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Challenging stigma: Oxford life and mental health

On Friday 24 January, following my election as OUSU Disabilities Officer, I came out as disabled on Facebook. I have been explaining to friends and family over the last few days about how I have been struggling with severe depression for a number of years, and how tough it had been at times. Since then, around a dozen friends have text, messaged or spoken to me about how they have felt exactly the same way, and have also felt unable to speak about mental health disabilities such as depression, for fear of the stigma.

Mental health problems can have a devastating impact on work. You need to take into account losing a day or two, just because you aren’t able to work at all when you are on a low, and it becomes difficult to concentrate when things are on your mind. Taking out time for treatment, the costs add up. Many develop a strategy to cope with their depression and workloads. My own involves getting through as much work as quickly as possible, so that when problems come, you’ve made time to accommodate.

For some, however, the stress of Oxford life can become too much, and the university needs to make sure that its rustication policy is both compassionate and focused specifically on the student’s best interest. Friends have to play their role too. Nothing helps my depression more than a conversation with a close friend, and you should never underestimate the power you have to alleviate someone else’s suffering. Professional care should never be neglected either. I often wonder why so many people boast about going to the gym for their physical health, but would never go and see a shrink to take care of their mental health. The answer, as ever, is stigma.

But mental health problems are manageable, and can be made more so by support from professional services and friends. Sadly, those services aren’t always there. I’ve had to wait up to three months at a time for access to counselling services through the NHS, as mental health care is chronically underfunded. That’s why we still need disabled liberation campaigns.

There are already a great range of organisations championing disabled people, particularly those with mental health problems, such as Mind and Time to Change, which aim to combat the stigma against those such as myself with depression or anxiety. Oxford even has its own fantastic campaign, Mind Your Head, which have done some inspiring work.

There’s a lot on the agenda for this next year as Disabilities Officer, but first and foremost I want to get the Disabled Students’ Campaign started up again. Challenging stigma, improving physical access and empowering disabled people with mental health problems to ‘come out’ are all part of my thoughts, but we need suggestions that come from the grassroots (that’s you, reading this!) about how disability affects life in Oxford, and how we can change that for the better.

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