Mental Health At Caltech

The first time I felt an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and loneliness at Caltech, I had yet to hear the Fleming cannon fire even once.

Stuck in a tiny Braun room on an otherwise nondescript July day, I sat there recalling the events of the previous days. It was the summer before my freshman year, barely a few weeks into the FSRI program, and I had another Title IX investigation meeting to join later that day — a new yet now-regular occurrence thanks to one man’s selfish, callous actions. And exactly what support do I have for going through all this? An after-hours Student Wellness Services (SWS) Counseling hotline that told me to “meditate.” I had hung up in disbelief. “Just meditate” is now a running joke in my friend group whenever someone talks about the hopelessness they feel, inflicted by Caltech itself.

The moment fall term began, I, a frosh still on pass-fail, called SWS Counseling proper to set up some counseling sessions. At the very first session, they told me, “We only can provide short-term care of 8 sessions per issue. You have to find a provider in the community for long-term care.” “Short-term.” “Community provider.” So you’re telling me, an institution boasting a several-billion dollar endowment (according to the 2021 Endowment Report from the Caltech Investment Office), cannot provide more than approximately 8 counseling sessions for a school with under 1000 undergraduates and under 1,500 graduate students for each “issue” someone comes to them for? Every session I attended with SWS Counseling, I was keenly made aware of how I can’t keep going for long. How am I supposed to untangle years’ worth of issues in 8 sessions? Issues that would prevent me from doing my best here at Caltech? The answer is: I can’t. SWS Counseling isn’t designed for providing long-term, continuous support, something I and many others had to learn the hard way.

Editor’s Note: Caltech now offers students 12 free counseling sessions per year through TimelyCare, an online healthcare provider. Find details at wellness.caltech.edu or google “Caltech TimelyCare”. SWS also has full-time staff who can help narrow down a shortlist of community providers that can help with your needs, accept your insurance, etc.

As I continued through my frosh year, I began to dislike Caltech more and more. I saw what it did to the people I cared the most here. As I write this, the memories come rushing back. Me trying to convince a friend to please get off the floor, we can do this, we can pass this class, I can help you, please get up. Me pleading a friend that we love her, please stay safe, please be okay. Me bringing food to a friend who hadn’t left their room in days, hiding under the covers as if to hide from Caltech itself. Me, sobbing to my father on a random bench that I made a mistake choosing Caltech—that Caltech made a mistake choosing me.

But, Caltech is quick to say that our mental health rates are the same as our peer institutions. That’s what the statistics boast! We are just as depressed as anywhere else! It’s not that worrying, everyone!

Have you ever lied? I’m sure the people who responded on these surveys lied. I’m sure some people refuse to fill out these surveys. I’m sure, sure as the fact that I know people at this school who were sent to the psychiatric ward and became even more traumatized, that this school is held together by 20-year-olds trying to make it through and not leaving their friends behind, no matter what. The Caltech undergraduate community is permeated with this sentiment, and it’s sobering and upsetting. It simply is not sustainable!

Finally, after one major incident that was my breaking point, I could not take it anymore. This school, in its current state, just isn’t the right place to deal with both academic and personal issues, due to its culture and the mistrust directed towards those at Caltech responsible for mental health care. And, this school is so small, you know? So many people know each other, and so many people worry about each other. I can see it in my friends’ eyes. How they worry about me. How they made sure I came to House Dinner and ate. How it’s their time to drag me out of my bed, to drag me out of my miserable blanket nest on the floor, to get me up and going when all I wanted to do was go somewhere far, far away from Caltech. And I realized that I couldn’t do this to them. I can’t take my friends down with me. I can’t personally perpetuate this cycle of suffering towards myself and my friends.

So I asked SWS to connect me to some community providers so I could get the help I needed. They sent me a list of people to contact, but I had to do the rest on my own. It was thanks to the kindness of my friends, who volunteered to call the offices for me, and my mentor, who let me cry on the floor of their office and checked in on me and genuinely cared, that I managed to connect to a psychologist eventually. I also managed to connect with a therapist who helped me navigate what I brought into Caltech and continued to carry, along with the many other things I picked up along the way. This was when I realized that I didn’t dislike Caltech *that *much—I dislike the environment it perpetuates because its students are constantly stressed, sad, and suffering.

It led me to ask: why can’t we trust the resources that are supposed to be here for us? We want to use SWS Counseling. We want it to be a good resource to rely on. But we are afraid of what it means for Caltech to recognize us as humans who are vulnerable. We may be “academic weapons,” as the kids say nowadays, but even weapons need maintenance. There is a distrust between Caltech’s students and the administration that works towards supporting its students, and I believe that if we are able to bridge that gap and create trust, more and more students can reach their full potential here.

It wasn’t Caltech as a school, organization, or entity that helped me. It was its individual people who helped me get what I needed, which was on the outside and almost out of reach. It was the Peer Advocates, it was House leadership, it was the students—people just like me—who made me myself again. These are my people. I don’t think that has to be the only way, and I don’t want it to stay that way. More than through surveys, more than through forms, I want Caltech students to feel like the school as a whole is here to support them, and I want to do my best for the rest of my time here to achieve this.