Many thanks to Preeti Chemiti ’23 for her important opinion piece (On the Campus, September issue). As Princeton students manage their campus careers, especially with their peer expectations of “effortless perfection” amid Princeton’s high-status, high-achievement, high-stress environment, they surely will find that more mental health issues will undoubtedly arise. This is even more true now that Princeton was just ranked by The Wall Street Journal as the best college in the nation, which will create even more of its own pressures of expectations.
All this can add to the weight of other mental health issues that all people everywhere carry from their backgrounds, family histories, and other situational experiences, including the effects of serious and persistent mental illness like schizophrenia, clinical depression, and severe anxiety. In addition to campus-based resources such as at the Counseling Center, near campus is NAMI Mercer, the National Alliance of Mental Illness Mercer County chapter. Part of a stellar national network, NAMI Mercer supports, educates, and advocates for all loved ones with any form of mental issue. We provide resources and connections. We offer support groups. We help individual loved ones and their family members address seemingly intractable problems of mental illness. NAMI Mercer is an ever-ready resource of all possible help and support for any of the University community at any time. Learn more at www.namimercer.org. We are here to help.
Editor’s note: The writer is president of NAMI Mercer.