Mental Health and Student Life

‘It’s hard to remain at University with pre-existing mental health issues.’ This may be my opinion, but over the past few months it has been proven accurate for many students that I have spoken with. After starting university in 2020, I have come to realise that my pre-existing mental health problems are a barrier that have stopped me from progressing in the same way as other students. This has created an experience that has often been overshadowed by my past - preventing me from creating new friendships and prioritising my studies. In addition to my pre-existing mental health problems, Coronavirus restrictions have added additional pressure onto the learning environment of all students in 2020-2021.

When I began at University, I was hoping that my depression would become a distant memory, but unfortunately that didn’t happen. My personal situation would get worse and my mental health would suffer even more within the first year of studying. Obviously, I hadn’t expected my situation to get worse, but since it did, I had to improvise in ways that I would never have expected. This article has been written to help people who have experienced mental health issues during or prior to their time of studying benefit from my personal experience.

Believe me when I say that it really isn’t easy to study with mental health issues, but if like me, you want an education - then you will do anything to get it. But to anybody who is expecting University to remove their past problems, it will not work; you will just be adding more pressure into an already boiling hot kettle. For me, it was great at the start of the year when I was meeting new people, but after a short while, my anxieties would kick in and make my experience less enjoyable. Within the first semester I had already swapped my joint honours degree to a single honour degree, because I wasn’t managing to juggle two different subjects on top of getting my mental health right.

I had to manage my mental health on my own, because at the end of the day – if somebody hasn’t been through the same or similar situation, then they can NEVER truly understand. My depression had started many years ago, and after a severely toxic relationship – I came out suffering from post-traumatic relationship syndrome (PTRS). This is a mental health issue that has similar characteristics to PTSD, however it also varies from person to person. Unfortunately, Mine was severe and over many years since – I have been fighting every day to get back to the person that I once was. To explore my initial experience more after the trauma, please click on the following link: 11 Signs You Are Experiencing Trauma After A Toxic Relationship (bustle.com).

Besides suffering from PTRS, within my first two months of studying - My father had been collapsing on a regular basis, and not long after this - he was diagnosed with having a six-centimetre aneurysm that was inoperable (due to other ongoing medical issues). This not only prevented me from moving into my own accommodation, but it restricted me from being able to focus when it came to online learning (because of Coronavirus). There were other issues affecting my mental health too, but the two mentioned had affected me the most.

I knew that I had people around me that wanted to help and get to know me better, but I continued to feel alone. It was a constant struggle daily, and most of the time – I stayed in my own bubble of isolation. It didn’t matter how low I got though, because I always pushed myself as hard as I could to share my problems and let people know about my situation. It may not appear that it helped from the outside but sharing really did help. It allowed for everything to be out in the open, and even though I didn’t expect anybody to help, at least people became aware of my situation. I found that people were more understanding after they had been given a rough Idea of my past – even if I couldn’t explain everything.

It hadn’t mattered how many people tried to help me or told me techniques which would help, because when I put them into practice – very little really benefited me. The things that did help however have been listed below, but please keep in mind that everybody must find their own way of coping / managing their own situation.

Talk to people - Through telling people a little more about my moods and my present situation, it provided me with an outlet for my emotions. This was one of my coping mechanisms that limited me from feeling that nobody cared about or liked me anymore. It also kept others aware of my situation and allowed me to be less closed off whilst around them.

Write - I began to write about how I was feeling, because even when I felt at my lowest, a tiny piece of paper could become my best friend. This helped mostly when I felt that I had nobody to talk to; a piece of paper couldn’t judge me or reply with negative remarks to make me feel worse.

Ignore negativity – It was impossible to control what people said around me, and sometimes I could take a comment out of the context in which it was intended. This may have been because I over analysed everything around me or because of my depression, but nonetheless, by avoiding negativity completely, I was able to bring more positive thinking into my present moments.

Forced Oneself – On the days that I forced myself to do things that I wasn’t motivated for, I found that I would feel happier in myself by the end of the day. This gave me a sense of accomplishment for that day, and even though it didn’t last, it helped me with getting daily tasks done that I had lost all motivation for.

Set Targets – This one is slightly harder to understand, because I used to set targets for things and fail daily, but that failure pushed me even harder to achieve the next ones that I set for myself. This helped me immensely when it came to my assignments, by using targets I was able to hand in all assignments without asking for an extension.

Life vs Work – Even though this was the most challenging, I tried as best I could to keep my personal life away from campus. By doing this, it provided me with an escape and allowed me to temporarily forget about everything whilst I was at University.

In additional to those mentioned above, whenever somebody would ask about my personal life, most of the time I would smile and make a joke about what was mentioned (to keep things separate). This wasn’t due to lack of compassion or empathy, but it made everything so much easier to keep things segregated. Please be aware that even though this wasn’t always possible, it helped me personally to manage things better than if I didn’t.

If you are suffering from mental health illness, then I truly hope that this article helps with your current or past situation(s) in one way or another. For those who have suffered issues related to this article, “Never feel guilty about what you want in life and always follow your dreams.”