Last week, I attended a talk focused on the negative connotation and stigma that surrounds mental illness in society. We discussed how the words used to describe mental illness can discourage someone from seeking the help that they need for fear of being ostracized from their family and community. I found this conversation interesting because people shared not only what mental illness and the words used to describe it mean to them but also, we talked about mental illness on Cornell’s campus.

I thought that I was the only one that had noticed how easily people talk about wanting to die on this campus but my peers also talked about it. The fact that such a phrase is so normalized speaks of a larger issue that we have on this campus of maintaining good mental health practices. As we talked more about what Cornell doesn’t supply for students with disabilities (e.g. nice campus terrain for easier wheelchair accessibility, video lectures for students that are going through a tough time and can’t muster the strength to leave their room for a day), it became more apparent to me that Cornell needs some sort of re-vamping of their mental health outreach in order to reach students dealing with mental and physical disabilities.