Has anyone actually had the worst university experience?

Sometimes I'd say that I enjoy uni and then sometimes I'd say that I don't. I really enjoy my course despite the high workload and get on really well with people on my course. I love my campus as well. It's just the life outside of my course that hasn't been great. I lived in halls for first year and it wasn't what I expected at all. My flatmates weren't interested in going out for freshers and everyone seemed to have formed their cliqués by day 2 so I barely met anyone at all during freshers, despite making an effort to talk to people. Over the year I just gradually started to give up and started to isolate myself in my room. In second year I met some new people and joined a new friendship group which was really great at first but then people started to clash and argue and there was a hostile atmosphere. I've just found that I've not really met any people, outside of my course, who are like me. A lot of people seem to be really social, with loads of friends and come from a middle class background whilst I like to have time to myself sometimes, come from a working class background but still like to have people to talk to and go out with.

I'm now nearing the end of my second year and I feel pretty fed up. I still love my course and spending time with people on my course, it's just when I come back to my house that I feel rubbish. The people in my new friendship group like to talk all the time and spend loads of time together after uni whereas I feel like I need some time to myself to do work, etc. and I end up feeling like everyone thinks I'm weird and antisocial. I have lost so much confidence in myself since starting university and have developed pretty bad anxiety, I'm even starting to think that I've developed some social anixety. It's really strange because I'm fine when I'm actually at university, but when I'm at home in the evening I feel pretty lonely. I guess I'm just really sad that I haven't met any people like me and haven't had the amazing time I thought I would and when I see people having the best time at university I feel pretty upset.

I reckon my uni experience is probably up there!

So I originally started uni in 2007. After exactly one (horrible) week there, I took an overdose one night. Ambulance was called, ended up in hospital, intermitted for a year.

Went back (same uni, same course) in 2008. In November 2008, my nan was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and she died in January 2009. I also had major eating problems (to the point of consuming no calories at all for 10 days in a row).

Second year started off better. I had almost no friends at uni due to severe social anxiety (I managed to go into the uni library a grand total of 3 times in my entire degree, and in the entire of my final year of uni I attended 4 lectures/seminars, so I was very isolated). And then in March 2010, not long before my second year exams my wonderful mummy was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I kept my happy act on at home, came back to uni and just completely broke down and went off the rails. The first day I came back after she was diagnosed I went to find my student advisor, and when she wasn't there, I just sat curled in the corner of the stairwell to the offices and just sobbed my heart out. I ended up detained under s.136 Mental Health Act by the police 6 times within 3 months (3 times within the space of a week during my exams, where I missed one exam due to being sectioned, and went to another exam about 5 hours after being discharged from section). Went back in my third year and I ended up in a psych ward for 3 days after being 136ed again, and then moved home. Spent my third year of uni living back at home, teaching myself the course material from books and online, and just being with my mum while she went through treatment. Graduated in July 2011 (with a First and a Final Year Prize, which I am stupidly proud of), and my mum died 4 weeks later.

Had two years out and then went to do my MSc at another uni. Which was the best uni ever for me, so much smaller and such a nice atmosphere, actually developing a rapport with the lecturers, and with the help of the lecturer who taught us for our first two modules, he helped me to build up to actually managing to whisper a couple of words out loud, to communicating my thoughts via e-mail, and actually speaking to him. 100% attendance, 75-80% in all assignments, and I just loved my MSc course. Only I also developed severe anorexia nervosa, and in the space from July 2013 to April 2014, deterioriated so much that uni finally convinced me to take 6 months out, on the basis that they were veering towards taking it out of my hands because they couldn't watch me deteriorating like that anymore, so spent 5 months inpatient, went back to uni the week after I was discharged in September (and then had a pretty awful relapse, a suicide attempt and 3 months of attending day hospital twice a week), before finally finishing and graduating in October (2015).

Pretty horrific few years tbh! But I absolutely love my MSc uni, and I loved my course, and I am so glad I did it, have made so so so much progress.

Sometimes I'd say that I enjoy uni and then sometimes I'd say that I don't. I really enjoy my course despite the high workload and get on really well with people on my course. I love my campus as well. It's just the life outside of my course that hasn't been great. I lived in halls for first year and it wasn't what I expected at all. My flatmates weren't interested in going out for freshers and everyone seemed to have formed their cliqués by day 2 so I barely met anyone at all during freshers, despite making an effort to talk to people. Over the year I just gradually started to give up and started to isolate myself in my room. In second year I met some new people and joined a new friendship group which was really great at first but then people started to clash and argue and there was a hostile atmosphere. I've just found that I've not really met any people, outside of my course, who are like me. A lot of people seem to be really social, with loads of friends and come from a middle class background whilst I like to have time to myself sometimes, come from a working class background but still like to have people to talk to and go out with.

I'm now nearing the end of my second year and I feel pretty fed up. I still love my course and spending time with people on my course, it's just when I come back to my house that I feel rubbish. The people in my new friendship group like to talk all the time and spend loads of time together after uni whereas I feel like I need some time to myself to do work, etc. and I end up feeling like everyone thinks I'm weird and antisocial. I have lost so much confidence in myself since starting university and have developed pretty bad anxiety, I'm even starting to think that I've developed some social anixety. It's really strange because I'm fine when I'm actually at university, but when I'm at home in the evening I feel pretty lonely. I guess I'm just really sad that I haven't met any people like me and haven't had the amazing time I thought I would and when I see people having the best time at university I feel pretty upset.