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What are your biggest challenges as a student?

Poll

What are the biggest challenges to mental health you face as a student?

Today is University Mental Health Day, which is the national campaign to focus efforts on promoting the mental health of people who live, work and study in Higher Education settings.

What are the biggest challenges you face as a student?

I've put some common issues in a poll, but there is no limit to the struggles you might be facing so absolutely let us know in a reply!

Want to talk more about University Mental Health Day? Check it out here >>>
Original post by chelseadagg3r
Today is University Mental Health Day, which is the national campaign to focus efforts on promoting the mental health of people who live, work and study in Higher Education settings.

What are the biggest challenges you face as a student?

I've put some common issues in a poll, but there is no limit to the struggles you might be facing so absolutely let us know in a reply!

Want to talk more about University Mental Health Day? Check it out here >>>


Loneliness for sure. When you struggle to fit in amongst a sea of people who are doing just that, it's a bummer.
Original post by Kevin De Bruyne
Loneliness for sure. When you struggle to fit in amongst a sea of people who are doing just that, it's a bummer.


This definitely. I was incredibly lonely at uni. At least at school when I was lonely I could get home and hangout with my brothers; nothing like that at uni,



One of my other challenges was poor concentration. I couldn't keep with it whether seminar, lecture or writing. As you can imagine, being unable to concentrate made uni very difficult.
Original post by Sabertooth
This definitely. I was incredibly lonely at uni. At least at school when I was lonely I could get home and hangout with my brothers; nothing like that at uni,
.


Yeah, I agree. Uni can be a v lonely place :frown:
Original post by Kevin De Bruyne
Loneliness for sure. When you struggle to fit in amongst a sea of people who are doing just that, it's a bummer.


Original post by Sabertooth
This definitely. I was incredibly lonely at uni. At least at school when I was lonely I could get home and hangout with my brothers; nothing like that at uni,



One of my other challenges was poor concentration. I couldn't keep with it whether seminar, lecture or writing. As you can imagine, being unable to concentrate made uni very difficult.


Original post by loveleest
Yeah, I agree. Uni can be a v lonely place :frown:


I find loneliness difficult too. It's strange because there's so many people around as well. Saber, I have the same problem. It's really difficult and just makes everything that bit harder
Original post by chelseadagg3r
I find loneliness difficult too. It's strange because there's so many people around as well. Saber, I have the same problem. It's really difficult and just makes everything that bit harder


That's what makes it even worse - you can sit there before lectures listening to everyone chatting happily. Even if you sit in your room you hear drunk groups walking past loudly having fun. Sometimes my kitchen was full of people all happy and sociable so making a cup of tea really cemented just how lonely I was.

I truly believe that the 5 years of loneliness made my MH way worse, I probably wouldn't be suffering as much now if I hadn't spent weeks alone not talking to another soul while at uni.
Original post by Sabertooth
That's what makes it even worse - you can sit there before lectures listening to everyone chatting happily. Even if you sit in your room you hear drunk groups walking past loudly having fun. Sometimes my kitchen was full of people all happy and sociable so making a cup of tea really cemented just how lonely I was.

I truly believe that the 5 years of loneliness made my MH way worse, I probably wouldn't be suffering as much now if I hadn't spent weeks alone not talking to another soul while at uni.


Yeah totally, I actually had a situation like that. Most of my flatmates were chatting in the kitchen and I walked in to make some popcorn and it really just hammered in that lonely feeling

I'm really sorry to hear that :frown: :hugs:
Loneliness, stress due to the workload and frequent deadlines, giving presentations, lack of food and energy (I don't often cook since I lack the energy after a full day of lectures etc, it's a vicious cycle) :frown:
This is a tough one for me to answer. My uni's mental health provision isn't poor but it is shrinking as they become increasingly overstretched. I'd say for me it's probably stress-related stuff :redface:
Reply 9
Avatar for Kindred
Kindred
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For me one of the biggest issues was judgement and seeking out support.
I had my boyfriend with me so loneliness wasn't a big issue, I was lucky enough to have great care through private insurance so the NHS mental health system didn't matter to me, work and things were an issue yeah, but not as bad as the fear I had for being judged over it and my difficulty with seeking (and receiving) support.

So basically here I am at uni doing a course I really love and am intellectually capable of, but the commitments involved like going to lectures and placements were a big deal for me. I could tell that I had judgement coming my way, but I tried my best to ignore it and to keep pushing on. I was getting more and more worn down and a burst of infections messed me up completely. For a good while I was managing to drag myself the the few lectures a week I had, but when I got home I would totally crash and sleep the whole time even needing my boyfriend to cook for me and wake me up to eat. Things were not great.

From the outside though I guess I just seemed unorganized and lazy. A lot of the time it was just the feeling that I was being judged for it, but there were also times it was a lot more obvious.
One of the worst moments for this was when I managed to be like an hour late for a lecture. I had tonsillitis at the time (a big deal when you're already running on empty all the time) so I was really not with it. Our lecture time had been changed or something and first off I got the time off by a half hour. After that I managed to completely blank what room it was (not a room I'd been to before and I had lost whatever I wrote it down on). I wandered the building for ages before eventually giving in and texting one of the girls on my course to ask for help. That was awful for me.
Also had some pretty substantial issues (like formal report to uni) cos a girl on my course obviously wasn't a fan of mine. I am absolutely terrible at remembering specific facts. Things like dates, names, titles etc are a real weakness of mine. I needed to email my course leader to get an extension on some work (which was part of my DSA agreement), but there was a problem- I didn't know their name. I had to ask on my course fb group cos searching on the uni website really wasn't an option at the time. That invited some not so pleasant responses from one person who seemed to think it was their job to put me in my place.
That only got worse when I had the audacity to go to the front of the room when I was late to a lecture so I could explain that my house had a potential gas leak so I needed to wait for the emergency gas people to come drill a hole in the wall and dig up the street. That clearly didn't sit well with miss chat a lot.

So yeah with all that stuff and the quite obvious casual judgement I really wasn't so keen on opening up about my struggles. It really fed into that vulnerable mental state of mine and caused a big mess for me. I didn't really have any decent reason or excuse for things then so I was stuck with hiding or being seen as lazy or whatever.
It can be challenging when you are an otherwise sociable person but you highly disagree with how the majority of people spend their time at uni, so it can be difficult to fit in...but it’s up to us to make it work...for me, it was about finding the right group of friends but also learning how to be comfortable on my own

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