Adults’ response to student mental health shows how out of touch they are

Unless you’re a student, you categorically will not be able to comprehend how we feel right now.

The mental health crisis is here. It’s happening and it’s not showing any signs of improving. University students everywhere are dealing with so much. We are finding it incredibly hard to cope and carry on with education as our entire world is flipped upside down. So many of us have been cheated out of our final year at university. Thousands of us have been stripped of our support networks and no one seems to care. It’s exhausting being a student.

11 students have died since returning to university. That is 11 people who have lost a life. 11 families who have lost someone. 11 student households that now have an empty room. And yet Daily Mail’s Twitter fans can’t comprehend how devastating this is. I’m not saying all adults are insensitive, but when 45-year-old Dave (who can’t even wear a mask properly) tweets and tells everyone that soldiers fought in World War One – well yeah, you can understand why it’s quite grating.

You might have seen this tweet recently. Early morning news show, Good Morning Britain, interviewed two freshers from Manchester Uni who were fenced in by the university. The comments blew up with a load of idiots spouting rubbish about how we should be caged up since all we care about is partying and pubs.

One Twitter user, Zoe, replied to GMB’s video stating how fed up she is with students who keep ‘banging on’ about mental health. She tweeted: “Omg, I’m so fed up with listening about these students banging on about mental health and not being able to go to the pub etc. What about the thousands of people who are living alone and have nobody. It’s about time they started to follow the rules and listen.”

Zoe if you’re reading this, your comment is pointless. Because firstly, no one is ‘banging on’ about mental health. ‘Banging on’ would imply there’s an ongoing conversation around mental health, however, due to the recent number of reported suicides, we can safely say that it’s not being spoken about enough. Unfortunately Zoe, if you think this is ‘banging on’, you’ve got another thing coming – the conversation is only going to get louder from here.

Secondly, all these people who are living alone don’t have fences up outside of their homes. If they do then they are either in prison or Manchester University. It’s about time adults showed some sympathy. This isn’t a game to us, it’s like adults see students as pulling out a ‘mental health card’ to try and get some attention. Students are dying over this.

Another raging boomer, Neil, felt it was necessary to share his irritatingly-stupid thoughts. He replied to the GMB interview claiming that the only problem was the fact Manchester Uni issued an apology for caging up their students. He tweeted: “The only problem is the university apologising. Maybe if they acted responsibly (not all of them) instead of flaunting the social distancing rules it wouldn’t be necessary. I was going to say acting like adults but there’s plenty of them not adhering to the rules.”

I will personally go and put up fencing around your house, Neil – let’s see how you like it.

After the fencing at Manchester uni was put up, students naturally decided to go and rip it down. I personally have nothing but respect for these students but Daily Mail readers, on the other hand, seem to have quite a few bones to pick.

The comment section of the Daily Mail’s article is truly something. So many keyboard warriors calling all students angry, left-wing idiots. A personal favourite of mine comes from Tigers. They commented: “Load of wasters who think their loan is for drinking. 80 per cent will end up stacking shelves in Asda. Wasters.”

Clearly Tigers has no respect for key workers who stacked shelves endlessly after boomers brought all the toilet roll because they were shitting themselves about having to learn how to work Microsoft Teams.

Another comment from Scobieone read: “Snowflakes!! It’s only a fence, it’s not electrified, there’s no dogs or guards with guns.” A strong opening, you got us good there Scobieone. Whilst there’s no electric voltage running through the fence, there was still a fence which is bad enough.

 

The Daily Mirror recently reported on the Leeds students who were forced to isolate in their halls. Luckily for every student isolating at Leeds, the readers of the Daily Mirror had some sound advice to share, because they know exactly what it’s like to isolate in halls, right?

One comment wrote: “How terrible. Students being told to wash their own clothes, how heartless. What next? Will they be told to think for themselves?”

 

Students are finding themselves in the position where they would rather drop out of university than have to isolate in their halls. Two weeks might not seem like a long time to some people, but to students who are alone and anxious, it seems like the length of a life time. Be kind to students.

Another comment read: “AAAh – poor little millennial snowflakes. They think they are smart enough to go to uni but not order food boxes from Morry’s who will deliver the following day or same day if lucky. Notice from the bin picture, they managed to get booze!!!”

At this point, I could turn reading Daily Mirror and Daily Mail comments into a drinking game. Take a sip every time you see the word ‘snowflake’ or an angry boomer use three or more exclamation points in one go!!!

Back to the Daily Mail we go. They recently published an article about the likelihood of students having to isolate before and after Christmas. The comment section was a goldmine of middle-aged keyboard warriors.

Flash Harry, who is clearly a little bit freaky, told his fellow readers that students should be “handcuffed to their beds”. Flash also made another comment stating our generation “will be remembered for wiping out their nans”. I am starting to think this is Matt Hancock’s troll account maybe?

Read more from The Tab’s You Matter campaign:

• Going home is not a magic fix for every university student. Stop treating it like one

• Sussex students urged not to return home in lockdown in order to ‘save lives’

• University confession page admins say suicide posts have doubled