Nov. 11--A year ago, Robert Freyer was lying on his dorm room floor at the University of Connecticut, a bottle of painkillers in one hand, his cellphone in the other, deciding whether to overdose on the pills.

He had been in a car accident six months earlier, was suffering with the recovery process and wasn't sure life was worth living. At that moment, his cellphone rang. His younger brother, still in high school, wanted help with his math homework.

It got Freyer up off the floor and made him think about how his family would feel if he took his own life. He decided to get help.

"After realizing I did have a reason to live, I realized how bad I really was," said Freyer.

This fall is very different for Freyer. After six months of counseling on campus and some physical healing as well, he is feeling more positive about his life and has joined a group on campus that reaches out to students with mental and emotional problems. They work to raise awareness about mental illness and about the help available on campus.

Such groups -- this one is called Active Minds -- have flourished on campuses in Connecticut and across the country in recent years as the numbers of students with severe psychiatric problems seeking help with emotional and mental problems has increased.

"I think our growth and the increase in conversation about mental health is representative of a new generation on college campuses," said Alison Malmon, the founder of Washington D.C.-based Active Minds. The group is six years old and has 226 chapters. "People in college are different now than 20 years ago: They are more willing to talk about mental-health issues.

"My generation grew up with Prozac advertisements on television. It doesn't seem as scary to us," she said.

Indeed, more than 90 percent of college counselors report a noticeable increase in the numbers of students with severe psychiatric problems seeking help. And the rate of college students reporting that they have ever been diagnosed with depression has increased from 10.3 percent in the spring of 2000 to 14.9 percent in the spring of 2008, according to the American College Health Association's National College Health Assessment.

The University of Michigan's Daniel Eisenberg, who researches mental health issues and college students, says that about 15 percent on campus have probable depression, about 10 percent have a probable anxiety disorder and a far greater number have many of the symptoms of an eating disorder. Every year, 1,000 to 1,200 college students die of suicide.

With many college counseling-offices over-burdened, Malmon said, it makes sense to get the entire college community -- including students -- involved in promoting mental health on campus.

Variety Of Programs

At UConn, Southern Connecticut State University, the University of New Haven and other Connecticut colleges, Active Minds groups set up tables in lobbies with information about mental and emotional illnesses; run programs during National Suicide Prevention Week; invite speakers to campus; run de-stressing activities during exam times and conduct other programs.

Quite similar to Active Minds is the college campus program of the National Alliance for Mentally Ill. A chapter of NAMI On Campus was started last year at Central Connecticut State University.

At UConn, Barry Schreier, director of counseling and mental health services, was instrumental in getting the Active Minds chapter organized. He said that research shows that the majority of college students who commit suicide have talked to someone about it beforehand, but not to a professional.

"If they are not reaching out to us, who are they telling?" Schreier asked. "They are probably telling their peers. ... We need to empower students to be active in the conversation about mental health on campus."

By talking about mental health on campus, Schreier said, students communicate to their peers that "it's OK to talk about it; it's OK to seek help; it's OK if you are struggling with a mental health issue. It's a de-stigmatizing message."

Recently, at UConn, Freyer and other members of Active Minds conducted one of their favorite frequent activities: "Cookies and Compliments."

The idea is to hand out free cookies and a kind word, to simply brighten someone's day. "If someone is feeling really low and down, maybe that one compliment will help them find the joy in life," said Jeremy Bersin the president of the group who helped found the UConn chapter a year ago.

At Central Connecticut State University, Patricia Taglialavore, a junior and president of the group, became involved with NAMI On Campus because she is a psychology major and has struggled with obsessive compulsive disorder.

Taglialavore said that by reaching out to people she hopes to let them know "they are not weird, they are not crazy" if they experience mental or emotional difficulties.

The simplest way to make a fellow student feel better, she said, is to tell them, "I know exactly the way you feel and it can get better."

Lila Coddington, who advises the NAMI On Campus group, said she finds that when students who have had mental or emotional problems "begin to talk about their life and their story, the stigma for them begins to melt away."

At Southern Connecticut State University, Katie Ellum, co-president of the Active Minds program, said, "I really get a kick out of helping other people. ... I helped a girl who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder who didn't know what was going on. ... It's important to feel like you're understood, like somebody gets it."

At UConn, Freyer, who is writing a book about his experience, said that had he belonged to the club last year, he might have recognized his problem earlier and gotten help. He finds that being part of the club now helps him and, he hopes, others.

"I like to talk to people because I've been there," Freyer said. "I think I can at least talk with them even if I'm not completely healed."

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