Story by Maddy Williams
Featured Photo courtesy of Elliot Certain
If you want more news like this, sign up for the Sidelines weekly newsletter here! Find it in your inbox every Thursday afternoon.
A 2023 study found that more than 60% of college students wrestle with at least one mental health issue. Elliot Certain, an MTSU senior, turns this statistic into reality.
He’s one of the over 90,000 college students reported as having mental health issues.
The way people treated him in the community as a transgender person directly affected his experience with anxiety and depression. Navigating his mental health as a college student created an additional burden to his overfilled calendar and busy schedule.
“There was a lot of confusion, a lot of frustration right around the time I was going through puberty,” Certain said.
Certain went through puberty around age 13, and his mental health issues shortly followed. He grew up as a tomboy, the type that kept his hair slicked back in a ponytail and body covered in boy’s clothes despite his mom putting him in dresses.
“When I was in these situations where my femininity was really called out and the focus of the conversation or when I was dressing really femininely, I would get really sick to my stomach,” Certain said. “I felt like I was on the precipice of being sick all of the time, so that was something that was really difficult for me.”
Certain represents the many students affected by mental health problems at Middle Tennessee State University. In 2021, MTSU sent out the Healthy Minds Study, and over 1,900 students participated.
Graphic by Maddy Williams
The results showed that 41% of MTSU students experienced anxiety, 49% experienced depression and 48% said they needed help with mental health. 16% of students reported suicidal thoughts.
On campus, four offices provide services for students’ mental health. They include Counseling Services, the Center for Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), Health Services and the Center for Health and Human Services (CHHS).
“Counseling Services offers individual and group counseling, workshops, drop in ‘Let’s Talk’ sessions, and case management,” said Lisa Schrader, distance learning lecturer in the MTSU Department of Health and Human Performance.
The Let’s Talk sessions take place in Student Union room 216 Monday to Friday from 2 to 4 p.m. These informal services don’t replace counseling but offer a quick resource for students to access when they need it.
All service providers at MTSU are licensed or credentialed professionals. CHHS trains students and faculty to notice and help people struggling with their mental health. There are also state and national resources, such as crisis phone and text lines, that students can utilize for free.
“CAPS offers individual counseling and workshops provided by graduate students in MTSU’s master’s program under the supervision of licensed professionals,” Schrader said. “Health Services offers low cost medical and pharmaceutical services, and students can see a doctor at no cost. Free health coaching for mental health topics like stress management, goal setting, and prioritization is also available.”
Students can find their place on campus and identify resources that work for them. Even if MTSU only provides a steppingstone to additional resources, students can use it as their first step.
Stephen Robertson, lecturer in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at MTSU, said mental health on college campuses seems to be worse after the pandemic.
Schrader agrees that more students experience poor mental health compared to 10 years ago.
On a positive note, Robertson said students are more open to talking about mental health than they once were. Many students take full-time course loads, work a job, join extracurriculars, and some have internships as well, leaving them with little to no time for themselves.
“There’s even more pressure now than there has been on students,” Robertson said. “The expectations are so high, and there’s so much demanded of students, and they demand so much of themselves.”
He added, “I’m kinda glad I’m not a student these days,” Robertson said.
Certain didn’t initially understand why he felt this way about his identity and appearance. This led to his mental health taking a toll.
“I was hospitalized for mental health issues because I didn’t look the way that I wanted to look, but I didn’t know how I wanted to look,” Certain said.
Growing up in a conservative Christian home made it difficult for Certain to feel comfortable in his own skin, he said. He didn’t come out until he moved out of his parents’ home at the age of 18.
His brother didn’t take his coming out well. They last spoke a year ago. His brother sent countless messages to Certain about how “he was going to hell.”
This impacted Certain’s mental health.
“If someone loves you, being a different gender identity or sexuality is not going to change their perception of you,” Certain said.
One tool Certain uses to track his progress with his mental health is an app called “I Am Sober.” This app tracks how long someone stayed clean from any habit they struggle with.
He uses the app to hold himself accountable from self-harm. He reached his six-year mark within the last year.
Certain wears a promise ring on his pointer finger as “a promise to myself and to the people that I care about to stay alive,” said Certain. He wants to go to counseling to improve his mental health, but he finds it difficult to locate nearby LGBTQIA+ friendly counseling services in his budget.
While Schrader didn’t know of any specifically LGBTQIA+ focused counseling services at MTSU, all offices on campus “maintain a commitment to inclusion and want to serve students representing sexual minorities.”
She added that most staff went through Safe Zone training, which is a program that creates allies of the LGBTQIA+ community at MTSU.
“The data is pretty clear that students who do not identify as straight suffer from mental illnesses at disproportionate rates, and we absolutely want to help those students,” Schrader said.
Certain has experienced his fair share of challenges at MTSU. He’s had poor experiences with faculty and students.
For example, He lived on a female floor of his dorm building his junior year despite living as a man for several years. Certain recalled seeing a slur on his dorm room door’s whiteboard.
“I would get mean notes every once and a while and overhear people calling me a tranny,” Certain said. “It was hurtful at first. I think at some point being a trans person that you’re either going to get your feelings hurt all of the time or you have to recognize that people are uneducated.”
Despite his name being changed on his school email, D2L, and Pipeline, one of his former professors called out his dead name that they had remembered from semesters prior.
“It’s not my responsibility to educate them on how to treat me. I should be a person first, not a transgender person first,” Certain said.
Mental health directly impacted Robertson’s life as well. His wife started experiencing mental health issues in her 40s which eventually led to her becoming disabled.
“She wound up having all kinds of symptoms of different mental disorders,” Robertson said.
Her family had a history of mental health problems, but this history didn’t come to light until later.
He lost his 57-year-old wife to a heart attack after being married for 36 years.
“I want the students to feel like they can talk about their mental illness problems … so that they go get help when they run into problems,” said Robertson.
Robertson shares his wife’s story with his students to make them aware of mental health issues and to help them feel comfortable discussing their own struggles.
“Reach out and talk with someone on campus that you trust—a teacher, an advisor, an RA, a coach, a counselor, a doctor, et cetera,” Schrader said. “They can help you find the resources on campus and in many cases will even walk with you to the resource, so you don’t have to go alone.”
Robertson is a prime example of this. He offers a listening ear to any student who needs someone to talk to. He will provide them with any advice he can and then refer them to the counseling center.
Schrader reminds students and faculty that they are never alone and to remain hopeful. Sharing mental health struggles helps students heal, she said.
“Most college students will experience things like feeling down, feeling overwhelmed, feeling anxious, or feeling mentally exhausted at some point in their college years, if not multiple times, so a student should never feel like something is uniquely wrong with them if that happens,” Schrader said.
To contact Lifestyles Editor Destiny Mizell and Assistant Lifestyles Editor Shamani Salahuddin, email lifestyles@mtsusidelines.com. For more news, visit www.mtsusidelines.com, or follow us on Instagram at MTSUSidelines or on X at @MTSUSidelines.
