Getting in the groove with the rigors of college classes, managing newfound freedoms and relationships and jostling to fit into campus life are among the rites of passage for most freshmen. At Fort Valley State University in Georgia, these experiences were no different for Jacqueline L. Caskey-James.
They were also among the lessons she and her classmates at the historically Black institution struggled to learn if they were going to make it academically — and be well mentally, in the process.
“People were struggling with so many issues and behaviors, but we just didn’t talk about them. We didn’t know how,” she says.
That was in 1979, when Caskey-James was a first-time college student and mental illness was real to most, but hushed, even if what ailed you didn’t have a diagnosis or there was no one to help a young, Black person cope. The events of four decades ago sound like yesterday when Caskey-James tells how she and her friends watched day after day as their roommate crumbled and broke under the weight of college. They didn’t know how to help her, or what triggered her constant crying.
“In those days, we had a dorm mother who would sit and talk to her as she cried and cried and cried. The dorm mother would give her hugs and love on her, but that wasn’t enough,” says Caskey-James of the roommate who eventually slipped away from school and out of their lives.
The student never returned to campus. Decades later, they learned that their roommate had committed suicide, which is now the second-leading cause of death among college students.
It’s a Different World
