Jenny’s advice for people starting university
Off to uni this year? Firstly, congratulations! Often we get so caught up in the stress of exams and the emotion when it’s all over, that it’s easy to forget what you’ve achieved. So take a moment to give yourself a pat on the back, and feel proud! Getting into uni is tough for anyone, but particularly if you are struggling with OCD, so this is a real achievement.
I guess you’re probably quite worried about what uni’s going to be like with OCD tagging along. I wouldn’t say I’m completely free of mental health problems, but my OCD is a million times better than it used to be, and I really believe that university has played a massive role in getting to this point. Hopefully I can use this article to show you that, while challenging at times, university can be just what you need to help your OCD.
One of the first things I would say, is to have a think about how you feel about going to university. It’s completely normal to feel nervous, but if you already struggle with anxiety, it can be incredibly daunting. Sometimes it can be helpful to look at things from a different perspective; university is a big change, so it’s easy to think that this will worsen your OCD, but how does it feel to look at this big change as an opportunity to start fighting it? Although incredibly scary, big changes like moving to university can often be what we need to inspire us to start making other changes in our lives.
I really struggled in my first year. I’m not saying this to worry you, I’m saying it because I want you to know that things can, and do get better. There are a lot of things that I wish I’d known in first year, for example, that the horrible feelings and homesickness pass, and that (although they don’t talk about it) a lot of other people are experiencing them too. But it’s difficult to know this when you’re plagued with OCD and anxiety. My OCD worsened considerably as a result of the homesickness and change, and I ended up making a very ill-informed decision to move back home and commute to uni for the rest of my first year. As soon as I moved back home, I regretted it. Almost all of my friends from home had gone away to university, so there was no one to talk to or meet up with anymore. I couldn’t get involved with anything at university and attempt to make new friends, as I had to constantly think about train times and when I would be getting home. I became more and more isolated and depressed. That first year of university was an incredibly challenging time, which I feel I made more challenging for myself by moving back home rather than sticking it out. My advice to anyone who finds themselves in a similar position is this: talk about it. It doesn’t matter who it is, whether it’s a flatmate, your tutor, the doctor or someone from the uni counselling service. There are people there to support you, even if it doesn’t feel like it; talk about it before you make a rash decision like I did. You definitely won’t be the only student struggling with a mental health problem, I promise.
As a result of the encouragement I received from a counsellor at university, I managed to get the courage to move out for my second year of university. It was very last minute, and I ended up living in appalling conditions. Although it was a horrible experience, I look back now and realise that last year was almost like a very extreme form of exposure therapy. I had no control over what my flatmates did-they would smoke in their room, leave windows open at night and the oven on with nothing cooking. It was incredibly distressing, especially when they noticed my rituals of switching off all appliances at the wall before bed, and would purposely switch everything on again to torment me.
Again, it was a very difficult year for me, but one that got so much more positive as time went on. At the beginning of the year, the counselling I was receiving at university was stopped, as they didn’t have the resources to support me any longer. The combination of losing this support, and the impact the living environment was having on my health sent me into a downward spiral of distress, which eventually culminated in me being sent to the university Mental Health Coordinator. Although we didn’t meet under particularly pleasant circumstances, this meeting was genuinely one of the best things to have happened during my time at university. He told me that my diagnosis of OCD meant that I was eligible for Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA) and that I could have access to extra equipment to support my learning, and a mentor to support me both emotionally and with my academic work. Obviously I would much rather have found this information out at the beginning of my degree, rather than half way through my second year when I was at my lowest ebb, but I was glad that I did eventually find out about it. My mentor is amazing, I feel like she’s one of the first people to have really ‘got’ me and she’s just such a fantastic support in so many areas of my life.
As I head into my final year, things are looking so much brighter. I have a wonderful mentor, some amazingly supportive friends, and I’m now president of my university’s Mental Wealth group (you can read more about Mental Wealth, and find out if your uni has a group here.) Just last week I moved into a new house with two lovely housemates, who, as far as I’m aware, don’t even realise that I have mental health problems, and certainly haven’t treated me any differently if they have. In the old days, I wouldn’t even go into kitchens, let alone cook anything out of fear that I’d set the house alight. My new housemates leave the cooker switched on at the wall- and that’s completely fine with me, I don’t need to turn it off. These days I consider myself to be almost OCD-free, and that’s thanks to my experiences since starting university. Yes, there have been difficult times, but I wouldn’t be where I am today if they hadn’t happened. University can, and probably will be a challenge, but keep in mind that there is support there, even when it doesn’t seem like it, and you WILL come out the other side and feel a thousand times better for it. Embrace this time; university is about much more than getting a degree, it’s about helping yourself get better, and becoming the person you really want to be.
If you are starting university this year or you are already at university, take a look at our 10 useful links for students with OCD for further advice and support.
