Sherlock in Relation to Student Mental Health

What constitutes a successful student? Someone who makes good grades (As, preferably, or Bs), is social, participates in a lot of clubs and extracurriculars? Those things might all look good on paper, but “successful” shouldn’t mean what’s going to be seen on a resume and how hirable or desirable someone is to a job or a program. Success varies between student to student, but the encouragement that someone needs to have a good academic career, a lively social life, and plenty of things that go on a resume is harmful to students, hurting an already vulnerable demographic.

Mental health is a very prevalent issue for college-age students, from something as seemingly simple as depression to conditions and disabilities that need a lot of care, such as so-called “low-functioning autism.” A student who is depressed could lose their motive to do work or socialize, or to join a group, and their academic career could suffer from long periods of time taken off to try and get back on their feet. Socializing for someone who has a disability such as autism, or BPD or any one or several of lots of other kinds of conditions, can be an all but impossible task, which can lead to them falling into depressive states and hurts their education.

What it boils down to is quite simple: everyone, regardless of who they are and what they have or don’t have, deserve an equal opportunity to get a good education, and that means resources to be helped if they need and want help.

On our site, you will see three different headings for three of the major characters on the BBC series Sherlock – Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, and Moriarty. Each one of these men suffers from some sort of mental illness, disability, or other condition that requires help. Each one has a different way of coping with his struggles, and each one has different access to resources that could help them.

We are using these three men to show how having resources and access to help, or, alternatively, not having access to resources and help, can affect a person who is suffering with mental health. Some of their coping methods are less than ideal, some are outright bad.  Some of them rely on other people for help, some handle things solely on their own. But, bear in mind that their struggles are only three versions of how people live with mental health, specifically bad mental health. In reality, there are lots of factors that can influence what someone does.

We hope that reading these fictional and real accounts can help you realize what your students and faculty may need, and that you learn new ways to help people who are in similar situations. Remember, mental health is a field that is not well understood, at least right now, and the more you try to educate yourself, the more good you will do. We are all learning and healing together. It’s a messy job, but the reward is worth it.