Students must have help when it comes to anxiety

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Normally I would scold myself for self-diagnosing, but I’m going to make an exception in this one instance.

If there is such a thing as seasonal anxiety, then I have it, and it comes in the last three weeks of every semester.

The vicious cycle begins the Saturday of Thanksgiving break when I begin to anticipate what will surely happen on Monday — a barrage of projects, essays and endless deadlines.

As I am on the brink of freaking out, I quickly try to numb the pain by catching up on “The Blacklist” and “Scandal” and slowly my nerves calm back down. I am satiated for a day.

Then Sunday, as I drive back to the real world of Lexington and school, it hits me again.

That is when the hyperventilating begins, followed by a panicked desperation and finishing with a frantic rush to make a schedule of what will inevitably be three weeks of restless nights, scarce meals and more episodes of panic.

As what I have ahead of me sinks in, I decide that what will serve me best is a short nap — which I awake from eight hours later as the panic sets in again.

Fast forward through a week of writing six-page papers, making websites, finishing labs and going to work — without sleep, because sleep is for the weak — and I find myself with a surprising break Friday evening.

All of a sudden there is a calm that settles over everything and I find myself falling into a deep stupor.

When I awake, it is Sunday and the week repeats itself, except this time, it’s called “Dead Week,” to symbolize how I feel inside.

As soon as this week ends, I will wake on Sunday with no more projects and have a brief moment of jubilation, which will expire as soon as I see that now my schedule is made up of three days jam-packed with tests and studying for other finals.

As each one ends, I will feel more and more years of my life being sucked out from the intense strain that anxiety puts on the body until Wednesday night when it is all over.

I may either break down and cry tears of joy or begin an assortment of ecstatic dances in my apartment because I won’t have to turn in another assignment or face some kind of test until January.

According to the National College Health Assessment conducted by American College Health Association in the Spring of 2014, in the last 12 months, 86.4 percent of college students felt overwhelmed by all they had to do, 82.1 percent felt exhausted (from something other than physical activity), 32.6 percent felt so depressed that it was difficult to function and 54 percent felt overwhelming anxiety.

Adults living in the “real world” and the stereotype of a wasted and party-crazed college student devalue our plight as hard-working people.

The anxiety we face is a serious issue, which is why our colleges and government need to take better measures to prevent and reduce it if we don’t want to see more students succumb to end-of-semester stress.

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