Confessions of Students in Crisis

May 2019 -

Submit . The dark blue square button taunts the writer on the other side of the screen, a

student somewhere who has just poured their soul into each letter filling the blank space on the

Google Form labeled Enter your confession here .

Click , and the anonymous words are sent out into the ether to rest in front of the eyes of a

moderator who then decides whether those words are to be posted on a page for hundreds, if not thousands of students to see.

It's a process that leaves the lives and thoughts of students vulnerable for their peers and potentially the world to see, and has some questioning the effects that an open confessional has on the mental health of students, not to mention the overall campus climate. Some even wonder if the reverse is true - that a social media confessions page can affect the mental health of students and thus the atmosphere of the campus where they work, study and live.

There’s no telling how many confessions are received in a day, or even in one hour - it

takes 12 moderators a few hours each to sort through UC Irvine’s confessions page, Confessions at UCI. UC Berkeley’s page, Confessions from UC Berkeley, posts 10 confessions per day with five moderators. While Berkeley’s turn-around for publishing posts is around one week, UCI’s confessions are posted almost daily with 10 - 20 posts per day. The sheer volume of postings say much about student dependency on these pages for a social stimulus as well as students’ use of the page as somewhat of a cathartic exercise.

For three or four weeks at the beginning of the 2018-2019 academic year, Confessions at

UCI received several anguished posts a day relating to the student posters’ deteriorating mental health. Confessions provided detailed accounts of experiences like severe loneliness, suicide, and graphic accounts of traumatic assaults and their aftermath. In one post, a student described wanting to wait to kill themselves until after their dog died, so the dog wouldn’t have to live in a world without its best friend. In another, a student wrote, “ This whole year has been shit. I finally patched shit up with everyone and tried to kill myself, only to die briefly and wake up in the hospital. Nothing has changed since then and I just want to do it for real this time and make sure it’s done. I’m so tired of waiting for things to get better”.

At one point, the volume and content of posts was so alarming that students were

messaging moderators on Facebook trying to reach out to some of the students who posted this

type of content. Unfortunately, Confessions of UCI moderator Okechukwu Chukwuma was not

able to connect these students directly or send help.

Since the page is anonymous - meaning students submit potential confessions posts online through an anonymous Google Form - even moderators don’t have any idea who these students might be. “There could be someone who wants to kill themselves, and it just sucks, because they’ll feel that either way and I can only do so much as the moderator to help them. I think it’s great that people comment supportive things like, “hang in there” or offer to hang out, because that helps more than a phone number would, ” said Chukwuma.

In 2012, the first Facebook confessions page OMG Confessions, appeared. In function it

was similar to university confessions pages - users posted things they didn’t feel comfortable

saying out loud. While much of the early posts on OMG Confessions were relationship-related, posts having to do with mental health did appear. The first university confessions pages began

appearing around 2013, the same year that national averages of diagnosed major depression increased drastically, according to this article from TIME. While the timing of these two trends may just be a coincidence, it is definitely worth noting. It begs the question whether these are isolated incidents of depression among students or whether, as the volume of posts suggested, these types of posts are reflective of the greater campus climate.

Lana Victoria, a UCI student who views the Confessions at UCI page frequently, once

posted a confession which suggested that “borders were xenophobic” and received multiple

comments insulting her intelligence by telling her to “go back to lower division writing” and

comments asking her to “fuck off”. “I am in upper division writing. My politics in no way reflect

my intelligence”, she said. I’m seeing that a lot on the confessions pages. It’s a swarm of super

angry leftists making us feel more unwelcome and stupid and that translates into the classroom,

,where we are made to feel like we can’t speak up. For me personally I’ve had major anxiety,

like I consider myself a fairly level-headed person, but this has given me lots of anxiety. I have

Rand Paul stickers on my laptop and I get weird looks from people in the classroom. And then I

don’t want to talk and that makes me think that maybe I am stupid, you know what I mean?”

At certain points, because of the anxiety that has developed from negative responses to her

confessions, Victoria stopped wanting to go to class and purposefully signed up for classes that aligned with her point of view. “I know my mental health had declined in last two years because of all of this because I can’t do what I love, I cant join the orgs I want because I feel like I’m going to get assaulted if I do. I feel like I’m just wasting my time at college because this is where I’m supposed to be learning and instead I’m worrying about the comments people are making online.”

Victoria knows that she is not the only one experiencing the effects campus climate

towards conservative students is affecting mental health both online and off.”I’ve been approached privately by dozens of other conservative students at UCI with the same worries.” she said, citing a confession by a conservative student that read “I honestly think if I killed myself most people here would be happy.”.

“There’s a lot of talk of people wanting to kill themselves and it’s really concerning. I

would hate for someone to be having a really low day, thinking today’s the day I can’t do this

anymore and maybe a post from a week ago gets commented on like “you don’t deserve to be at UCI” when this person is already failing classes is not doing well, like that could really set someone off.”

One student on the Mills College Confessions page wrote: “Sometimes,

negative posts inspired comments that were critical of the original post but, in my opinion,

constructive. Another posted that she believed that rape victims are better off “dying trying to

fend off a rapist than to survive as a victim of rape.” This poster was not only told that her ideas were despicable, posters explained why such attitudes are so harmful to rape survivors. This resulted in an incredibly emotional and important discussion about attitudes about sexual

violence. Though perhaps this was an example of a confession that should have been censored, Mills students were able to come together and hopefully reassure those who were triggered by the content of this confession that we as a community reject this person’s beliefs, and that support all sexual assault victims, regardless of whether or not they fought back.” The student said that while they were aware that negative posts and comments existed on their page, they believed that the page was ultimately constructive and uplifting.

Zamir Ramirez, a 5th year student from UC Irvine studying English and Education with

an emphasis in Digital Media agreed, saying he believes university confessions pages are

“creating unfettered dialogue around sexual topics and other taboos that aren’t discussed in

public. In doing this, these confessions allow students to continue these dialogues in the public

sphere away from the internet.”

A study published on November 5, 2018 by Psychiatry Online’s journal of Psychiatric

Services said “the rate of treatment [of university students] increased from 19% in 2007 to 34% by 2017, while the percentage of students with lifetime diagnoses increased from 22% to 36%. The prevalence of depression and suicidality also increased, while stigma decreased.” While comments on UCI’s confessions page certainly shows a greater awareness of mental health stigma more negative or even hateful comments show where there are still gaps in student knowledge of mental health.

Even more concerning, many students, when submitting their confessions online,

categorize their confession under the heading “Rant/Complaint” or “Other”, meaning that there is not a clear understanding among students posting confessions of whether their confession is even dealing with issues of mental health.

Victoria believes the lack of student awareness of mental health stems from a shortage in

advertising the truth about mental health, as well as making students more aware of the resources available to them on campus, and exactly what those resources will assist them with. She believes campus awareness is a first step towards making administration more accountable for student mental health.

“There’s no shame in talking to a counselor. A few years ago, ASUCI had a campaign about ending the stigma against mental health, and over that time, the stigma against mental health disappeared. I’d like for them to bring that back, because it really helped students understand that they are not alone.”