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Last Updated on July 21, 2025 by Grace Oluchi
Ever felt like your brain is buffering but life keeps demanding full speed?
Like you’re drowning in 3AM thoughts, 8AM lectures, 11AM fake smiles, and nobody even notices you’re gone?
Let me say it plain: school is killing some of us slowly, but we’re still submitting assignments.
📋 Table of Contents
The Key Takeaway.
University doesn’t just stretch your brain, it stretches your mental health like a rubber band on the edge of snapping. And nobody’s really checking if it already snapped. They just want your continuous assessment scores. You can be depressed, dissociated, and disappearing but as long as you show up and submit, the world assumes you’re fine. You’re not. You’re functioning. There’s a difference.
Nobody Prepares You For This Part of Schooling.
People hype you up for “adulting.” They say uni is fun, a new beginning, a dream. Nobody warns you it might become a nightmare you live in broad daylight.
No one talks about the mental toll of pretending you’re okay just so you won’t “fall behind.”
Nobody warns you that in uni, you could lose more than sleep. You could lose yourself.
Mental Health Challenges Among University Students.
Being Constantly Overstimulated, Yet Deeply Alone.
It’s wild how you can be surrounded by thousands of students and still feel like a ghost. Everyone’s on their phone, everyone’s busy, everyone’s in their heads. And when you’re spiraling mentally? No one even sees you.
You show up in class. You nod. You laugh when they joke. But inside, it’s silent. Or screaming. Either way, you’re alone with it.
Academic Pressure Isn’t Just Stress, It’s Psychological Torture in Disguise.
- “Just study harder.”
- “Wake up earlier.”
- “Plan your time better.”
That’s cute.
Now say that to someone running on 3 hours of sleep, 7 assignments, an untreated anxiety disorder, and a family depending on them to graduate and save everyone.
Let’s stop calling it “pressure” like it’s some cute motivational challenge. It’s a slow squeeze on your soul.
The Financial Anxiety That Never Clocks Out.
Let’s be honest. Half of us are broke and pretending.
- Some people are choosing between feeding their body and feeding their GPA.
- You’re buying handouts with money meant for food. You’re borrowing money for textbooks and praying your landlord doesn’t knock.
You can’t “focus on studying” when your brain is calculating debts more than course codes. Mental peace? Doesn’t exist when poverty is breathing down your neck.
The Shame of Not Having It All Together.
Uni sells you this dream: “Be organized. Be happy. Be balanced.”
LMAO okay.
- What if I’m just trying to survive the week without crying on the hostel staircase?
- What if I already cried in the library toilet and went back to class like nothing happened?
There’s shame in struggling. So people lie. They say “I’m good.” They post aesthetic notes and fake productivity. But offline? They’re rotting inside. Quietly. Slowly. Tragically.
The Body-Mind Disconnect No One Warns You About.
Have you ever forgotten how it feels to be you?
Like, one day you wake up, and you’re just going through the motions. You clean. You dress. You walk. You talk. But it’s like you’re watching your life like a movie. You’re not in it.
That’s dissociation. And it’s not just in psychology textbooks. It’s in the hostel rooms. The lecture halls. The chapel pews. The DMs left unread.
Everyone Talks About Burnout, No One Talks About the Hopelessness Underneath.
They’ll say “take a break.”
But what if even your breaks don’t feel like rest?
What if nothing is making you feel alive anymore?
That’s not just burnout.
That’s something deeper. Something darker. It’s when even the things you once loved feel like chores. You wake up and you don’t look forward to anything.
Therapy? Not in This Economy.
Everyone says, “Go to therapy.”
With what money, please?
A session can cost as much as your school fees in some places. So instead, you rant in your journal. You cry quietly. You self-soothe with food, music, isolation, whatever numbs the noise.
And let’s be honest, therapy is still taboo.
Even if you could afford it, would you be ready to explain it to your parents without getting side-eyed or prayed over?
Sometimes You Want to Give Up.
And not just on school.
On everything.
- You’ve imagined disappearing.
- You’ve wondered if people would notice.
- You’ve stared at your ceiling thinking, “I can’t do this anymore.”
If that’s you? I see you.
And I’m not here to tell you “stay strong” or “it gets better” like a poster on the counseling room wall.
I’m here to say, you are not weak for feeling this way. You are human. And university is brutal.
So What Now?
Honestly?
- There’s no quick fix.
- There’s no aesthetic productivity hack.
- And there’s no motivational quote strong enough to patch this kind of hurt.
But this I know: you’re not crazy, you’re not lazy, and you’re not alone.
We glamorize graduation. But what’s the point of making it to the finish line if you’ve lost your mind on the way? Maybe the real degree isn’t the certificate.
