chapter works to raise awareness of mental illnesses to students. The group also stands as a liaison between students and mental health advisers.“We’re trying to stop the stigma,” Hayat said.

The National Active Minds Organization was originally started in 2001 after University of Pennsylvania junior Allison Malmon lost her older brother Brian Malmon the previous year due to suicide.

He was a senior at University of Pennsylvania who had experienced depression and psychosis for three years but never told anyone. He later found out that he had schizoaffective disorder and a year and a half later, he committed suicide.

Allison Malmon then recognized that, just like her brother, not many University of Pennsylvania students were talking about mental health issues and many had them.

She decided to take initiative and start the Active Minds Organization to inform and educate students about mental illnesses and to put an end to the dangerous stigma that it is not okay to talk about mental illness.

What started off as just an initiative to combat the stigma of mental illnesses at University of Pennsylvania in 2001 grew into an organization represented at 304 chapters spread throughout colleges nationwide.