With the stress of the semester halfway over, the TCU Campus Recreation & Wellness Promotion’s Wellness Center hosted an opportunity for students to have an open dialogue surrounding the importance of mental health allyship. 

“In terms of midterms, we at the Wellness Education office are always consistently looking to support students because we know it’s a tough time, so this is just one of the many things we do,” said Sarah Rasing, a graduate assistant for the TCU Wellness Center and the event organizer. “We also offer programming and different outreaching campaign events that both our office and our wellness peer educators, these are our student leaders, host, that they put on throughout campus.”

Erica Etcheverry, a first-year psychology major, has been stressed with school in general but said midterms add an additional pressure.

“One of my biggest focuses coming into college, and being a psychology major, was the stigma surrounding mental health. So, that’s such a big and important thing for me,” said Etcheverry. “My parents are very heavy believers in that stigma, and so getting therapy was really hard for me until something serious happened. And I deeply believe that shouldn’t be the case. Being a [first-year] in my first round of midterms I definitely didn’t know what to expect, and so that caused almost more anxiety than stress.”

The Wellness Center has other Wellness Workshops taking place throughout the rest of October and November that students can attend.

“Our overall goal is that anybody on this campus or in this community that might be feeling a little alone right now, that they find support,” said Rasing. “That they find somebody, something, an organization, that they find belonging on this campus. Because everyone and anyone is welcomed here, and no matter what a student is going through, we have people who are resources on this campus that want to help them and want them to succeed.”