Those who suffer from mental health issues should seek help for their struggles, an AACC therapist said.

Melissa Boling, a personal counselor at AACC, said the campus makes mental health resources available to students on campus for free.

Therapists are available for confidential meetings with students by appointment.

“We had a big ’20 and 2021,” Boling, who has a master’s degree in clinical psychology, said. “We’re definitely … still busy, but I would say they were the busiest times for us.”

Between 2020 and 2021, AACC therapists had 563 counseling sessions with students, Boling said. That was a 42% increase from the year before.

“Students were just really struggling with doing the virtual learning,” Boling said. “So a lot of students needed support around how to kind of be more structured, like while working from the home environment, because at that time, they really couldn’t be on campus.”

Students also were “dealing with the isolation, not being able to be around their family or friends,” Boling said. Students were dealing with “probably some kind of depression a little bit related to that, and anxiety and worry about … what was going to happen in the future and … the course of the pandemic.”

Even now, Boling said, many students are “feeling overwhelmed with all their classes. You know, if they’re also working a job [while] in school … [and] … have families, I think it’s like trying to balance everything and just kind of feeling overly stressed. … That’s a big one.”

The college offers counseling services in person Monday through Wednesday in Student Union Room 206. Students also may meet with counselors virtually any weekday.