Q: So where does this story start?

Mental health started for me as more of an awareness thing in high school, getting involved with mental health groups to see what issues there were and what issues people faced. It was not an issue I was facing, but something that somebody else faces that maybe I can help support. It was a very me and “other people” type thing. I was aware about these things and they exist but it didn’t seem super personally relevant until university started hitting.

First year university you go through the typical orientation, and you have people come to talk to you about mental health services. And they say that we have engineering counselling, and you can just go in and sign up if you want to. That’s a service that’s available if you need it. And I went “okay, cool. Good to know that that’s available. Moving on.” And that was kind of how it was for the first year and a quarter, year and a half or so.

It wasn’t until my second co-op where things started to get a little stressful. Not super stressful, enough to maybe make me try to be a bit proactive and focus on self-care, and sign up for counselling.

So, I signed up for counselling, and the first appointment was like “okay I’m here, I just want to be here and check it out”. After a little bit of a wait time they had a spot open up so I tried out counselling. It was kind of more for self-reflection and really grounding myself in terms of what my thoughts were and what my situation was. It wasn’t super serious which was great, I was just staying somewhat mentally healthy. That kind of set a foundation for going forwards when things got a lot more difficult.

On my 3rd and 4th co-ops when things got really isolated and difficult and I didn’t have as much support as I was used to — because I was living away from my friends and family or because I was working really long hours at a really demanding job feeling very lost — I lost a lot of confidence. That kind of helped with utilizing counselling as a service for actually helping me, not just a service that exists.

Lots of people use it for different things, and different degrees of helpfulness. I only find it really helpful when I can articulate some things about what my situation is and what I’m feeling. And just to kind of try my best to reflect about that. If you go in and you’re like “I dunno”, and you just sit there like “I dunno”, it doesn’t really help someone who’s trying to help you if you don’t at least try to articulate something. You can say I don’t know but this is what I do now.

On the terms I’ve been away from Waterloo I’ve tried calling help lines with varying degrees of usefulness. It depends a lot on how much you can tell them and what they can understand from you within that short phone call. Finding different ways to stay supported when things get really stressful or hectic is important.

I don’t know what else to say. My story is more about difficult stress from being in engineering than any one serious issue.

Last co-op term got so bad in terms of being stressful that there were some nights I just couldn’t fall asleep. All that I could think about was work. And “what if this goes wrong”, and “what if I haven’t done this yet”. A lot of doubts. That was the one co-op term where my confidence about anything I thought I was remotely good at — like time management, project management, or just understanding anything technical — just kind of plummeted to rock bottom. It felt like nothing was getting done, and things were really rough, and I couldn’t stop thinking “what if things don’t work out”. “What am I doing with my life? I thought I was good at these things.” Now I’m just trying to build myself back up from there.

Starting school right after a work term, without really even a break, where things didn’t end on a really positive note kind of carried things right into my school term. Trying to start school term and get back into the routine. Going from something that didn’t end well but knowing that it ended was a relief. But that lack of self-confidence and all of those self-doubts are still carrying over.

Q: You mentioned that your confidence wasn’t so great last co-op term. Does being in school help with that?

Being in school helps in some ways. You know that you have a set schedule and you can follow it. Even if you do the minimum by going to lectures you at least have a clue about what’s going on. If nothing else, you know what those words mean. I look at the assignment and I’m not completely lost yet so I can at least accomplish some small things which helps to not feel completely useless and like I still understand some things. That’s a little reassuring.

I don’t know how the term will go though so we’ll see. So just building back up that confidence and then hoping that it doesn’t fall again if things later in the term get more confusing or stressful.

Q: Are you doing anything specific for self-care for keeping your confidence up or making sure that if it does go down you have some support to fix it up?

I have some “warm-fuzzies” or messages or writings that people have done over the years whether it’s at one of those little retreats where they tell people to go tell somebody something nice about them. I have a collection of those from over the years and just remind me that these are things that people appreciate about me, and that they’re things that I am good at. Even though there’s times that things I’m good at don’t go right or things go really crazy I’m not completely useless and I’m not hopeless and they’re things I can hold onto and when things get a little better I can really cherish again.

Q: That’s really good advice. Do you have any advice for someone in your situation? So that would be lacking confidence because of a co-op term.

Yeah. I’ve done a lot of self-reflection which helps me to see what things I could better control next time and what things I just have to let go because that’s how the situation was. Not everything is in your control and you just have to let things be. You have to accept that sometimes. For me, I’m still kind of reeling from that. Some of this all went to hell because I didn’t get enough sleep, so when I tried to do work it was really disorganized, and that compounded. So just being aware of that. I don’t know if I’m ready to change my habits yet but that’s at least the first part. To be aware of why some things happened but also what wasn’t in my control.

Q: Just a last note on counselling services, you said that you’ve tried them with varying degrees of help. Is there a quick way for someone to say if counselling is for them or if they should explore another option like UW MATES or a helpline?

Yeah. I think in terms of going to some kind of counselling whether its helpline, or MATES and talking to a peer, or a counsellor and talking to a professional who has done a ton of school about this kind of stuff. It depends on your comfort level, like who are you most comfortable with at the moment to talk to? Just kind of have an idea of what you’re willing to share. For me it helps to write a couple notes beforehand. Like I know I want to talk about this particular project at work where I know I messed up, and I wasn’t to vent basically about why I’m not confident about how that went, and what I know I need to do next, and what I don’t know. I need to kind of ground myself with. Whatever you’re comfortable with, and whether that’s the person who can relate best or the person who can be the best kind of sounding board and can come from a different perspective. I have yet to try out all those kinds of people. Even just finding a friend to vent a little bit helps too.

Q: To end on a lighter note, was always ask our speakers to suggest what music they’re listening to. If you have a song, album, artist, etc.

It’s a song called live your life