Speaking to a crowd of 500 people last night in Sanders Theatre, Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison, a leading expert and author in the field of mood disorders, discussed the alarming prevalence of depression among university students.

She emphasized the availability and success of treatment for depression and other mental illnesses.

"Depression is common. Depression is very common," Jamison told the crowd, made up more of faculty and staff than students. "It is one of the most treatable disorders we know. But untreated, it can kill. It does."

Like she did in her best-selling book Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide, Jamison interspersed her talk with quotes from authors and poets, including F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sylvia Plath, who suffered from mental illness.

Like many with mental illness, Jamison said she first became ill while in her teens.

"I was used to my mind being my best friend," she said, but in high school that all changed. She lied and tried to hide the problem, and continued to suffer until she was an associate professor and became suicidal.

"It never occurred to me that I was ill," she said.

Since most mental illnesses have their onset during the late teenage years or early twenties, they often overlap with college years.