"Amy", Arts Undergraduate

I do not have a diagnosed mental health condition. For all intents and purposes, I am your standard third-level student; persistently a little broke, a bit behind on assignments and readings, but ticking along, smiling away. The problem with mental health sometimes is that, unless you have a diagnosed and medicated condition, it can feel quite difficult to get people to take you seriously. Your stress; your anxiety; your panic, is lesser.

In my experience, no one has ever said this, nor even alluded to it, but when you feel that you have no right to feel so bad, it becomes difficult to talk about it. The result being I ignore it as much as possible, which is impossible in the day-to-day, so I swap crippling self-judgement and occasional self-loathing for mountains of work and tight deadlines. The sheer quantity and the stress leaves me busy and frustrated over something different which is not me. While it is exhausting, it means that there is less time for relaxation, less time for self-reflection, which doesn't often end well.

I don’t help myself either. My friends say to talk to them and if there’s ever a problem, they’re there. That’s what friends do. Sometimes I try. I say “hey can we talk? I don’t feel great”, but it comes down to it and I say, “Oh yeah just a bit stressed, you know?”, we exchange humorous anecdotes and go back to work. And I do feel better for a while, but it doesn’t last long and soon I return to my state of masked happiness, which I have gotten so good at by now that I am often described as smiley and cheery: the term “a sunny disposition” comes up a lot.

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