In this particularly stressful time of year, various groups on campus are organizing events oriented around self-care, some of which include inviting visiting speakers to bring their perspectives to the topic. On Wednesday, Pittsburgh-based Rabbi Shais Taub was invited to Oberlin by Chabad to offer insights on creating a healthy environment within one’s own mind, and ignoring that which distracts you from your purpose. Rabbi Taub, a scholar, teacher, and author who NPR has referred to as “an expert in Jewish mysticism and the Twelve Steps,” provides spiritual guidance to people facing stressful situations in their lives. After studying at the Central Lubavitch Yeshiva in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, he combined his relig...

Psychiatric and counseling services on college campuses typically receive inadequate attention compared to other areas of health care, and Oberlin is no exception. While past disparities can be attributed to the invisibility of mental conditions and suppressive social influence, ignorance is not a viable excuse. It’s time for the institution to stop putting mental health on the backburner. In a Feb. 6 article published by STAT News, Megan Thielking reported a lack of mental health resources on campuses nationwide. From small colleges to major universities, “Students often have to wait weeks just for an initial intake exam to review their symptoms,” Thielking wrote. “The wait to see a psychiatrist who can pre...

Trigger Warning: This article contains discussion of eating disorders. Over the summer I found myself sitting in my bed at three in the morning writing an email to my mother, confessing to her that I had been living with an eating disorder for the last three years. That night, while trying in vain to fall asleep, something clicked in my brain. I was done hiding my disease, done suffering alone and ready for help. Her response the next morning: “I already knew; I love you.” My eating disorder crept up on me during the summer before my sophomore year at Oberlin. It snaked its way into my life so maliciously and silently that I never even recognized it for what it was. I wasn’t planning on losing weight; I neve...

This week not only ushers in a slew of students stressing over midterms but also signals that Oberlin is about to begin its annual descent into the unending bleakness of winter. Especially at a college with such a geographically diverse student body, the emotional shock of this cold can be unforgiving to those unaccustomed to it. While many may feel affected by the change in weather, most of them will grow used to it after a while. Some of them, however, will not. These students suffer from seasonal affective disorder, also known as seasonal depression, a very real condition that most people don’t realize or believe exists. Attitudes toward seasonal depression — and depression in general — often reflect indifference...