A new campaign called We Are DePaul Blue has hit DePaul’s campus, and its message is one that is often not talked about on college campuses – spreading awareness and knowledge around mental health. 

As part of a Public Relations Campaign class, students Mia Hinkebein, Kate Hohenstatt, Alexa Ohm and Meghan Thesing are working behind this project as they participate in a national competition where schools are teamed up with a national non-profit client.

Their assigned organization is Campaign to Change Direction, a group with the philosophy, “If everyone is more open and honest about mental health, we can prevent pain and suffering, and those in need will get the help they deserve”.

“Their mission is essentially what we’re localizing to DePaul, so it’s about mental health, self-care, and most importantly for them, knowing the five signs of emotional suffering,” Ohm said.

These five signs are feeling hopeless, poor self-care, feeling agitated, feeling withdrawn, and personality changes. We Are DePaul Blue is aiming to teach these five signs to the DePaul community.

“Their big thing with the five signs is that we have to start with a common language in order to normalize it,” Hinkebein said.

Thus, the four girls are encouraging individuals and groups to take the pledge to learn them and are also presenting them to student organizations on campus.

Since their launch mid-February, they have received a lot of positive feedback from students, and hope to turn this into a student organization at DePaul in the future.

We Are DePaul Blue’s launch also comes at a fitting time with finals just around the corner. They recently had a “Decompress Your Stress” event, as well as “Positivity Pop Up” where Post-It notes with positive sayings were put up on campus for students to take.

In addition, a lot of events are coming up to encourage self-care and positive wellbeing before the quarter comes to a close, such as a self-care workshop on Feb. 28 and a mindfulness meditation on March 8.

Their aim is to reach out to everybody and get the communication flowing about mental health.

“Even if the people coming to our events are people who are having a great day that day and just want to know this, they have a network of people who at one point are probably going to need them to know what these five signs are or know what that self-care tip is to help them,” Ohm said.

According to We Are DePaul Blue’s website, 57 percent of DePaul students reported feeling overwhelming anxiety, compared to 51 percent from nationally reported data.

They are also teamed up with the Office of Health Promotion and Wellness whose goal, similarly, is promoting a healthy campus and providing students with resources.

Nationally, one in four Americans experience a serious mental illness in any given year. Mental health rates on college campuses are rising, but a lack of resources often gets in the way.

“A big component of our campaign is the friend aspect because people are more likely to reach out to a friend to talk about their mental health than go into a counselor, so it’s about building that community on campus,” Hohenstatt said.

This effort to decrease the stigma around mental health is also happening on a more global level right now. Feb. 26 through March 4 marks National Eating Disorder Awareness (NEDA) week, and their slogan this year is “It’s Time to Talk about It”.

“There’s such a stigma around mental health, people don’t want to say ‘So I was at my therapist’s’ because a lot of people would be embarrassed by that, but it’s normal. Everyone has mental health.” Hinkebein said.

Shame researcher and author Brene Brown said the best way to combat the shame attached to mental illness is by openly discussing it.

“Shame needs three things to grow exponentially in our lives: secrecy, silence, and judgment,” Brown said. Shame cannot survive being spoken. It cannot survive empathy.”

This is exactly what organizations like Campaign to Change Direction and now We Are DePaul Blue aim to do – to talk about it.

To get involved with We Are DePaul Blue, follow them on social media and use the hashtag #WeAreDePaulBlue.