As the weather turns drizzly and dreary, the minds of some SF State students have followed suit, filling with dark thoughts, depression and some suicidal scares.

Late last month, police services were summoned repeatedly for welfare checks on students in the campus dorms and residence halls, records show.

On Sept. 24, at 7 a.m., police responded to a call at an apartment on Bucardi Drive for a check “on a possible suicidal person that was last heard from a week ago,” according to police logs. The student was fine, they decided.

One day later, in the early afternoon, a Resident Assistant at Centennial Village called for help after a female student ingested 18 Tylenol pills “in a possible suicide attempt.” She was taken to UCSF Medical Center, treated and released. She eventually returned home, unable to complete the semester.

There is help available, but with more than 29,000 students enrolled in classes at SF State, campus mental health counselors say they are overwhelmed and understaffed. Counseling and Psychological Services, which offers free help, has five full-time trained counselors available on weekdays, but not nights or weekends, according to Interim Director Lupe Avila.

Faraway parents concerned for their children are often the ones to alert police services to do welfare checks on resident students. On Sept. 20, a mother who had not spoken to her daughter in several days, according to police files, asked they visit her child's dorm room at Centennial Village. “The last time her mother spoke to her,” the log read, “she sounded depressed and her speech was slurred.”

The first two years of college, RAs observe, students face challenges of varying nature each with their own pitfalls. Freshmen sometimes feel scared and lost, often away from home for the first time.

“They might have been the big fish in high school and now they feel lost in a sea of people,” said RA Alyssa Miles.

The loss of identity can be a rattling and dangerous thing to deal with; Miles said it often leads to heavy drinking which can often make it easier to make new friends.

By the second year, students have new challenges to deal with, different but often equally daunting, Miles said. Sophomores living on their own, whether in dorms or apartments, are expected to cook for themselves, get a side job, and take more care of themselves while remaining productive in school.

Making new friends on campus can help because it provides a support system—RAs say that it is often friends or roommates who alert them of someone’s heavy drinking or depressed state—but when relationships turn sour, they can be a burden.

On Oct. 2, Police Services were dispatched for a welfare check on a resident in Mary Park Hall who “was suffering a break-up with a boyfriend,” according to police records.

With a resident population of 2,600 students, there may not be enough hands to help or ears to listen.

Miles supervises 84 students and has colleagues who have as many as 120, all of which make it hard to keep emotional tabs on everyone.

The problem is that colleges may be preparing students for the work force but are not giving them the skills necessary to cope with life’s troubles, according to Ken Burrows, an SF State professor with a Master’s in Public Health.

“You add your own neurotic tendencies and own past family life and face your own adulthood,” he said. “To tell you the truth, most students don’t know how to be an adult.”

As director of the campus’ Holistic Health Learning Center, Burrows said that in his 30 years of teaching he has never seen students have a harder time dealing with stress than today. Students, he said, are “hamstrung by their behavior, just hoping and surviving” on small adjustments.

“It’s not like drinking less coffee or changing the temperature in your room. You often feel stuck,” Burrows said. “The pain of life is not something people are taught to deal with constructively.”

The Holistic Health department offers three core classes that Burrows says can give student tools to deal with life’s roadblocks.

But many students seem to know that: the core group of classes is the second most popular one, after Human Sexuality, SF State students take to complete their Segment III graduation requirement.

For immediate and around-the-clock help, anyone can turn to SF Suicide Prevention, a free crisis line with over 150 trained volunteers on call.

While this service has few accredited therapists and psychiatrists to talk to, it does provide invaluable access to a “free person to bounce things off of” according to SFSP Clinical Director Sally Cerreta.

The center typically gets 45,000 calls a year, or 200 a day, from all walks of life, according to Cerreta. Open since 1963, it is believed to be the oldest crisis line in the country.

Under the link “Help, I feel suicidal” in the SFSP Web site, the heading begins with a message: “You are not alone!” Feelings of depression, angry or suicidal are natural and widespread, they say, and recognizing that can be the first step to getting help.

“Feeling depressed is kind of a normal part of feeling alive,” Cerreta said.

For help contact: 24 Hour Crisis line (415) 781-0500.