Testimonial #17

I have a history of chronic depression which affected me worst during my early teens and landed me in hospital for a time. Since then I've been prone to boughts of anxiety, one of which I was seriously effected by in my first year of university (largely because of the financial strain I experienced during that time after being made redundant and refused financial aid from Sussex). I was unable to receive clinical therapy due to the long waiting lists at all Brighton trusts, including the mental health centre on campus. I decided to give the Student Advisors a try, and actually found that the support I received from certain individuals there was better than any therapy I'd been expecting. I was offered real, practical advice from people who I genuinely felt were listening to me on my terms, as people whose day-to-day lives were actually very similar to my own. Because there was less of a professional boundary than that which exists between patients and clinical therapists, I found that the support I needed was provided on much more personal and friendly terms, and was more accessible at short-notice as well. I would never have made it through first year without legging it back to my mum's if it hadn't been for them! The idea that people won't be able to obtain such invaluable support and empathy in the future, especially as the pressures of entering the academic/job-market will only grow to be more severe, seems completely absurd to me. I whole-heartedly emplore management to reconsider the function and value of this service which so many of us would have appreciated over the years.