The end-of-the-year syndrome is setting in.

You have four tests in one day and a paper due by midnight. You are putting aside luxuries (like showering and eating a full meal) to try to maintain your grades thus far. Procrastination won’t best you this year, but yet again, it is Monday morning and you are only now starting to think about the three-page paper due at 1. You are determined that you will have everything done, and no professor will notice a hole in the work you have completed.

You are persistent. You will not let a single class, project, paper, sentence, or word slip through your fingers.

Carly Wingert was always a standout when it came to crunch time. Wingert managed to be president of Student Union Board, a member or Drury’s cross country and track team, a leader of Drury Volunteer Corps, and Habitat for Humanity, a full-time student — all while working part-time. She kept herself busy, even though she could feel herself slipping. She did everything to her best ability and would not let a single thing slip through her fingers.

“I had known something was wrong for a few years,” Wingert says about a sickness that led to her quitting her job, her team, her organizations, and, eventually, school.

She noticed feeling of hopelessness really started to consume her the second semester of her junior year.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, “depression is a common, but serious illness.” It can be caused by a combination of environmental, biological and psychological factors and can come in many different forms. But it is important to remember that depression is an illness. Often, treatment may be the only way to help.

This is not always true. Wingert found the treatments she was given made her feel even less like herself. She went numb. Yes, the medicine took away the lows, but it also took away the highs.

Ed Derr, director of counseling, disability services, and testing for Drury’s campus, says: “Unfortunately, anti-depressants don’t just work one way. They don’t just reduce the low, they also reduce the high.”

Wingert didn’t want to miss the highs. She stopped taking her medication and became closer with her family.

Derr says that medication is a tricky science and that it may take a few tries to get medication right. Sometimes, the dosage or type of medicine may need to be changed, which can be done with the doctor. Not everyone can help depression without medication.

Wingert’s family helped her face some of the problems she said led to her depression.

Many different issues  may trigger depression. Guilt and loneliness are the two factors that Wingert believes led to her depression. Depression also may become more noticeable during finals week when students are stressing.

Says Derr: “Unmanaged stress can build itself to a point of creating that depression.” This situation may come up during finals week. Derr suggests that students find what causes stress and figure out how to deal with it.

Depression may lead a student to feel no motivation to do anything. Derr says that when someone is ready, the best thing they can do is get up and move around. “Just walking around your house for five or 10 minutes can just get your body started.” Natural sunlight is also good for the body. “Your body tends to function better in the light,” he says.

John Barton, community care specialist for Burrell Behavioral Health, says that depression is “a cancer; not a bad thing that you have to hide.”

Barton says that people suffering with depression may think it is better to hold in whatever is bringing them down, but the truth is that people can help. His job as a community care specialist is to promote well-being and to get people on the right track. He has found that people with depression may find it hard to find what the first step should be.

Some tips to help someone dealing with depression:

• Consider getting treatment
• Assist with treatment
• Talk about it
• Keep in contact
• Make small, obtainable goals
• Read about the illness
• Find services
• Realize doctor visits are good
• Listen

While finals are a rush of brain stretching and theory thinking, no one should be left out of the fun. Find someone who can be a guide, a friend, or a study partner during finals week to prevent any feelings of depression to rise.

Wingert also suggests getting on YouTube and watching videos by Jason Silva.