TW: Depression, Schizophrenia, Suicide
"I arrived at university in Manchester at the age of 18 believing it was going to totally change everything for the better.
My teenage years so far had been absolute hell. I was secretly depressed, suicidal, and hearing a voice that I thought to be the devil.
School and college were a real struggle but somehow I managed to get through them. It was gaining a place at Manchester Metropolitan University to study drama that I believed would be at the light at of end of the tunnel.
However on the Thursday of Fresher’s Week I realised that this wasn’t to be the case, and that in fact the tunnel had become darker than ever before.
I told my new flatmates I had a migraine and shut myself in my bedroom for the next 24 hours.
This was the first of countless times pretending I was physically ill to my friends at university, when in fact it was my mental health causing me to be unwell.
Yet at that time I didn’t even know what the term mental health meant exactly. We never once talked about it at school, except perhaps for the time we watched One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest in the sixth form.
It was then that I began telling myself I was “mad” and “crazy”.
At 17 I took myself to my GP desperate for some help from the insanity that I believed I was succumbing to.
I was referred to CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) but a long waiting list for treatment meant I gave up on seeing a therapist. Besides, I didn’t need help anymore. I was going to move from my parent’s home in North London to my new student halls in Manchester and that was going to solve everything.
I can’t even begin to describe the despair that overcame me when I realised I hadn’t left everything I wanted to behind in London on that Thursday during Fresher’s week.
It wasn’t long before I visited my student GP.
“I think more exercise and a better diet might help. Try having more fruit and veg instead of the usual junk food you students eat,” was the GP’s response when I described how I felt.
6 weeks later I was back in this room, telling the GP her advice hadn’t helped and I was becoming quite desperate. She started me on my first course of several different antidepressants that I tried whilst at university.
Once again, this all occurred in secret. I was desperate for my new friends at university not to find out who the real Jonny Benjamin was. I was never particularly popular at school, but at university I seemed to have a lot more friends and I was scared to lose them if they knew what was really happening behind the mask I wore.
Despite having these new found friendships though, I remember feeling extremely lonely at university.
I used to hide in toilet cubicles when I was in nightclubs or pretend to be on the phone at friend’s parties. It was easier than being around the other students. I was finding it hard to be by myself, but even more difficult was being around other people.
I hated myself for leading the double life I did. Not only was I suffering with my mental health, but I was also struggling with my sexuality.
Hailing from a Jewish background, I believed it was impossible for me to ever ‘come out’. Furthermore, I couldn’t come to terms with the fact I might actually be gay.
But on a drunken night in the first term of my third year temptation led me to the internet, where I found a guy close by who wanted to meet up and have some fun.
By this point I was really quite unwell. I was self-harming and drinking too much on a frequent basis, whilst my attendance and performance at university was slipping. I was seeing a student counsellor, again in secret, but my sessions with him were drawing to a close.
The night spent with the guy I met on the internet was the final catalyst for a major breakdown.
A couple of days later I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital and diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a combination of schizophrenia and bipolar.
I couldn’t comprehend it. How could I have gone from being a student studying at university one day, to an inpatient on a psychiatric ward the next?
In my current work within mental health, I have visited various universities to deliver talks to students.
My key message is always the same; talk. I don’t want anyone to find themselves in the situation I found myself in just weeks before my 21st birthday.
I later ran away from the hospital, attempted suicide and was sectioned.
The road to recovery was a long, arduous one. Eventually I went back to university and finished my degree, which my tutors supported me massively with.
Looking back, I wish I never would have got to this stage in the first place.
I don’t have many regrets in life but my biggest one is probably not speaking about my mental health to a service like Nightline at university.
In my second year, I had a car accident and was physically hurt from it; I never hesitated to talk about that.
Struggling with one’s mental health at university is nothing to feel ashamed and embarrassed about.
You certainly wouldn’t be alone if you were struggling. I was amazed at the amount of people who told me that they themselves suffered with mental health issues whilst being a student after I began sharing my own personal story.
I still struggle myself today, but now I speak about it when I do. It doesn’t always take away the difficult thoughts and feelings, but it certainly helps relieve their intensity when I begin to talk.
I really hope you will too if something within what I have written has resonated for you."
London Nightline is completely confidential, completely anonymous and completely non-judgemental. All of our volunteers are students like yourselves and know that student life isn't as easy as the media makes it out to be.
If you do need to speak to someone, then call 0207 631 0101, text 07717 989 900 or go to nightline.org.uk to find more ways of contacting us.
