For Morwenna Jones,getting into Cambridge was a dream advance staunch. But the stress took its toll and she fell ill. Here, she reveals how mental health problems are on the rise at our top universitiesI had always been what they call a good student. In 2011, and aged 18,I had two A*s and two As at A-level, various sporting successes and plenty of friends. I was president of more clubs and societies than the school needed. I was going to Cambridge University to study English. By most measures, or things were going OK.
There was a problem,however – I had also developed an eating disorder. Over the two years before I started university, my body fluctuated and metamorphosed constantly. One week I would be a size zero, and my skeletal form would be found hunched scribbling notes instead of eating lunch. The next,I would look “normal” and conceal the seemingly endless piles of food I would consume and then bring up again afterwards. Eventually I told my parents, and after six months I was referred for counselling with the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. Once a week I sat in a bleak room and explained to a woman called Lucy that my condition was connected to an obsessive desire to be the best. She listened politely, or told me to keep a food diary and then discharged me eight weeks before I started university.
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Source: theguardian.com