Fiona Terry reflects on personal journey for University Mental Health Day

Mental health has long been the elephant in the room for society. How do I share my feelings? How do I start that initial conversation? Can I really talk to my friends and my family about this?

There are so many questions and sometimes finding the perfect answer for you can seem impossible.

One Radiotherapy and Oncology student has shared her story to help others realise they are not alone in their struggles.

As part of University Mental Health Day on 9 March, Fiona Terry reflected on a seven-year journey with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), anxiety and depression.

Before you read on, please note this article features discussion around suicide and suicidal thoughts.

Car accident

The first step in all of this was my car accident in 2016. I had actually just started a new job and it was my first day working in Paisley. I was heading home, sitting in a row of traffic and basically a lorry came from behind and hit the back of my car. I don’t really remember anything other than the impact forcing me to spin into the central reservation. The car in front was knocked 300-yards into a ditch and hit another five cars, but I was the only one that was hurt. I was off work for three months and I still can’t pass a lorry without accelerating to get away from it.

Stigma

I was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after the accident, but my mental health issues started as a teenager when I was bullied at school. I think there was a bit of stigma in place around mental health. It was a different time, and it is something the older generation didn’t know much about. My mum is now really understanding and has been a tremendous support during the times I’ve struggled badly.

I think there is also a stigma against PTSD. People definitely just associate it with the army, but you can get it from anywhere. My mum understood that more than my mental health struggles because there was evidence of the crash.

After the crash, I got ten weeks of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) but that was mainly focused on PTSD – I never really mentioned anything in terms of depression. I’d never told anybody. I don’t even think I understood I was depressed.

Anxiety

Fast forward to 2018 and my partner at the time did some unforgivable things and it put me into a dark place. However, I also started to realise that I might be able to fix it. I think that the CBT I had been given helped me because I continued to use certain techniques from it; like five things you can see, four things you can smell, three things you can touch. It basically takes your focus off the anxiety and brings you back to your reality.

Anxiety is very much a different world where you are overthinking things. Everything your anxious mind focuses on isn’t actually true.

Coping with suicide

I then got into a new relationship the following year and he tragically took his own life. That was when things really took a turn for the worse. There’s a saying that suicide is contagious, and it sounds so stupid, but it is.

I blamed myself because I was supposed to go over the night it happened, and I didn’t. I didn’t phone him right away the following morning and the only reason for that was because he usually phoned me, and it just felt a bit off. I still blame myself sometimes. I know it wasn’t my fault but it’s hard not to blame yourself for it because I feel like I could have prevented it if I just went over that night.

He had previously phoned me and told me all these things that were upsetting him. I tried my hardest to support and reassure him. I know I wasn’t the only one to have that conversation that night, but it’s just difficult thinking I could have prevented it.

Giving information but keeping some back

After that was when I first started getting suicidal thoughts. I started to hide my mental health a lot more. I’ve actually never told anybody, but I’m very good and giving people enough information that they know there’s an issue…but keeping enough back that people don’t worry. I guess it’s just my way of not putting my problems onto other people.

Women and men’s mental health

I think women have it harder because they can be emotional. When a woman is struggling it can be looked at as her just being “emotional” rather than there being any reference to a particular mental health issue. People might just think that a woman is just comfortable expressing her emotions but then the flip side to that is men maybe not expressing their emotions as much because they need to be “manly”. I hate the expression “man up”, I’ll never say that to anyone.

My partner who took his own life was a lot more emotional than I was, but he was so happy. You would never have known in a million years that it was going to happen.

Turning point

Things started to get really bad for me in January 2022. There was no real reason for it, but everything was just spiraling. The suicidal thoughts had come back, but they came back a lot harder than before – to the point where I had planned it out around who would find me and what the easiest way would be.

It’s a horrible thing to think but that was exactly the issue: I wasn’t thinking straight. It was always about other people; it was never about me. You never ever see what it’s going to be like for the people afterwards.

Support from Glasgow Caledonian University

I’m not entirely sure what happened but I just remember being on placement and having an absolute meltdown. I was on the phone to one of the lecturers in tears; inconsolable. I had to go home, and it was a proper big moment in my journey.

I didn’t actually reach out to the GCU Student Wellbeing team at first, I’d put in mitigating circumstances for placement. I got a generic email and it said at the bottom about further support being offered. I’m very glad I clicked that link.

I basically filled out the form and the GCU Student Wellbeing team then got in touch with me to arrange a meeting. I had actually submitted mitigating circumstances before, but it was because of migraines, so I never even looked at the part of the email that spoke about support from Wellbeing. However, I did this time.

Sense of achievement

By the time I got to the Student Wellbeing Counselling team, I’d already been on medication for a few months. I was starting to get better, but the support was still extremely useful. There were still things I hadn’t realised were impacting me. What I like about it is that they don’t tell you how to get better, they help bring it out of you. They make you realise what it is just by chatting to you. That provides you with a massive sense of achievement and allows you to control your own healing.

The Zoom meeting we had originally was basically a consultation where they got to know what was going on in my life. Then they put me on the waiting list for counselling and they dropped me an email to get some in-person meetings. I think most people get six weeks’ worth of meetings and then they decide from there if you need more.

A change in perspective

The meetings were probably more important than the CBT I received when I originally got diagnosed with PTSD back in 2016.

My relationship with the gym was something we looked at in great detail. I’m only back at the gym four or five months, and I’ve been going to the gym for more than a decade. I took ten months off, I couldn’t go. I didn’t know why I couldn’t go, but I couldn’t do it.

When I spoke to the Wellbeing team, we came to the realisation that I wasn’t going because my motivation was that my ex-partner didn’t like people that were bigger, and I hated myself. That was my motivation.

It was a huge, positive realisation. Now, I am back at the gym and my motivation is because I want to be there, not because I want to do it for anybody else and certainly not because I hate myself.

The GCU Student Wellbeing team have totally changed my perspective on myself as a person.

Advice to other students

My life wasn't bad. I can’t say my life was ever bad, but that’s not what mental health is about. It’s a chemical imbalance, it’s a medical condition. You cannot help that.

You could be the happiest person in the world and still have mental health issues. I also feel that people who are perceived to have more tend to be more depressed because they are always striving for more. It’s hard for everybody.

If you feel like you are struggling, then don’t be afraid to get help. You have so much support at University, especially this one.

Find out more about the GCU Student Wellbeing team and the support they can offer here

By Ross Clark     
Got an SHLS or GSBS story? Email me at Ross.Clark@gcu.ac.uk or message me on Twitter