University Challenge: Part Two

 Suggestion To My Uni: More help with housing. 

I was uncomfortable with the idea of living in halls. Living with seven other people in cramped and often noisy conditions, having to go to a separate building to do my washing, and quite probably feeling out of sorts for not wanting to be part of the party culture didn’t feel like the right atmosphere to combine with my depression. After I took a tour around the halls on the open day, I panicked and confessed this to my mother.

 

When we went to the housing office, they seemed slightly put-out by my suggesting that their halls were not appropriate for me. It was suggested instead that I go into what they called a ‘scheme house’, a house owned by the university, closer to the centre of Bath with fewer housemates. I thought this sounded ideal, so decided to go for it.

 

I waited months for them to sort this out. Eventually they got back to me in late August (barely a few weeks before I was supposed to start) in the form of an email. The email consisted of the address of the house I was supposed to be moving into and the names and phone numbers of the girls I was going to be living with. That was it. Shortly after this, I received a phone call from one of the girls saying that as I lived the closest to Bath (Bristol) I should be responsible for sorting out a viewing of the house, getting the keys etc.

 

I was already panicking enough about the situation, but being told I was responsible for sorting out the entire house by myself was the last straw. I went into a panic attack that lasted about half a day and my mother angrily rang the housing office at the university to tell them it was not OK for them to assume I would be up to doing this. They hadn’t assigned anyone from the university to be in contact with me during this and the other girls hadn’t been told that I had a problem. In the end, through a lot of negotiating, a viewing of the house was arranged and I went to Bath to see it.

 

In short: it was awful. The house was set out over four floors as it shared the building with a shop. The bedrooms were a good size but for the most part I found the layout of the house uncomfortable. The kitchen was two floors up from the ground floor, the bathroom, three. The room on the bottom floor by the front door was definitely the worst of the lot, hardly any light, with bars on the tiny window, presumably to stop people breaking in. The three other girls were friendly enough but I wasn’t sure how they’d feel about me explaining my condition to them and with no one from the university there to help I felt awkward talking about it. We couldn’t decide how to allocate the rooms so we asked the estate agent to do it for us. I ended up with the room on the bottom floor. I was forced to sign the contract then and there as the other girls wouldn’t have been able to get their keys if I hadn’t and two of them had come from hundreds of miles away. Afterwards, I cried, knowing that this had all been a huge mistake.

 

For the first couple of days I couldn’t sleep through fear of someone breaking in. Every time I saw a shape of someone in the garden at night I panicked, even though it was only a friend of one of the other girls. Every time they had friends over I could hear them all walking past my room and up the stairs clear as anything. The girls gradually grew less friendly towards me as I refused to go out with them, preferring to stay in and read. I tried my best to fit in with them but after some time I realised we were just different people. My depression grew in this time: I felt inadequate and lonely and the position of my bedroom in the house didn’t help. One night I was woken at three am by one of my housemates forgetting her keys. Most mornings I was woken at six am by banging and crashing from the stockroom of the shop we shared the building with which was right above my room. I phoned my parents a lot in this time, which I felt horrible about doing as I had tried so hard to make this a fresh start. My mother was angry that the university had basically abandoned me straight after allocating me the house and hadn’t bothered to check with me that it was suitable. We started negotiations with the housing office and the estate agent to get me out of the contract. It was a long process and we received nothing but hostility from the university who I think believed it was my fault for signing the contract despite the fact I had no choice.

 

Eventually I was released from the contract under mitigating circumstances. I pushed a piece of paper under the door of the house getting the girls to sign a declaration so I could get the deposit back. By this time, the girls were outright hostile to me, having decided that I was cold and unfriendly rather than depressed and didn’t answer the door. To be honest, I don’t blame them too much. It was true that I hadn’t made much of an effort to make friends with them, but it wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was just lousy circumstance and for that I blame the university’s poor planning and non-understanding of my condition.

 

I ended up living with my parents for the whole of my first year. Some new start. To top it all, during my second year I saw the inside of three different halls on campus specially designed for people who live with mental conditions (agoraphobia, bipolar disorder and autism). Clean, bright, airy, spacious. A lot more expensive, obviously, but quite clearly perfect for me! I can understand that universities (especially small universities like Bath Spa) have limited rooms to offer to people with health problems but I find it aggravating that I wasn’t told about these options and insulting that I wasn’t even considered. It could have saved me a lot of problems.

 

Kind of a long one, guys, but thanks for reading. More to come.