In support of this year’s University Mental Health Day, Jordan Macmillan has bravely chosen to speak out about his own struggles with mental health in an attempt to destigmatize the topic. Here, the BA (Hons) Football Coaching & Management student opens up about his own personal battles and how seeking support changed everything…
I have struggled with my mental health for a long time and up until recently, I always shrugged off the idea of getting help. I always thought that it was my problem so I can and should fix it myself; I thought I was too strong to get help and so it took me a long time to open up to the idea of getting help.
I struggle with my self-esteem and my self-value and I find it difficult to like myself which often leads me to think that I must give more to others to receive the bare minimum in return because sometimes I think that I am worthless and that no one cares about me, so I must go above and beyond for others which, as you would expect, gets me hurt a lot.
By default, my brain always finds a way to put me at fault. Even in situations where I know deep down that it has nothing to do with me, I will still manage to find a way to blame myself. These thoughts would look like “What if I did XYZ?” or “What did I do wrong? Did I say something to upset them?” even though I did nothing wrong.
I also struggle with putting how I feel into words. I know that I have these thoughts and feelings, but I find it difficult to express them in a way that makes sense, so naturally I would bottle up my emotions, not talk about them and let them sit there, which only made things worse.
My struggles with mental health have always seemed to be quite inconsistent, so one week I would be fine then the next I would have no motivation to do anything, my social battery would be non-existent, amongst other things. I would never look to get help because I always thought “I’ve been through this before, I know it will fade over time” which was true, but these feelings kept coming back and each time they did, they hit me harder, put me down lower and became more difficult to deal with.
I am going to give a little insight into what made me reach out to UCFB Student Support for help. Before I came back to university my dog passed away, and he was my everything, I have never loved anything more than him. Losing such a big part of my life caused me to have a mental breakdown. Then coming back to university and the pressures and stress that I put on myself due to the aforementioned reasons, I hit rock bottom. I had never felt so low in my life, and it was at that point where I thought that I might as well reach out as I have nothing to lose.
I started by contacting the UCFB Student Support to see what kind of help I could get. At first, it was a couple of phone calls as due to my anxiety, I find the thought of meeting new people petrifying so phone calls worked best for me. After a while, I felt comfortable taking it to face-to-face meetings. These meetings take place at Student Support in Arch View House, so they were super convenient for me as I only lived next door.
These meetings began with me talking about my feelings, speaking about how I felt, why I felt like that, and overall, what I wanted to change. Don’t get me wrong, this was hard. It was so scary to talk to someone about my feelings, but in a way, talking to a stranger was easier for me rather than talking to a friend because I was worried that if I opened up to a friend, they might perceive me differently and I didn’t want to be a burden on them.
After a couple of sessions, it got a lot easier to talk about my emotions. I felt quite free after each one, almost like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. However, as I mentioned before, these thoughts and feelings come and go in waves, and each time they came back it was harder. I explained this to the support team, and they referred me to Health Assured.
At first, I was quite reluctant to receive professional help because I had never had counselling before so not knowing what it would be like made me rather anxious. After a few more sessions with Student Support, I decided to try it. I sent Health Assured a brief email about how I was feeling, and they replied within a week or so asking to speak to me about possible counselling sessions.
Health Assured gave me different options of types of counselling. These included having someone to speak to who would help me understand my feelings better; someone who could help me figure out why I have these emotions and pinpoint where they come from, and the option that I took, someone who can give me techniques to help in re-framing my negative thoughts.
Due to my sessions with Student Support, I found the meetings with Heath Assured a lot easier than I predicted. The person I spoke to was reassuring and made me feel very comfortable with talking about my feelings, I felt that I was in a safe space. I have been having these meetings for a couple of months now and I have never felt so confident and motivated in my life. I have finally begun to understand my value and my self-worth, which has led me to have less and less of these negative thoughts. I no longer feel like I am worthless, and it is all because I reached out.
So, if you are struggling with your mental health I encourage you to reach out. Trust me when I say I know it’s hard and I know it’s scary, especially if you have never done it before. No one deserves to go through these negative feelings, so if you are reading this and you have these feelings just know that you are loved, and people do care so please reach out because you are not alone.
