Mental Health and University.

 

TW: suicide

 

I started a Masters in Astrophysics at the University of Liverpool in September 2014. I had always been an anxious child/teenager. And of course, the first few months of uni is filled with nerves, being homesick, and meeting new people; so I didn’t think anything of my anxiety. I considered it normal.

March 2015 came and nothing had changed, apart from the fact that I didn’t feel homesick. At all. It was pure anxiety – and, naturally, low mood followed.

I had sort of accepted that this is just was comes with being at uni and studying a demanding course, until I spoke to a close friend who had been struggling with depression long term. She advised that I see my GP, and that feeling this way isn’t normal – and of course, she was right. After a couple of sessions, I was prescribed with sertraline, which may or may not have had an effect; I couldn’t really feel any difference. I started counselling with uni, but I don’t really know if that helped either.

The thought of attending lectures, labs, seminars, tutorials etc scared the shit out of me; but I was so scared of failing that I attended everything anyway. So I did very well in my January exams. But it all changed by the summer; my attendance dropped significantly, I had a boyfriend that didn’t treat me very well, I couldn’t leave my dorm room (after a few incidents with flatmates that caused my anxiety to be so bad that I was throwing up), and then, a friend from school (and ex-boyfriend, though we only went out very briefly), died on a night out back at home – the day before my summer exams started.

By some sort of miracle, I passed my exams (legit getting 40% on some modules).

I started 2^nd year and had left to suspend studies by December. I had put on a lot of weight due to binge eating and self-harm was the worst it had ever been, let alone severe anxiety.

I came home, worked for a year, and then tried 2^nd year again.

Early December, I made my first formal suicide attempt – a staggered mirtazapine overdose, after my current boyfriend (not abusive) left after visiting for the weekend. I was taken to A&E by ambulance, referred to the community mental health team (I had seen them before but was discharged as I displayed “no symptoms”…)

The living situation was poor; it was a lovely house but one housemate in particular made things very difficult; I won’t go into details. (I’m not saying she was the trigger for the attempt but she definitely didn’t help).

By January I had withdrawn from my course, and came back to Swansea.

So, to the point of this piece… I’m enrolled on a theoretical physics course with the Open University, ready to start in September. If you’re really struggling with mental health problems being primarily caused by university, it’s not worth being there. Don’t drive yourself to the point of suicide for the sake of a degree. What the Open University can offer is independent study, from home, so makes things a lot easier if you’re in and out of hospital all of the time! It’s something to consider, if you struggle at uni, but getting a degree is important to you, and you feel you could do it with more support.

Look after yourselves ❤

(There are lots of things that I’ve missed out here but I wanted to keep this short and sweet!)

‘What do you have to be despressed about?’

So it’s mental health awareness week, a week that I see as crucial. We could all be very precious about it and state how it’s a disgrace that in 2017 we only have a week that is dedicated to creating an awareness surrounding mental health, and it is, but lets all recognise the huge stigma that is attached to mental health and recognise that we need to work tirelessly to remove that stigma. The only way to remove the stigma is to talk about mental illness till it is no longer a taboo.

So today I wanted to talk about how I shouldn’t have a mental illness, or more accurately a concoction of mental illnesses. I embody everything you would not associate with someone who is unwell, I present myself as a carefree, confident and bubbly girl. I have spent today trying to write this post without sounding like a mard, ungrateful and spoilt bitch, and it’s bloody difficult. My ‘perfect’ little life is great and I have always felt like my mental health is a big fuck you to my support network. I need to stress before anyone reads this and finds themselves getting frustrated with me and how good I have it, I know how lucky I am trust me, the thing is mental illness does not discriminate. My mental health is irrational.

Lets start with my relationships, firstly my family. I have a picture perfect family, I have a family that most people would dream of. I have parents who are incredible, they’ve strived (and succeeded) to be nothing but supportive, loving and caring, I cannot fault them. From a young age I have always known how lucky I was, I looked at my friends, at their experiences and I knew they were the best of the best. I have been encouraged to always be myself, and my true self was also nurtured filling me with confidence in who I am as a person and my personal style. You get it my parents are angels. I have three younger brothers. The eldest of the three is  18 and is honestly my best mate, he’s fab, the twins are 13 and are the best kids in the world, basically you get it I love my family, and they love and support me endlessly. I’m blessed to have the most incredible boyfriend, he supports me no matter what, loves me endlessly and goes above and beyond to make me happy. We’ve been living together for nearly a year and I am in awe of how well he deals with my illness. Oh and I have the greatest friends you could ever wish for. Basically I have an incredible support network, so I get it when people ask me ‘but what do you have to be depressed about?’ ‘What is actually making you sad?’ etc. I get it, I have had a perfect life, I have never experienced trauma, I have never had an event that has triggered all of this, I have a chemical imbalance, it’s that simple.

Just because my life is perfect on paper does not distract from the fact that I still suffer from a personality disorder and body dysmorphia. Both of which consume my life, I have to take a concoction of medications daily to function, I cannot be alone and I am certainly not the ‘strong independent’ woman I claim to be. My boyfriend has to write me lists, he writes a list of things that I have to do: shower, brush my teeth, eat, get dressed etc and then a list of thing he would like me to do in an ideal world: leave the house, do my assignments (early) etc. I am not allowed to do basic tasks alone, I am not even trusted to even be in the house by myself and I am 21 years old. I feel like my mental health has turned my into a child, I get increasingly worked up when I am tired or hungry, but the thing is when you suffer with mental illness being tired isn’t just being a little sleepy; it’s days on end of no sleep or if you have been fortunate enough to fall asleep you’ve been plagued with night terrors, you’ve woken up every hour, on the hour, and on the off chance you have actually slept you’re still consumed by exhaustion because your brain is over active, every minute of every hour. Hunger isn’t just feeling like you need a snack, because when you’re recovering from an eating disorder your  relationship with food is shall we say troubled. I either starve myself till I am crying due to my stomach being in so much pain because I haven’t eaten, or I binge until I need to purge, I really struggle to find that happy medium.

The thing is, I try, I really try. I am doing my upmost to improve my mental health, I am trying my best to be proud of my little achievements. I’m doing well at university, training to be a teacher which is something I have always wanted to do (well it’s what I have wanted since I discovered that being a princess wasn’t a realistic life goal) all my lesson observation have always received amazing feedback and I have been told repeatedly by experts in the field of Special Educational Needs how talented I am, I do really well with my assignments and I get on two trains during rush hour to attend university. I work at weekends, granted it’s a job I hate, but at least I have a job. I am a good friend, a good girlfriend, a good sister and a good daughter. For christ sake I have set up this whole thing, I should be proud of myself for Womanshood. I have always been determined to not let my mental health hinder my future or hold me back. I am an intelligent girl who cares so much about others and frankly I should be proud of myself for that.

Self-Harm, confronting the stigma.

Trigger-Warning- Self harm.

 

 

So it’s Thursday night, I’ve turned down going out for a beer with my friends, my family are all in bed asleep and my boyfriend is in work till 2 am and what am I doing? I am sat on my living room writing this post in order to fight off my brain bombarding me with destructive thoughts. I feel like I need to write this, firstly to distract myself but equally to address the extreme stigma attached to self-harm. Now I think it is unhealthy to rank mental health issues and the symptoms that come with them yet I do think along with suicide and schizophrenia, self-harm is an aspect of mental health that holds a terrible amount of stigma from the general public. The level of misunderstanding related to self-harming behaviours is widespread. Those who engage in self-injury tend to be met with disgust, and often rejection.

The main issue is the shame surrounding it, the vast majority of people hide the fact that they are harming, and even if they do disclose it’s hardly like those people are parading around their scars. But why shouldn’t they, I personally have experienced people in the street staring at my legs like I have some abbess growing off them, when in reality I have scars and cuts on my legs down to my knees and when it’s warmer and I don’t wear tights when I sit down at times they can be seen, and I guess they are a physical embodiment of the stigma.

People are genuinely horrified but not due to concern it seems to really disgust many, probably due to ignorance. Maybe it’s because as we all fight endlessly to remove the stigma that is attached to our mental health we can illustrate to many that a lot of mental health issues are due to chemical imbalance, there is hard evidence to support that, but many still cannot fathom the behaviours that come attached to the illnesses. Part of the issue stems from the fact that many have no idea how to deal with self-harm, they have no idea what to do to help those who do harm, but let me be honest, those of us who do self-harm do so because it works for us, at least for a very short period of time. Personally I feel relief afterward. It is important for our loved one to accept these uncomfortable facts. Self-Injury is our last resort when nothing else seems to be helping us. The nature of having a mental health issue is when we experience certain emotions so intensely that you feel the need to release them, and some times that release comes in the form of self-harm.

If we ever hope to address any mental health or emotional struggle we need to shed some light on it, if it remains in the shadows how will we ever move forward. If we continue to shame, reprimand, and berate, and so on then we will only increase the shame and stigma. I am hoping we can challenge these stigmas that only increase the suffering of those in pain. You might not know what to say or do to help, but you can offer hope and kindness.

If you been affected by anything I’ve spoken about, below are a list of amazing charities and support networks:

Rethink Mental Illness:
https://www.rethink.org/about-us/our-mental-health-advice
0300 5000 927

MIND:
http://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/

Samaritans:
http://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help-you/contact-us
116 123 (UK)

Time to Change:
https://www.time-to-change.org.uk/

Heads Together:
https://www.headstogether.org.uk/