College can be a difficult time for anyone, especially young men. This is a time when young men try to find themselves, find out what they want to stand for in life, pursue their interests, as well as begin to plan for their future. All this pressure can add up and lead to increased stress and, sometimes, mental health symptoms. Find out how individual counseling for young men in Wisconsin can help you learn and grow to become your best self.
College Stress Adds Up
College can be both exciting and scary. For most, this is your last venture into academia before stepping into the real world. The bar is high as you figure out what you want to go to school for, what type of career you want to pursue, and the pressure of all this stress. Stress can exacerbate underlying mental health symptoms and/or lead to changes in mood. This can then negatively impact levels of motivation, sleep patterns, appetite, and your quality of life.
Issues with Low Self-Esteem
College stress can also impact a person’s sense of self and increase their self-doubt while decreasing their self-esteem. Young men can find that they lose themselves due to the deadlines of schoolwork, college athletic pressure, and trying to be accepted by their peers. The noise of college is immense and we can easily forget who we are as we try to get by.
Trauma Symptoms Reappear
The stress of college can exacerbate past experiences of trauma. The culmination of college stress can put pressure on the body, as well as the nervous system. This current stress can reactivate past periods of repressed trauma or overwhelm often in dormant states that typically go unnoticed in daily life. Relationship or relationship issues of betrayal can also reopen wounds from childhood.
Desire to be Perfect
Often in this society, there’s a desire to be perfect or to pursue perfection. However, perfectionism can also paralyze you and stop you from moving towards your values and the things that you care deeply for. We may have the strange thought that if we’re perfect, our future lives will also be perfect. But that’s not how it works. As college moves forward, we figure out that it’s often the people who fail or struggle who develop the most tenacity to overcome adversity in the future.
Anxiety or Depression Symptoms
The stress of academics and social pressure can directly increase a college student’s anxiety or depression symptoms. There are many moving parts while in college and trying to keep up with all of them can run you into the ground. We may feel deep down like we’ve started to drift in life or forgotten about the things that we were passionate about. We may push off or delay assignments, stop adhering to workout routines, and begin to use substances all as a means to fit in. All this can come together and increase depressive symptoms that you may have faced when you were younger or maybe it’s brand new to you.
Individual Counseling for College-Aged Men in Wisconsin Can Help
Find out how individual counseling for college men can help you regulate your nervous system, identify and follow your values, and find internal peace. You’re not alone. Instead of white knuckling or avoiding the challenges in your life, face them, and you’ll find out what kind of strength you have locked deep inside. If you’d like to read more about college stress, click here.
I’m currently accepting new clients for both in-person and virtual therapy. In-person therapy works best for those who live near Franklin, Oak Creek, Racine, Pleasant Prairie, and Kenosha, Wisconsin. Online therapy sessions work best for those who live throughout the State of Wisconsin.
If you would like to learn more about how individual counseling can help you, call 720.295.6703 or submit a form here. We’ll schedule a 15-minute consultation call to ensure we are a good fit to work together. If we both agree that we are a good fit to work together, we’ll set our first appointment during the call. I look forward to supporting you in this process.
