Sunday 24 September 2017

Managing your mental health in school

How to cope with your mental health in school, college or university.

Going into a new year at school or starting your first year at college is a very stressful time in itself, but when your battling mental health problems starting the new academic year can be a very daunting process. But your not alone, 1 in 4 people struggle with their mental health this means that the thoughts you are having about starting the new year will be very familiar to some others in your group.


My mental health struggles took the last two years I had left at secondary school away from me, but going back to year maybe year eight or nine I was that pupil who's attendance was below 50% by only the first term. I was that pupil who was the subject of conversation in the staff room by teachers who were 'concerned' about my lack of progress. I often heard teachers talking about me and how I was just 'another one of them students'. I was that student who from the outside looked like they didn't care, a student who looked unmotivated. But that was far from the truth.
I was struggling with severe mental health problems. I was getting 2-3 hours sleep on a good night and still dragging myself out of bed anyway despite usually being late. I was coming into school and leaving my parents at home worried sick about me, I would get into as many lessons as I could despite knowing my illnesses were wrecking my home life. I would be discharged from hospital after an awful weekend and return to school the next day and appear 'fine' but then have to face the comments of, "Your never going to pass you GCSE's at this rate" "Do you even care?" "Why do you even bother coming in". I usually avoided these questions and changed the subject in fear of being judged if they found out what was actually going on. I went to school not to pass my exams but because I didn't want to give up on another thing because of my mental health.
I wanted to be normal.

I started my first year at college last year in September 2016. Going back to education after a long two years out petrified me, but sometimes a new year can make all the difference.

Keeping yourself as well as you possibly can is key to managing in education.
Prioritise yourself. You need to make time to rest, to socialise, to eat and to sleep.
If you know your mental health is going to affect your time in school, college or university then you need to use the staff there, weather thats your tutor or a member of staff from your schools pastoral team. Don't be afraid to reach out for help, that is what they are their for. Yes they care about your education but you health always comes first no matter what.
Do everything you can not cancel appointments with services because of your timetable. If your appointments seem to clash with lessons try and get your care team to rearrange appointments around your lessons so you have time to get to both.
Some people find asking for help extremely difficult but if you need to take some time out of lessons for whatever reason you can do that. Teachers would much rather you take five or ten minutes out to calm down and refocus than letting your anxiety build up until you go into a panic.

Thank you for reading and I hope these little reminders have been useful.
I hope your all well and that you all have a good week!
Lots of love,
Leah x








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