University Hand Holding.

Student mental health is in the news at the moment, sadly, in response to some deaths, which are, fortunately not hugely common among students.

What it IS important to know, is that, the peak onset time for serious mental health problems, is late teens / early twenties, what we might call, university age. so *if* you are wired to such, this is the time to be most aware. Added into that, of course is the additional stress of being away, managing household things and studying in a different way.

Of course, mental health care is massively underfunded everywhere, and, even if you know you need some, to actually get some, is pretty challenging, which is not what you need when you are trying to manage all these other things as well.

But, I was wondering, since I WAS a student with a mental health problem, if you knew how things can be, and how they can spiral?

I was known to psychiatric services before I went to university. I had the kind of supportive family who refused to attend family therapy sessions in case anyone thought my illness was their fault, and my 18months of outpatient day hospital ended because I was old enough, not because I was better enough.

My university did not guarantee first year students places in halls of residence, and I did not get a place there. I had to travel, in an emergency several hundred miles across the country to find a flat. A bedsit that I did not share with anyone. That was not near to the campus (It was a train ride away). I did not know anyone. And I was doing all the same new adult stuff as everyone else, and managing a known mental health issue.

There were things I struggled with. Things I surely could have done better. The nurse on campus was absolutely excellent for me, which a lot of people don’t have. The doctors were helpful. and available. I know many students won’t have this experience. I tried to make it on no meds. I failed. And it felt like a failure to me then. I informed staff when my meds were started, increased, changed or stopped. I know NOW some 20+ years later that, this was wise, but was only useful if they knew why I was telling them. I didn’t know it then, b ut the medication I was on was really badly suited to what my problem was, and taking it made it impossible for me to function (I am a bipolar person who cannot take antidepressants in the usual way, they trigger massively problematic manic episodes for me, however, like most bipolar people, I wasn’t enough years into my MH journey t have been appropriately diagnosed, much less treated.

I had food problems, maybe not seriously enough to be an eating disorder, but, I was also self harming. Or, if not, I was buying people things. I am lucky I never ended up in huge problems for this, because I got a job, and I was terrified of having to give up and go home.

I DID have to give up and go home (to family chorus of “see? Now, you can’t sit around here, get a job”) because, who can work 30hrs a week, do a full time degree course, and manage a hefty dose of psychotropic prescription medication.

Luckily, I was determined to go back. I like to finish things. Mostly just to prove people wrong. But, I found out, on my return, that my tutor had added a note to my file, saying that she didn’t think I was suitable for study as I needed handholding. I should mention, at this point, that my starting point at university was a chat with the course director saying people with a levels as good as mine didn’t usually choose this course at this university, so, other than my mental heath, there was no academic doubt about my suitability. But, that’s what mental health problems do, they make you doubt you, but also, they make everyone else doubt you as well.

And there was no help. The only thing I could do, to prove I deserved to be there, was to hide my mental health issues, never speak of them, to struggle less than anyone else, to NOT keep them up to date on my treatment, however badly it affected me. This was portrayed as the normal thing to do, the right, and strong thing to do.

Is it any wonder then, that people are driven to extreme courses of action?

It was a difficult time. I want to speak to people in  schools and colleges and tell them to look for good places to reach out. It is OK to need attention, or to talk. Obviously, this is harder with very limited support services….

I will also add that, now, 20 years on, I am still here, and I am med free (although, I *still* find that places additional stress sometimes) AND I currently have 1 arts degree, two post graduate degrees and have been formally accepted to begin my MSc in January. I don’t FEEL successful. But then, I grew up judging myself against a normal I could never be, so, I may have a distorted sense of such things.

 

A Teenaged War Hero

 

Yes, there are are child soldiers in the world. They are suffering and dying. People are. All over the world. But this does not make anything you endure less. There is no correlation between their suffering and yours. You can suffer. They can suffer. It is different, but one is not validating, or reducing the other.

To insist one is more or worse or has more value dismisses the struggles. To fight, alone, though a world where reality is not to be trusted, where people can lie about you, and no one will believe you because, you are the person with mental health problems. Where people who were friends leave you as if you were dead, where nothing you used to be able to aim for is there anymore. Through an internal landscape either so deeply destroyed and pitted and dangerous and dark, OR so sharp and sparkling and fractured and invincible. To survive every day with that as your internal world, and a lot of your external world, is to fight in a war.

The “help” you can receive does not understand this. And they talk about adjusting expectations, and stopping wanting the things you wanted. They ask you to not be you, so that they can pretend that this new version of something resembling a person like you is well and can at least be in the world, even though you are not well, you are irreparably stolen from and damaged. And they let you go, like that, because, their parameters are not set such to rescue YOU, but simply to prevent you hurting anyone. Physically, that INcludes you, psychologically, no one but you knows or cares.

They want to make sure you are not hurting your body. Even if you hurt your body to remind yourself that you ARE actually a person, who is capable of hurting – because the system expects you not to be, to not care the things you have given up. They expect you to NOT be a teenager, to suddenly NOT need family, or friends or fun or ambitions, and just to sink to a level where being alive is enough. If you can’t believe that, then you are failing, and they won’t help because, that is all they can offer.

It is war. To come out of the other side is HARD. To find a person who can see this, and who can hold on and see you through this and see that you have value and CAN do at least SOME of the things that drove you initially, those dreams that are part of you. You need someone to tell you you are allowed MOST of those, and someone to help you rebuild those you can’t have.

To come so far out the other side to have built a career and a family is wondrous, but, every step is precarious. To place your trust in that relationship you have CHOSEN, than family you have built, is to risk someone ridiculing that, and making that even less possible.

To those people, those teenagers who have fought and fought and succeeded against the professionals, and the medications, and the stigma, and prejudice and are now successful adults, this is to be a war hero. TO have made it through, and achieved and not to have been wasted by the mental health machine, either the monster of the illness, or the insidious cruelty of the system and society.

Those in the midst of such a journey. It CAN be won. it IS possible. Do NOT give up.

You cannot know whether you will be the one to succeed. So you have to fight as if you will be.

And you have to celebrate every step. And know that no matter what anyone else thinks, it is hard won, and worth celebrating.