The weight of college stress can often feel overbearing, however, add a mental disorder to the list and it may feel as if the weight is crushing you.

Some students may even suffer from dissociative disorders, which disrupt the normal integration of consciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, body representation, motor control and behavior. These symptoms can obstruct every area of psychological functioning, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and Mental Disorders.

Dissociative amnesia is “characterized by an inability to recall autobiographical information,” according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and Mental Disorders, and is essentially the inability to recall memories that normally could be remembered.

Loreto Prieto, professor of psychology at Iowa State, said that dissociative disorder typically results from three main causes: brain injury, substance abuse or traumatic shock.

“Dissociative has to do with kind of a splitting off, to break apart of dissociate from a core center or identity,” Prieto said.

People with this disorder can even wander elsewhere without realizing it.

“Somebody in a dissociative state might go somewhere — suddenly wake up in Las Vegas and wonder, ‘how the heck’ did I get here,” Prieto said. “And really, they would have little memory in terms of the recollection behind getting there, any motives behind getting there, reason — whatever, they’re just kind of at a loss.”

More common, Prieto said, is where people experience dissociative states during emotional trauma.

“It is essentially neurologically or biologically disrupting the brain to encode and track information into our memories,” Prieto said.

For example, if a person experiences a car crash, the overload of sensory input can result in them having no recollection of the moments before and after the crash.

“It’s like a deer in the headlights, you know, we get gripped because there is so much that we’re trying to deal with and we don’t always process it well and sometimes we need to choose not to,” Prieto said.

People can also consciously choose to distance themselves from a particularly traumatic memory.

“We see this frequently in trauma where people are victims of robbery, but particularly victims of rape,” Prieto said.

If a rape victim were to try and tell the story to the police, a lot of times, they tell disjointed stories or remember bits and pieces later.

“Sometimes, people erroneously expect somebody who has been through a huge trauma like that to be able to tell the story from start to finish and get all the details,” Prieto said. “But, in fact, that kind of dissociation is the most common thing we tend to do to help cope with very traumatic things that we are experiencing.”

Prieto said that people may resort to counting or sectioning off bricks of time, and these are just extensions of normal things we do to make it easier for us to get through the monotony of something.

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and Mental Disorders, the symptoms of dissociative amnesia can cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other significant areas of functioning. Depression is a notable diagnostic result of these symptoms.

Symptoms such as depression and distress can have an immensely harsh impact on a college student.

“Depression and anxiety are the most common reasons that students come in for counseling services,” said Stephanie Carrera, clinical graduate student in psychology. “If we’re thinking of kind of a deficit perspective, they’re already starting with less energy and less resources at the beginning of their day, so the different activities during the day take more effort for someone who has depression or anxiety because they’re already starting off with less.”

A college student would then struggle with doing daily activities such as going to class, completing homework assignments and interacting with peers and professors.

Another consequence of symptoms of depression and distress is failure to seek out social support.

“Some people who are very much in that negative spiral say, ‘well, nobody wants to connect with me, nobody wants to put effort into having a relationship with me — I’m just going to socially isolate myself,’” Carrera said. This is harmful because it is most likely during a time where they need more connection and support. It is not uncommon for a student to then withdraw from social activities such as student organizations, group meetings and group projects.

Carrera said they may also tend to keep their troubles to themselves to the point where it’s a secret.

“Another effect that depression and anxiety can have is a sense of hopelessness,” Carrera said.

This can lead to a student giving up and dropping out. Carrera said that a person with these symptoms tends to downplay their accomplishments and abilities, so bringing that back through compassion can be healing to them.

“Sometimes we grow up feeling a sense of shame from our past experiences and we take that shame with us into a college setting,” Carrera said. “Through the empowerment, through the relational work, we can change and transform that change into self-kindness, into healthy anger, sometimes, into sadness.”