Hannah: My name is Hannah and I am 27 at the moment. Currently I am all day at a college in Lancaster getting back into education after quite a lot of mental health problems. I have been diagnosed with depression and anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder and borderline personality disorder. Going to college is so beneficial in getting to know people because there is a big tendency to isolate myself because in some ways it can seem safer being on your own because you have been hurt by other people or you could be preventing yourself from showing somebody else the horrible person that you think you might be. I actually was told about this college by my psychiatrist who suggested that it would be a good idea to do it. I tried university but dropped out of that because things went a bit wrong and I have some problems at school as well.
Ed Melia, NIACE Press Officer: So what did you think when the psychiatrist said to you, you know, ‘How about getting back into learning?’
Hannah: Erm, my first thought was well scary because I had had quite a few negative experiences but I also thought ‘yes’ because it is a really good idea because in my mind I feel like I have been a failure at education. I needed to prove to myself that I could do it. And also because my long term aim is to go back to university again in order to do a career in helping people. But I have had to very gently build it up because when I first came into college I used to come in wearing a cap and no make up and just face down not speak to anybody at all and was really scared going into the coffee area. I just didn’t speak to anybody. Gradually thorugh doing various courses like ‘feeling confident for the future’ and ‘general assertiveness’ and having help from the Learning and Support team and from the specialist tutors who have got experience in mental health and I also had a mentor to who understood my problems so now I am gradually doing more academic things again and even though I might struggle a bit with confidence around doing the assignments, I am gradually getting there. I am a different person now than when I first came here a few years ago. I tend to take good care of my appearance and I come across as quite an articulate person. To somebody’s first impression they would see me as not having any problems at all but underneath there is a lot of turmoil that still goes on.
Ed Melia: How tough was it going back to learning when you had had a bad experience at university?
Hannah: It was very tough. When I started to come to college my destructive behaviours in the form of self-harming actually increased because of the extra stresses. You know, I would often self harm whilst watching TV because you have negative experience in some ways there is a risk of there being a self fulfilling prophesy that you think something is going to go wrong again so it does go wrong and then you end up jumping out of the course. Which I dropped out of a couple of courses here but I am re-attempting them now because I am determined to do them this time.
Ed Melia: where do you find that determination from?
Hannah: It’s realising that I can’t carry on the way that I have been carrying on. I have been very destructive to myself and that is not a life. That prevents you from doing things it just holds you in a negative position and I want to be happy and feel like I am succeeding in something and I feel that coming to college is part of that path to succeed.
Ed Melia: what was it like when you had completed your first course?
Hannah: I was emotionally shattered actually! Very relieved I was able to say what I had done to myself which pretty difficult to say. When you actually think about the course that you have done or the courses that you are doing you actually don’t realise just what you are doing and when someone says it to you you think ‘actually I am achieving something’ because you tend to twist things around in your mind and to be negative. Rather than okay I am doing some courses, I am getting back on the path to my future life you still find it easier to think ‘well, I am here at 27 and I failed my university degree so I am behind other people’ because you get stuck in your mind on such a negative train of thought that it is impossible to turn that around by yourself. You need other people involved, you can’t do it by yourself. I mean, it’s your responsibility to change things but you can’t do it without the help of other people and people in this college have been absolutely fantastic.
Ed Melia: can you imagine for instance what life would be like now if you hadn’t taken the psychiatrists advice and come back to learning?
Hannah: I don’t think, to be honest, that I would be here. It is such a negative spiral that, self harming, overdosing, really not wanting to be alive and just that total failure point of view . I was so angry towards myself and there have been quite a few near misses and I think if I hadn’t got some structure and something perhaps to give me that confidence then I would have given up.
Ed Melia: what difference have people outside the college, your friends, your family, your playmates seen in you?
Hannah: I had been in quite a period of being quite aggressive towards my parents, quite argumentative and because I was very, very depressed saw me as just not bothering to do anything but lately my family, my parents are saying ‘it is amazing these things that you are doing. They are seeing a real difference in me. I am a much calmer person; a person that is making more friends, being able to share some things about myself and generally have more of a life.
Ed Melia: What would you say to someone who has got similar mental health issues as yourself but is too nervous to go back to learning and just says it is not for them? What would you say?
Hannah: I would say essentially you need to do something that is going to change your life that is constructive rather than listening to that destructive place in your mind. College wouldn’t be for everybody but as well as learning there is so much more to college life: gaining confidence, speaking to other people, starting to make friends and feeling more secure in being able to talk to other people, and you are not so isolated.
Ed Melia: what is it like to all of a sudden, in the last year or so, to have a future and big plans for the future?
Hannah: that is difficult question because you are like two different people in some ways it is easier being that person that is stuck in the destructive pattern. You know, like self harming, because that feels familiar even though it is a risk and you regret it after you have done it, it is something that you know, whereas there is the other side of you that wants a future and even though it might in the short term feel the harder path to go down, long term it is a lot more satisfying because there are some things that you can start to laugh about and smile about in small ways you start to be happy and there is nothing better than enjoying yourself even though you may not feel that it is satisfying your immediate want by doing some learning by coming to college it is fulfilling your long term need to love yourself and be liked by other people.