MHAW- Experiencing stress at Oxbridge

It’s no secret on TSR that I struggled a lot during my undergraduate degree at the University of Oxford. For Mental Health Awareness Week 2018, I’d like to retell my story through the lens of stress. Consider it a reflection of how unmanageable levels of stress gradually accumulated and broke me! I hope upon reading this, it will encourage anyone at Oxbridge (or about to enter Oxbridge/thinking of applying to Oxbridge) to really look after themselves throughout the whole process; also, to prioritise self-care – something I never did.

Like any Fresher moving away from home for university, there were lots of potentially very stressful things about moving to Oxford in October 2007. What if I got homesick? What if I didn’t make any friends? What if I got the worst room in college? Thankfully, upon and shortly after my arrival, none of those things happened; that said, I had stresses of a different kind. Oxford was a huge step up academically - things moved at a speed that I could not hope to keep up with. Neither my A Level studies nor my own interest in music had prepared me sufficiently for the course, and I was struggling and lagging behind my peers.

Like many Oxford students (although I didn’t realise how common/prevalent these feelings are amongst Oxbridge students at the time), I was also suffering from imposter syndrome – I felt I wasn’t intelligent enough. Why had my tutor chosen me when there were so many better people at the interviews? I felt too thick to be there, and undeserving of my place. These feelings were compounded by the fact that I’d missed my Oxford offer and been taken in anyway. In a place like Oxford, the question “so how did you do at A Levels/IB?” can come up quite frequently, particularly as what is thought to be a harmless ice breaker/introductory question in the first few weeks.

Most people didn’t bat an eyelid at my AAB (there were no A* grades at A Level in that day) but one person in particular used it to make my life difficult. He was incredibly snobby and derogatory about my grades and used any opportunity in tutorials to make me look and feel small and inferior to him. What initially started out as the odd snide remark here and there soon became a whole academic year of bullying, racist behaviour, and mind-games. I kept it to myself for several months and it ate away at my self-confidence and self-esteem slowly but surely. Finally the stress got to me so much that I broke down in front of my college tutor, told him everything that had been happening regarding the bullying, and asked him why he had given me my Oxford place anyway. In hindsight, I wish I’d done that months earlier – it could have saved me a lot of angst and stress.

I began struggling to get to sleep. I somehow muddled through my first year exams and whilst I didn’t do that well, I passed everything and returned to start second year. Although I was adapting to the uni workload in my second year of uni, something weird was going on. Some successful ‘all-nighters’ convinced me that I was invincible and didn’t need to sleep, so I began deliberately sleeping less in order to get more work done. (If I got 4 hours of sleep, I considered myself to have ‘slept well’.) Though I didn’t know it at the time, I was becoming manic. I was shaking all the time – sometimes visibly – to the point where it was sometimes difficult to walk, sit up or stand unaided. The shaking would stop as soon as I left Oxford for the holidays and would start as soon as I came back. One of my tutors asked if it could be stress-related but we all brushed off that suggestion. I then had my first psychotic episode, where I genuinely 100% believed that my tutors were trying to kill me. This, combined with fights with my college tutor, caused my stress levels to soar.

By third year, I had been diagnosed with mild depression and anxiety. Desperate for extra support, I sought help from the college’s welfare staff. Someone in a position of power taking advantage of me was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I ended up in a major psychotic episode lasting 8 months, perhaps longer – it felt like it went on forever. I was hearing horrible psychotic voices all day every day. I developed around 5 split personalities as a result of what was happening to me and was pulled out of all of my lectures and classes. The stress during this period led me to

Spoiler

and I spent 3 months wandering around the city in pyjamas. In short, I had a complete breakdown due to 2.5 years of unending stress.

Everyone knows that Oxbridge is stressful, but it’s hard to appreciate what exactly that means until you are there. I had a terrible time at Oxford due to everything I endured – but a lot of the extreme stress I was under and the bad stuff that happened (not all of it) could have been avoided.

To Oxbridge students/applicants/offer-holders who are feeling stressed, here are my top tips for surviving the stress of The Bubble:

Try and do something fun/non-degree-related every day. That could be something as simple as going for a walk around your college!

Make sure you get fresh air and a change of environment every day – don’t be in your room the whole time!

Be honest with people – peers and staff alike – about how you are feeling and finding things. Don’t suffer in silence for ages like I did!

Make use of college welfare staff and the Counselling Service but equally if you find you’re not getting on with someone for whatever reason, you’re within your rights to stop seeing them and to ask to see someone else

Try and remember that your tutors/DoS picked YOU – and they rarely get it wrong. You deserve to be there, even if you don’t feel like it. Equally though, there’s no shame in not wanting to be there, or wanting to move somewhere else. Do whatever’s in the best interests of your health and happiness – those are the most important things, at the end of the day

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Reply 20

The_Lonely_Goatherd

Original post by Anonymous #2

@ The_Lonely_Goatherd : Apologies if I am waking a memory you are trying to forget.
First, I admire how brave you are and the honesty in all your responses which will help thousand others.
Only if you are Ok, like to hear your feedback on ;

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When looking back, do you single out the pathetic behaviour of that bully as the 'only' trigger? or was it the "Final straw' of many other stress factors build up to that point?

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How do you consider the bully's approach as ; a general bad guy can find in any Uni/society?, race related? (racist/bigot) or class related ?

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When this started, did you share the situation and opened yourself up to any Oxford mates? non-Oxford mates? and your family? if so what was their support?

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Was there anything you could have done to stop it before spiralling?

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Did you see this kind of things happening mainly to minority or this is common among all groups?

Finally I think you should think about writing a book about this experience in very open and honest view

Hiya

Thanks for your feedback and your questions. To answer them in turn:

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I think the student bully's behaviour towards me was the start of many problems that I faced, and happened to be a big one because he lived next door to me (so couldn't easily avoid him). Note that I faced a lot of problems at Oxford that I haven't written about in this thread, because it would scare people too much and isn't pleasant to remember :no: So for me, his behaviour was the start of many problems over the three years, rather than the straw that broke the camel's back

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With hindsight, I can see that my presence at Oxford (especially not having got the required AAA grades) was jarring for the student bully and played into a lot of his own insecurities. (My college tutor was actually the one who pointed this out to me, saying student bully would have been insecure because I got better grades than him at AS Level, despite my coming from a comprehensive school and him having attended a private school. His grades were - comparatively - so poor that he'd been forced to apply during a gap year to stand any chance of getting in!) Student bully also admitted he'd never had an Asian friend before or really had to interact with Asians before, so there was that! A lot of what happened would be termed microaggressions and bullying, though he did say racist and classist things to me. I suspect there probably are characters like this at every good university, yes

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I didn't share any of the bullying with anyone at Oxford until late into the summer term, during our first year exam period. I did tell my family about some of it but there wasn't much they could say or do, other than listen to me cry down the phone :colondollar:

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In hindsight, I should have nipped it in the bud by telling him that his behaviour was unacceptable and that I would be reporting it. That would have stopped it from spiralling

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I think some of the things I experienced can happen at any good uni, to minoritised students. I think (or at least naively hope) the amount of things that happened to me wouldn't happen to many other people - and I now know that my college at least has taken a more serious and professional stance towards welfare matters and how they're dealt with and by who

Reply 21

Anonymous #2

@The_Lonely_Goatherd : Thanks so much for your time to reply to the points which are very helpful (though, in my case not in an Oxford context). Hope you are doing OK now and wish you all the very best...

Reply 22

The_Lonely_Goatherd

Original post by Anonymous #2

You're welcome. Thank you! :h:

Reply 23

Lugg13

I’m sorry for coming to this thread so late. I’m glad you are doing better now. I was wondering what holidays are like at Oxford: are they stressful? How much uni work would you have to do during a holiday and did you have to get a job too? (Only answer what you want to answer of course)

Reply 24

The_Lonely_Goatherd

Original post by Lugg13

Hiya!

Thanks for your post! Am struggling with psychosis tonight but will try and reply tomorrow. Poke me if I forget :colondollar:

Reply 25

The_Lonely_Goatherd

Original post by Lugg13

Hi again,

In all honesty, I don't remember much about the uni holidays at Oxford! I usually spent most of them trying to recover from term-time stress and illness, I think. In my subject, I don't think we were given much holiday work but we had mock exams at the start of each new term (bar the first term of first year, and first term of second year), so had to revise for those.

I was on a full Oxford bursary of £10K over my three years, so there was no need for me to get a job during the holidays :nah:

Reply 26

Lugg13

Original post by The_Lonely_Goatherd

Hi again,
In all honesty, I don't remember much about the uni holidays at Oxford! I usually spent most of them trying to recover from term-time stress and illness, I think. In my subject, I don't think we were given much holiday work but we had mock exams at the start of each new term (bar the first term of first year, and first term of second year), so had to revise for those.
I was on a full Oxford bursary of £10K over my three years, so there was no need for me to get a job during the holidays :nah: