General malaise among students. They are 70% to declare depressive symptoms and a third even have suicidal thoughts, according to the result of a survey carried out by the CSA institute, for the student mutual LMDE to which franceinfo had access on Monday July 11.
>> 70% of students are in a situation of ill-being according to a survey
Behind this rather gloomy picture of mental health are students like Kawthar. She began her studies in 2019. The young woman left her family and arrived alone in Paris. It is in particular the passage from adolescence to adulthood that seems difficult to him with big decisions to be made and choices for the future without room for error. “The notion of failing is extremely stressfulexplains Kawthar. Failure is not acceptable. It comes to us in anguish in the evening, when we do nothing and we have to sleep. We are entering an infernal loop.”
“I felt like I was in a race where I had to get to the end as quickly as possible. I was like, ‘I got my bac, so now it’s good, let’s go The marathon is over and now we’re sprinting to the finish line.'”
The young woman, enrolled in Organizational Sciences at Dauphine University, does not like it. She persists, but redoubles. His morale plummets. She has several depressive symptoms: “Insomnia, eating disorders where I eat anything as soon as I see something and I’m not wellsays Kawthar. I tell myself I have to eat to try to calm down and think about something else. For my part, I was in depression for a period. It was very complicated.”
After many months of ill-being, the student then discovered the Rêves-Jeunes association. She realizes that she is not alone in this situation and consults a psychologist for only two euros per session. About fifteen professionals work there as volunteers, such as Magali Campa. For her, selection in higher education has a lot to do with the mental health of young people: “We have a lot of students who come and often start by saying to us: ‘I feel useless. I feel like I have no impact at all.‘ There are really young people who put a lot of pressure on themselves. For three years, we have really had young people who are doing more and more badly”, she details.
“There is something that also comes up a lot among students, it’s: ‘Me, I’m bad but I’m not worse than anyone else. That’s why I took time to come .'”
Magali Campa, association Dreams-Youthat franceinfo
Not to mention the consequences again of the Covid-19, further notes the psychologist. Among the students who have gone through loneliness, as well as the anxieties of confinement and distance learning, some take time to recover.