A YouGov survey in 2016 found that one in four university students in the UK struggle with their mental health.
This ranges from those who have been diagnosed with a mental illness through to vast numbers who are battling with stress and worry: 63% of students say that they feel levels of stress that interfere with their day-to-day lives. Among those who identify as struggling with mental health problems, anxiety and depression are the most common, and often affect the same students (around 70% of sufferers).
Supporting students
This is a significant issue for UCCF to think about as we engage with students (both Christian and not). One particularly striking piece of information that came out of the YouGov research was this: only 8% of students know no one with mental health problems. Students within Christian Unions are struggling with their own mental health, but they’re also caring for friends who are struggling, and living in colleges and halls with people who are struggling, and sitting in lectures and labs with people who are struggling, and inviting people who are struggling to come to events.
We recognise that being a Christian, and even a Christian leader, doesn’t render us immune to mental illness, any more than to catching a cold, breaking a bone or getting cancer. Equally, mental illness doesn’t disqualify us from leadership. God can and does use us through all these different problems of life.
As we work with Christian Union (CU) students who are suffering, we’re committed to helping them to obtain appropriate support – being cared for by their local church, and seeking professional treatment from their GP or through university counselling services. But we also want to keep working with those students and keep helping them as they continue in their efforts to share the gospel within their campus.
It has been my privilege to walk alongside a number of different student leaders as they’ve worked through issues of faith and life in the midst of depression, eating disorders, bipolar disorder, PTSD and anxiety. Having had my own experiences of mental illness, I’m able to share something of the way that God has helped and guided me through it. It has been, and continues to be, a great joy to see Paul’s words in the opening verses of 2 Corinthians worked out in practice: ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.’
Thankfully, the gospel remains good and true in the midst of the darkness of mental illness, even though it is sometimes hard to hold on to.
A unique perspective
Having the hope and comfort of knowing Jesus is a great help in our own suffering, but it also gives CU students something unique to offer to their friends who are struggling. So, alongside caring for those CU students who are suffering themselves, we’re keen to help and encourage them as they reach out to non-believing friends and classmates who are dealing with their own mental illness.
Last year at Forum – our national training conference for CU leaders – we hosted an afternoon discussion to think about ‘living well with mental health issues’. Over 100 student leaders crammed into the venue to learn about how to care better for themselves and their CU friends, as well as to engage in evangelism that would deliberately seek to care for those who are suffering.
In particular, we discussed how important it is to be especially careful with our language in the way that we speak about mental health struggles. Too often, mental illnesses are referred to carelessly or made the punchline of jokes. It is so important that, as Christians, we be distinctive and kind in the way that we talk about this subject, and so we spent some time thinking about what that means for our public as well as our personal proclamation of the gospel.
We also got to hear about an event that Oxford CU puts on every year before finals: the Stress-Free Banquet. This event gives the CU an opportunity to demonstrate care and compassion for their fellow students in word and deed, as they offer a nice meal, a relaxed atmosphere and some words of advice on how to avoid stress in the midst of a very pressurised season of life, and to hold out the hope that Jesus offers.
Please pray for our CU leaders as they wrestle with these tricky issues for themselves, and as they hold out the hope of the gospel to their friends.
