When Health Leaves Are Needed

Cornell students should not be afraid of taking a health leave for mental health, no matter what time of the semester it is. Students’ health will be better in the long run, especially for any mental health condition that is not acute (lasts a short period of time). Te only way to help chronic mental health conditions, especially those that are interfering with school and when outpatient treatment alone isn’t enough, is to be bold and vulnerable. Advocating for yourself is key.

Daniela Wise-Rojas Anything but MunDANIties

Trigger warning: this piece contains discussion of suicidal ideation, depression and other mental health conditions.

I’m not writing this column in my Ithaca dorm room, unfortunately. As a matter of fact, I’m not even enrolled in Spring classes at the moment. I’m writing this column in a time crunch because I have limited computer access where 90 percent of what’s on Google is blocked and my usual computer time is consumed by endless health appointments. I’m in California, a one hour car-drive away from my hometown of San Ramon, on a completely different coast. I’m in a psychiatric residential care facility, on a health leave from Cornell. A lot has happened since I’ve last published a column.

With that being said, there’s no place to gather the utmost inspiration to write like residential. You’re in an environment where you’re focusing on how to get better, rather than a competitive environment. I have a list of topics to tackle with my columns this semester; as is, my perspective on almost everything is evolving, and I want to continue to use my platform to educate myself and send messages to the Cornell student body and greater community.

For this column, I want to focus on something I feared the most: Taking a health leave of absence.

When a trusted adult in my life mentioned taking a health leave, I hated the idea. It felt like I was failing myself; I’m smart enough to get into Cornell, the last thing I wanted was to waste time, money and resources just because I was struggling. I told myself “everyone struggles, I don’t need to take a health leave. I don’t need major surgery, I’m not dying.” So, I thought that taking a health leave was honestly kind of dumb.After publishing my column on being honest with a counselor, where I detailed what happens after you ask for help when you want to end your life, I was on an upward swing. What I failed to understand was that I was, in fact, dying, just on the inside.

A month later, all hell broke loose again. I still wanted to die. I had another episode, ending up back in the same psych ward. By this point, I realized that this is how my life will be. I’ll work hard, struggle, have a couple psych ward visits, and repeat. Te hospital felt like a safe environment, and that’s what I needed. I had nine visits to the ER for mental health last semester. I fell into this cycle of having episodes, calling for help, ending up in the ER, feeling safe in the annex rooms, calming myself down and ending up getting discharged rather than admitted. All this was going on, I was struggling to attend classes, and I still believed a health leave was not ideal. Looking back, that’s insane. I really needed help, and I needed more than just crisis management.

People in my life started floating around the term “residential,” and needless to say, it sounded terrifying.

My psychiatrist in the psych ward seconded that, diagnosing me with borderline personality disorder (on top of everything I already had) during my final visit. Looking at my medical records was scary. My “problem list” was rather lengthy at this point: ADHD, major depressive disorder, BPD, anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia and PTSD. Tat doesn’t even include some of my physical health conditions. I was still trying to be a full time student, work as an RA and have an office job, have a social life, keep this column and maintain my dining editor duties for Te Sun. I thrive off of stress, but this was getting to the point where everything was overbearing. Having a therapy session every week and seeing a psychiatrist two times a month suddenly wasn’t it anymore.

Daniel Bernstein Feel the Bern

Daniel Bernstein is a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at dbernstein@ cornellsun.com. Feel the Bern runs alternate Sundays this semester.

There comes a time in almost every high school-to college-aged kid’s life where they stop playing organized sports.

For some, it’s a moment of relief. You never really wanted to play soccer anyway, you only really did it because you weren’t half-bad and you knew your teammates and parents would be a little disappointed if you quit. Besides, it looked good on the college app. Maybe you were done after freshman year of high school because you worked up the courage to say no, this isn’t for me. Or maybe you enjoyed your time playing your sport, but you were just ready. It’d been a long season, and it was bittersweet to be

I was weighing the pros and cons of taking a health leave, and it essentially boiled down to these factors: If I took a health leave, I could take time to go to residential, get the help I need, learn how to manage my conditions, possibly preventing future suicide attempts. However, taking a health leave required paperwork, meant I had to quit both of my jobs, possibly graduate a semester later than I planned. I needed money to help with the logistics of traveling, find somewhere for my car, to plan the logistics of flying with a cat and a fish, try to get into a residential facility, not be able to run for an editor position again for the next Sun editorial board, put my social life on hold, and navigate the murky waters of transferring prescriptions between states when there’s a billion laws.

As you can tell, the list of cons was lengthy, but the few things on the pro list were powerful enough to outweigh the cons. It took a trusted adult to tell me, “if you choose to not get help, I cannot support that decision, and I’m saying this out of love.” I initially fought this person, but then I came to my senses. I decided in November that I was going to take a health leave. Here’s how the process works: after deciding you want to take a health leave, or even if you’re still deciding and you just want to find out more about it (which at this point, that’s where I was at), you can go to Cornell Chatter and in the same way you book meetings with your advising dean, you can book an appointment with the Heath Leaves Coordinator. Obviously, taking a health leave is different... To read more visit Cornellsun.com