This story is part of our monthly series, Campus Dispatch. Read the rest of the stories in the series here.

Content note: This story mentions physical abuse, sexual abuse, and eating disorders. If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, you can contact the National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or The Trevor Project hotline.

The state of the nation is taking a toll on Gráinne, a 22-year-old community college student in Texas. She’s worried about how the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” commission will impact access to mental health care, including essential medications. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who leads the commission, has repeatedly made false claims and mischaracterized the safety and efficacy of commonly-prescribed mental health medications like Prozac and Zoloft, Mother Jones reported.

Gráinne, who asked to only be identified by her first name, takes the SSRI sertraline for treatment of major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as methylphenidate to treat her attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Gráinne has done eye movement desensitization and reprocessing work and trauma-focused therapy following years of sexual, physical, emotional, and spiritual abuse by a family member who is no longer in her life. She worries about losing access to essential medications that support her in feeling like herself.

The sheer volume of information regarding Trump administration actions she opposes—including armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportations and removals, the suppression of pro-Palestinian protestors calling for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza , and on-again, off-again tariffs—is part of what prompted her to increase her therapy appointments to occur weekly, in addition to concerns about access to care.

“A lot of people severely underestimate the impacts that institutional systems have on people’s everyday experience and what they have access to or don’t have access to,” Gráinne said.

It took Gráinne years to find a combination of medications that worked for her. The difference, she said, is “night and day.”

“To finally find that combination, then be told you can’t have this essential service, this essential medicine that keeps you alive,” Gráinne said. “What is that, other than saying, fundamentally, you are unworthy of life?”

Gráinne’s fears over her access to medicine echo concerns other young people have about resources that support well-being and safety amid President Donald Trump’s second term. Rewire News Group spoke to five students across the country, from Pennsylvania to Texas to Colorado. All worried about the administration’s policy changes that threaten mental and physical wellbeing, as many experts warn of an ongoing “youth mental health crisis” in the U.S.

Mental health care has never been robust in this country. Many Americans’ access to medication, therapy, and other support has long been limited due to cost or availability of service, and the quality of care often varies based on socioeconomic class.

But the first several months of Trump’s second term have already included multiple attacks on mental health care. The “Make America Healthy Again” commission announced it would look into the “prevalence of and threat posed by” medications used to treat depression, anxiety, and ADHD, despite overwhelming evidence that these medications are safe and effective. In February, Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” cut more than 10 percent of staff working for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, including roughly one quarter of the team working to raise awareness of the 988 hotline, according to CBS News. Meanwhile, the administration in May 2025 cut $1 billion in grants—funded through a 2022 bipartisan bill passed after the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas—that school districts used to hire counselors and social workers. A draft federal budget, leaked in April, revealed that the federal government intends to cut services for LGBTQ+ young people who call the national suicide and crisis hotline.

Gráinne worries about medications being taken off the market, or having access to them restricted, which would be devastating for her.

“I think to myself, what are the side effects if I have to ration my medication?” she said. “What’s my safety plan if I have to ration my medication, you know, am I going to have to mail order my medication from another country?”

‘This is such a deeply unsettling and stressful time to be living through’

Given the onslaught of so many threats to health and well-being, stress and stress-related health impacts are high right now, especially amid uncertainties around access to care, including cuts to Medicaid, Devika Bhushan, a pediatrician and public health leader who serves as an adjunct professor at Stanford University, explained via email. That includes “exacerbations of known health conditions like depression, asthma, or arthritis, and the first onset of new stress-related health conditions,” Bhushan said.

“This is such a deeply unsettling and stressful time to be living through,” Bhushan continued.

Statements like Kennedy’s false claims regarding mental health medications—including antidepressants—along with the cuts are deeply harmful to the nation’s health, according to Bhushan, “particularly to the health of individuals and communities who are already marginalized, including young people and those living with health conditions, in lower-income families, and with marginalized identities.”

Kennedy’s statements about brain health medications, Bhushan said, are false.

“They simply do not reflect scientific consensus,” she continued. “Worse, they will have the effect of increasing stigma and reducing access to life-saving treatment for millions across the country. In fact, SSRIs and other brain health medications are not addictive.” When titrated carefully, she said, they can be an essential part of treatment and recovery.

DakotaRei Frausto, a 20-year-old policy analyst and public speaker from Texas who spoke to RNG about her personal experience, said that “not only has the Trump administration spread dangerous disinformation, but they’ve also emboldened violent extremism.” As an Indigenous, queer, disabled woman, she said that makes her “question your belonging, how much people value you, how much people respect you, and just how safe you are leaving your house.”

Frausto says there are days where she finds it “extremely difficult just to wake up in the morning and exist in this political climate.”

She thinks about people who have survived and resisted throughout history.

“For my community, I owe them that,” she said—referring to resistance, and even joy.

Amber Manker, director of programs and clinical services at the Alliance for LGBTQ Youth, which provides care to LGBTQ+ youth and their families in Florida’s Miami-Dade County, noted that today she is observing even stronger feelings—both anxiety and heightened emotions overall—among young people now than in 2022, when Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill was passed.

“As we think about our young people with intersecting identities, there’s an onslaught from all different angles,” she said, adding that queer young people, those who have immigrated to or sought asylum in America, and those who are involved in child welfare cases, the carceral system, or other government systems are among those being targeted by the Trump administration.

Mental health and basic needs go hand in hand

William Navarrete Moreno, a 20-year-old public health student in Colorado, used to be part of an National Institutes of Health-funded program that supported students from underrepresented backgrounds pursuing biomedical research. When the program was cut, in April 2025, he lost a meaningful research opportunity—and an important source of income. Moreno describes a sense of “hopelessness or pessimism that nothing’s going to get better,” among young adults, including those in his field—science, a particular target for Trump administration funding cuts. But he says he’s trying to stay hopeful.

Republicans are currently attempting to gut not only programs like Medicaid, but also the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), both federal programs that serve low-income Americans. Moreno currently uses Medicaid for health coverage, but hasn’t let himself think too much about how potential cuts to the program might affect him. It’s just too overwhelming. He relies on mental health medications, and finds the idea of losing access to something essential “incredibly frightening.”

“If that just gets pulled out under me, and I don’t have a job, what do I do?” he said.

Another student, 19-year-old Annika Verma, who attends a community college in Pennsylvania, is concerned about potential cuts to SNAP, which helps more than 42 million people afford to eat by subsidizing their grocery purchases, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“I’m diagnosed with an eating disorder,” she told RNG. “So, SNAP is just as relevant for my mental health as it is for my physical health.”

Before receiving SNAP, Verma recalled calculating both the calories on nutrition labels and the cost of the purchase. Without SNAP, she wouldn’t have resources to buy foods that cover basic calorie needs and purchase “fun foods,” which she says can be a crucial part of recovery from an eating disorder. She started seeing a nutritionist a few months after she began receiving SNAP.

“SNAP gave me a greater opportunity for independence and healing,” she said.

Recent threats to SNAP funding or restrictions on what recipients can buy has created an “renewed, unwelcome interest” in counting prices and seeing how low she can go again, Verma said.

Young people seek more support and community

Meanwhile, a March 11 Inside Higher Ed report noted high levels of staff turnover and intense work conditions in campus counseling centers, while other reporting has addressed how students themselves are working to address the state of mental health.

Many young people, like Genie, who asked to be referred to by first name only to protect her privacy, stressed the need for more accessible mental health care for students. She said she had access to counseling resources during her undergraduate education. Now, as a 23-year-old master’s student in a new city, she said she has struggled to find a therapist.

“I’m used to being able to talk to someone in person, and unfortunately, I found that as a Black woman in Pittsburgh, it’s really hard to find someone that relates to my demographic in the psychiatric world,” Genie said.

“I just think we need better support systems on campus, more culturally competent care, and spaces where students can be seen, heard, and protected,” she added.

Bhushan pointed to several resources young people can turn to, including the National Alliance on Mental Illness—which provides nationwide peer-led programs in addition to youth-focused and general helplines—the Trevor Project, the Trans Lifeline, and Mental Health America, among others. (Bhushan serves on the National Alliance on Mental Illness’ board of directors.)

“Mission-driven organizations who directly serve young people are going to be more important in this moment than ever before,” she said.

Manker, of the Alliance for LGBTQ Youth, thinks it’s important to educate young people’s caregivers on what rights young people have “because we do live in a world where, until you’re 18, you don’t really get too much of a say about things.”

She encouraged people to tap into local resources in their communities, adding that smaller nonprofits that aren’t necessarily seeing a lot of government funding will play a critical role going forward.

“There needs to be real love, community care, and community defense that people take,” Gráinne said. “I think that’s pretty much where I’m at—I can only think of the small, actionable things that I can do in my community.”