In Response to Yale’s Mental Health Policy

I was recently made aware of a policy for Yale students who are struggling with suicidal thoughts or behaviors. Read about it for yourself so you can make your own opinions, but I found it extremely distressing. In a period of time where so many of us are trying to de-stigmatize mental health and mental illness, this policy makes taking care of your own mental wellness punishable in a way that is truly unfitting and unfair.

I want to assume that the administrators who created this policy were not trying to make it more difficult to get support when students are suicidal, but I believe that is, in fact, exactly what can happen. According to the article linked above, the policy states that students are encouraged to take time off from school if they need to to tend to their mental health. That's the good news. The bad news is that they then have to reapply to the school to be re-admitted.

I don't think the same policy applies if you take a Leave of Absence for cancer treatments, or for other physical illnesses or injuries. And while I have never been a student at Yale, I can only imagine the pressure of getting in to the school the first time would have been a lot. Imagine having to get in twice?!

I imagine that some people won't want to do it. So they decide to "tough it out" and put their mental health on the back burner so they can just stay in school, which may have been a contributing factor to their poor mental health in the first place. It's a vicious cycle that this policy only perpetuates rather than alleviates. And it puts the most vulnerable students at even greater risk.

I do hope that Yale will reconsider their policy and think about how rules like this make talking about mental health even more stigmatizing and make accessing mental health supports more challenging.