Navigating student life with an anxiety disorder

I remember the Saturday I moved to university. I’d never seen the campus or accommodation before but made the last-minute decision to go for it.

A sense of dread shadowed over me as we parked up near my new home.

After my parents left, I stayed in my room in the dark lying on my bed. I cried and felt sick from the knots in my stomach that grew massively within seconds.

No one talks about the sense of dread that comes with leaving what you’ve always known. Everyone gets nervous when starting something new. However, Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) reinforces a sense of doom wherever you go, and when you’re alone for the first time as a young adult starting something new, that sense of doom increases into a shadow towering over you.

At the same time, my friend and course mate, Lizzie, was going through a similar thing. She was also diagnosed with GAD and spent a lot of time asking the all-consuming “what if’s”.

“I would be up late every night feeling sick with worry about every aspect like, ‘what if I don’t make friends?’, ‘what if everyone finds me weird?’,” she said.

“GAD is very good at tricking your brain into thinking the worst-case scenario will definitely happen, but it’s really not the case.”

I knew I couldn’t spend university like this, but the anxiety disorder wouldn’t stop coming, so here’s what I did to battle that.

Group Chats

Before I moved to university, I had found some groups online from my course and my halls. I joined them but didn’t talk to anyone. Regardless, joining them saved me some of the initial awkward introductions I was dreading. Someone in the chat arranged a meet up on campus.

I didn’t want to go but someone in that chat lived on my campus, so they waited for me. I shook nervously as I got dressed. GAD had forced it into my head that no one would like me, or there’d be some other awkward silences.

That was the first time I met a couple of people that would go on to become two of my closest friends. There were initially some awkward silences through the classic small talk, but we bonded on our love for creative writing.

“You’ll meet people on your course who have similar interests to you, and you will probably also meet people with GAD who know exactly what you’re going through,” Lizzie said and she was right.

Societies

When I attended the Fresher’s Fair, I was overwhelmed quickly by a lot of freshers, a lot of societies, and a lot of brands. I had to stop for a moment, standing on the outside of a busy tent. The basic act of inhaling and exhaling while holding my breath for a moment started calming a whirlwind of anxiousness.

It’s scary to walk into a tent full of hundreds of freshers and find a society. Instead, I sat in my room and looked at the list of societies on the students’ union website. I ended up finding the Drama Society, something I wanted to try, something which I would end up running in later years. I signed up.

Societies can be overwhelming so don’t be hard on yourself if you decide not to attend a taster. Lizzie mentioned how “she would have loved to join a society” but ended up not doing so and that is okay.

“I remember there was a taster session and I couldn’t even bring myself to go to the bus stop to go to the taster in the first place, let alone join a society.”

Take your time. You can join a society whenever you want or you don’t have to at all.

Lectures

I found lectures and seminars a lot harder than most things. The knots in my stomach would go as far up as my throat which didn’t help when it was my turn to speak in a seminar. My voice would always shake.

Though, I would do it when the points I wanted to raise needed to be highlighted. Not everything I said got an amazing response which left me overthinking, but a lot of the time it was appreciated and insightful according to classmates or lecturers. I valued the feeling of thinking ‘yes, maybe I’m good at this.’

Make sure you try and speak up when you can. You bring valuable knowledge into what you’re doing and you deserve to be listened to.

Clubbing

In my first semester, my new friends and I went to the campus club and ordered anything that sounded cool. This meant I got drunk quite quickly. Finding out how I behave when I’m drunk was quite the experience. It’s fun but always drink responsibly.

Drinking and having anxiety do not go hand in hand. In fact, you end up feeling more anxious. I learnt this the hard way.

Never drink away the anxiety but drink to add to the enjoyable experience, not the other way round.

Wellbeing

In my first year, I accessed the wellbeing services. It was one of the hardest things but I realised I needed help with GAD. I built a foundation with my therapist, something that I could build on throughout my university journey. Although sessions were not easy, it felt lighter talking to someone about the constant sense of dread that chased me.

“Don’t be afraid to reach out to someone at university such as student services to talk if you’re struggling,” said Lizzie.

There’s no shame in asking for help. There are support services there for you to ensure you have the best possible time you can at university. Writing that initial email takes a lot of courage but you can do it.

When I asked Lizzie about first year, she reflected on how ‘[she] felt much better once [she] has gotten into a routine after a few weeks of moving’.

“Starting university may feel awful and you may think it’s not right for you and you want to go home, but it’ll be fine once you give it time.”

Navigating student life with an anxiety disorder is terrifying but can be done. Student life is turbulent at best, which is not ideal for people with GAD, but as a person who’s currently near the end of her student life, I can assure you that you can do this. You will end up creating your own path throughout all of it, and you will have one of the best experiences of your life.