We all know that starting, and completing, University can be one of the best times in your life. It can also be one of the worst.
Whilst there may be a variety of resources available to you provided by the University, it cannot be denied that sometimes this just isn’t enough.
Two NTU students were brave enough to talk to us about their experiences with mental health during University and how sometimes it’s something you can talk about, and sometimes we daren’t go near it.
Polly Jean Harrison:
When you’re 13, you don’t really expect a lot to happen to you. Generally, you go to school, you come home and hang out with your friends every now and again. For me though, 13 was the year I was in a car accident that changed my life.
I was getting a lift home with my friend and her mum when the car veered off the road and rolled down the embankment.
Yes, it was as bad as it sounds but no, no-one was seriously hurt. Thankfully the car was the worst casualty, and we all had some injuries but there was nothing life-threatening.
I don’t remember a lot from that day, and that will be thanks to the mammoth concussion I received from being hit in the head as we went down.
My recovery wasn’t terribly long, and thankfully the accident happened just before the summer holidays, so I had time to get back to normal, but it was what was going on inside my head that turned out to be the biggest problem.
Things started to get interesting about a year later; I started to have mood swings; little things upset me a lot, and I had my first ever panic attack, along with memories from the accident coming back in ‘flashbacks’ suddenly. I just felt really bad all the time, and I didn’t understand why.
I didn’t tell anyone this, I didn’t know-how. I was a pretty quiet kid up to that point, and I didn’t really know how to explain what I was going through, so I decided to just grin and bear it. The first time I told somebody about it, I felt so small.
I was referred to two different types of counselling, and although as a child this didn’t really help me, I can definitely see the benefits of it now. I’ve come a long way with my mental issues since.
It would be a lie to say that I am completely over it; I still have wobbles every now and again, bad anxiety days where getting out of bed seems impossible, or days where I feel awful for no reason.
But mental health is just a thing that happened to me. That’s all.
Anonymous:
I started going to counselling for my anxiety and depression when I was just 13 years old.
One day, the counsellor told me that every time I wanted to self-harm I should think about someone I loved that would be upset and hurt if they found out what I was doing.
Though my mental health demons had tried their hardest to convince me that no one loved me, there was still one person I missed more than any: my grandad.
I found I could prevent harming myself by thinking of him, but I struggled to have a clear and logical outlook on the situation I was in which is why, 2 years later, I was admitted to hospital after taking an overdose.
My counsellor, who I knew very well at this point and who believed I was making a recovery, came to visit me. She told me the same thing again: how would my grandad feel if he knew what I had done to myself?
For some people, that technique wouldn’t work – the guilt may make them worse – but for me, the second time, it did work.
A month after coming out of the hospital, I stopped self-harming and haven’t done so in the 7 years since.
But, what do you do when the person you’re essentially “living for” is no longer living themselves?
In January 2016, my grandad was sectioned because his health was deteriorating due to dementia.
It was heart-wrenching and soul-destroying to watch someone who’d been so full of life, a person who always treated people with the utmost kindness, become a confused and aggravated shell of a man.
His deterioration saw my mental health deteriorate again and I had to revise how I dealt with the relapse.
Luckily, University helped me through this and find friends who truly understood and cared for me which really helped.
Nonetheless, I still thought of my grandad – despite his health, he still loved me and other people still loved me. For me, that was enough to stop me from doing anything drastic.
Just over a year after he was sectioned my grandfather passed away. His death welcomed one of the darkest times of my life when I had very little hope and struggled to cope with everyday tasks.
The urge to self-harm, to transfer my pain from my heart to elsewhere on my body, was back more than ever, so I got a tattoo.
Whenever I wanted to self-harm, I would be reminded of him and look at it.
I still get the urges, but when I do, I look at the tattoo, I think about all the good memories I have of my grandad, imagine how he looked at life and what he believed I could achieve, and it stops me from wanting to hurt myself.
If you, or anyone else you know, is struggling with mental health issues, please contact NTU Wellbeing or other mental health services to get the help you need.
By Polly Jean Harrison