Personal struggles at uni (TRIGGER WARNING: DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, EATING DISORDERS)

Good evening all.
This is going to be a lengthy post and a difficult one to write but I am having a variety of issues academically and regarding my position in a severely vulnerable and extreme mental health situation which I am getting professional and medical support for. I would much appreciate some advice on how to get the most out of my experience of university and overcome these issues as well as whether anyone knows of any places, services .etc that might help the situation. Forgive me if it comes across as ranting and, as mentioned in the title of this post, if you are likely to be triggered by anything within it, read no further.
For a bit of context I am a first year politics undergraduate (19F). I am neurodivergent so have issues socially and in communicating and forming meaningful friendships with others as a result of this. Many issues I face relate to my feelings of easily being marginalised not only as a result of these challenges, but also due to my interests, strong radical far-left political views (don't know whether this is censored on here), me also being queer, and my mental situation. These I feel have meant I find it harder to develop a support network and have meant I am often singled out making loneliness and increasing vulnerability significant issues I face.
Moreover, I struggle a lot with my self image mainly down to a lack of self love and appreciation (me struggling a lot to connect with myself in the here and now, even referring to her by a different name as I cannot relate to her with my critical versions of myself overriding against her and completely destroying my self-confidence). This leads to me being heavily flagellatory and constantly feeling I am failing (in spite of scoring good 2:1 grades for most of my assignments). I have developed imposter syndrome about being at university in the first place constantly feeling I am a fraud and that I am not truly doing well, feeling that the state should be funding someone else more deserving, and that with all of my problems, and that my achievements however small seem impossible. This extends also to my physical appearance and the way I am having in the past suffered from an eating disorder in my teenage years which kind of returned a few months ago although to a lesser degree (this eating disorder featured me limiting my food intake, constantly questioning what I have eaten, fixating on what is food is good and bad for me and feeling uncomfortable in situations where the expectation to consume certain food is present). The return of this I believe came from stress and the damage posed by a harmful relationship in which my physical appearance and weight were talked badly about and made me feel uncomfortable. For the context, I am a normal and healthy weight but have not been able to consider it as such.
All of this has made me have a variety of awful intrusive thoughts repeatedly which affect everything. I feel I am very much a burden on society and undeserving of existence and the rights given to me as well as that I am not contributing anything worthwhile but purely causing problems to everyone else. I feel that I have not accomplished enough and that everything I do is a lot of effort for no real meaningful outcome so I shouldn't have to go through all this unnecessary suffering. I often tend to also place unrealistic expectations on myself and feel demoralised if they are not achieved. On the other hand, I am not wishing to actively exit society and give up on life as I feel that would further present me as failing and would make the world proportionately worse if they lose a decent individual (however flawed) fighting against the issues within it. The same society I am rebelling against would not want the likes of me to exist. I also have very clear aims in life and what I want to achieve but struggle to see beyond the here and now as well as having the imposter syndrome which makes this hard. I also lack self-validation and tend to put myself in situations that I know are not good for me. These include supporting vulnerable insecure people in spite of my mental state as I feel that that helps me get through things and convinces me I am doing good despite the harm and trauma it has had for me and think it pushed my already poor mental state to breaking point.
Dear me. That was an awfully long post. Main questions I am on here to ask:
- Do any of you have experience with imposter syndrome and do you know any ways of getting around it?
- I currently have student mental health counselling and have applied for NHS therapy and medical support but do you know of
any websites/places I can also get help from that you would recommend?
- Any advice for making friends at uni come year 2? Get on well with my coursemates but am not particularly close with a lot of them and have friends in the societies I attend but many will be leaving next year as in their final years. Currently live in halls and get on with people there but am not that close to any of them. Will be moving into private halls next year.
Thanks for your time and well done for reading if you got this far.

Hey,
Well done for writing it out so and for making it through so far!
Some personal thoughts on your Qs (please take them with a pinch of salt!):
- Do any of you have experience with imposter syndrome and do you know any ways of getting around it?
Yes!! I think for me personally it's also linked with my perfectionism to some extent, that I could always see 100 ways that things could have been better (or that I could have done things better). It's hard especially with my tendency of wanting to take on challenges that are, arguably, too much of a reach for me. I think the ways to get through these would be different for different people, and obviously vary according to your context and scenario, but for me, I feel like it's important to learn to grow with it- that there might be part of me that is easily anxious, and second guessing why I haven't seen X before. But also every time this happens, I tend to use it as an opportunity for naturalistic experiment for myself to try out what strategies would make me feel better- and make notes of the ones that are tested and proven. So far, getting to move (e.g., going to the gym, or doing some Pilates) works for me sometimes, and then finding a netflix series to watch does the trick sometimes- I also go and find a random Tarot reading channel and listen to all the nice things it's going to say about a particular question and a particular group of card that I've chosen (Not scientific at all! Please beware). But I do think that if this gets in the way of life too much, and it's too hard to content on your own, seeking help as you already did is a GREAT idea! I always believe that you are the ONE EXPERT in the world of how you feel (and when you need help) - so give yourself that credit and listen accordingly.
- I currently have student mental health counselling and have applied for NHS therapy and medical support but do you know of any websites/places I can also get help from that you would recommend?
There are several neurodivergent charity that offers free consultation, (e.g., Autistica, National Autistic Charity), as well as some free helpline, e.g, Shout, Samaritans
- Any advice for making friends at uni come year 2? Get on well with my coursemates but am not particularly close with a lot of them and have friends in the societies I attend but many will be leaving next year as in their final years. Currently live in halls and get on with people there but am not that close to any of them. Will be moving into private halls next year.
Is there a society of your interest/your hobby that you could join?

Good evening all.
This is going to be a lengthy post and a difficult one to write but I am having a variety of issues academically and regarding my position in a severely vulnerable and extreme mental health situation which I am getting professional and medical support for. I would much appreciate some advice on how to get the most out of my experience of university and overcome these issues as well as whether anyone knows of any places, services .etc that might help the situation. Forgive me if it comes across as ranting and, as mentioned in the title of this post, if you are likely to be triggered by anything within it, read no further.
For a bit of context I am a first year politics undergraduate (19F). I am neurodivergent so have issues socially and in communicating and forming meaningful friendships with others as a result of this. Many issues I face relate to my feelings of easily being marginalised not only as a result of these challenges, but also due to my interests, strong radical far-left political views (don't know whether this is censored on here), me also being queer, and my mental situation. These I feel have meant I find it harder to develop a support network and have meant I am often singled out making loneliness and increasing vulnerability significant issues I face.
Moreover, I struggle a lot with my self image mainly down to a lack of self love and appreciation (me struggling a lot to connect with myself in the here and now, even referring to her by a different name as I cannot relate to her with my critical versions of myself overriding against her and completely destroying my self-confidence). This leads to me being heavily flagellatory and constantly feeling I am failing (in spite of scoring good 2:1 grades for most of my assignments). I have developed imposter syndrome about being at university in the first place constantly feeling I am a fraud and that I am not truly doing well, feeling that the state should be funding someone else more deserving, and that with all of my problems, and that my achievements however small seem impossible. This extends also to my physical appearance and the way I am having in the past suffered from an eating disorder in my teenage years which kind of returned a few months ago although to a lesser degree (this eating disorder featured me limiting my food intake, constantly questioning what I have eaten, fixating on what is food is good and bad for me and feeling uncomfortable in situations where the expectation to consume certain food is present). The return of this I believe came from stress and the damage posed by a harmful relationship in which my physical appearance and weight were talked badly about and made me feel uncomfortable. For the context, I am a normal and healthy weight but have not been able to consider it as such.
All of this has made me have a variety of awful intrusive thoughts repeatedly which affect everything. I feel I am very much a burden on society and undeserving of existence and the rights given to me as well as that I am not contributing anything worthwhile but purely causing problems to everyone else. I feel that I have not accomplished enough and that everything I do is a lot of effort for no real meaningful outcome so I shouldn't have to go through all this unnecessary suffering. I often tend to also place unrealistic expectations on myself and feel demoralised if they are not achieved. On the other hand, I am not wishing to actively exit society and give up on life as I feel that would further present me as failing and would make the world proportionately worse if they lose a decent individual (however flawed) fighting against the issues within it. The same society I am rebelling against would not want the likes of me to exist. I also have very clear aims in life and what I want to achieve but struggle to see beyond the here and now as well as having the imposter syndrome which makes this hard. I also lack self-validation and tend to put myself in situations that I know are not good for me. These include supporting vulnerable insecure people in spite of my mental state as I feel that that helps me get through things and convinces me I am doing good despite the harm and trauma it has had for me and think it pushed my already poor mental state to breaking point.
Dear me. That was an awfully long post. Main questions I am on here to ask:
- Do any of you have experience with imposter syndrome and do you know any ways of getting around it?
- I currently have student mental health counselling and have applied for NHS therapy and medical support but do you know of
any websites/places I can also get help from that you would recommend?
- Any advice for making friends at uni come year 2? Get on well with my coursemates but am not particularly close with a lot of them and have friends in the societies I attend but many will be leaving next year as in their final years. Currently live in halls and get on with people there but am not that close to any of them. Will be moving into private halls next year.
Thanks for your time and well done for reading if you got this far.

Firstly, it's incredibly brave of you to write with such honesty about the concerns you are facing right now. It feels like many of the things that are impacting you are based on the thoughts you have around your self, your appearance, your worthiness and your value. It also feels like you are working really hard in reaching out for some support, which you should be very proud of as this can be particularly hard when you are feeling undeserving.
We were wondering if you had reached out to your Gp recently to chat any of this through?
We know that sometimes reading around what you are facing can support to normalise how you are feeling. This article around Body Image- https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/a-z-topics/body-image might be useful to read. Also Young Minds have a lot of great articles that might be useful- https://www.youngminds.org.uk/. Please take care.