It’s Good To Talk:Managing the anxiety of starting college

There are many anxiety-inducing experiences starting college and let’s acknowledge that anxiety is a part of our lives. 

What you might be feeling when entering this new stage of your life either as the student or parent is quite normal, it is the body’s reaction to change and stress. There are many changes for the young adult such as being homesick, worry about making new friends and fitting in! There is also the pressures of how to manage all aspects of college such as budgeting, studying, wondering have you chosen the right course, cooking for yourself and essentially being your own ‘boss’, probably for the first time in your life. It’s important to keep it within the remit of normal anxiety, which is a temporary worry or fear. What we are looking to avoid is anxiety getting worse over time when the fears and worries do not reduce but get much more heightened. So how do we manage anxiety in college?

Dear child, dear young adult 

Self-care in college is very important because with new found freedom comes lots of joys but without mum, dad or whoever your caregiver is to monitor your wellbeing it might be a whole new experience to be in-charge of minding yourself. Eating is your fuel and life in college is an on-the-go experience so you need fuel for the body, proper nutrition is key. 

Sleeping is equally important and needs to be balanced with the partying and socialising that is part of the college experience. Do keep in mind you need rest to function and without sleep everything seems much worse. Getting sleep does not mean staying in bed all day as that may feed any anxiety present and affect your night time sleeping which messes up the circadian rhythm. Our circadian rhythm is our 24-hour internal clock responsible for regulating our cycles of alertness and sleepiness by responding to light changes in our environment. 

Self care can be as simple as keeping on top of hygiene, it’s really about going back to basics and learning to mind yourself. We have been looking at the physical side of self care but what about the mind, how do you mind that? Again let’s keep it simple and ask yourself “how am I”, get to know yourself. You are spreading your wings, you are a young adult and you might need to figure out who you are or how you are! 

When thing start to feel ‘off’ please don’t ignore that feeling because often when we get out of sorts, anxious or sad, retreating is common practice, withdrawing from friends, not sharing with family and perhaps not going to classes. 

Maybe the course is hard, maybe you want to avoid feelings and situations, hide from the reality that things are not the way you imagined. This can lead to skipping classes and then the domino effect can creep in of feeling that you are falling behind and that can lead to overwhelm and perhaps fear of failure. 

With college or any new stage of life there come expectations, some of which are put on ourselves and some of which can be felt from parents whether real or perceived and that might be hard to manage. Be kind with yourself around these expectations, it’s all new and baby steps might be necessary. If you find college and the course hard, talk to your lecturers, it’s their job to help you, don’t be afraid or ashamed, if asking made things better you might have to focus on the outcome rather than the process. 

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Colleges offer many services including counselling and other support services,  these are in place because people need them. Going it alone and not availing of these services will only keep you in the place that might be far from pleasant and you deserve more. Be kind to yourself, its absolute key to your well-being. Being kind might actually just involve stopping being unkind to yourself so negative self-talk is best avoided because if you think it or hear it there is a good chance you will believe that and remember not all your thoughts are true. 

What can be helpful for any new experience or stage in life is a diary. This does not need to about writing pages of what is happening - it’s about an outlet for what’s going on for you, for your feelings and worries, seeing it on paper can sometimes help people make sense of what they are experiencing. It can take any form you wish from gratitude to emotions to things you would like to change or the not so good bits of the day etc.. whatever expression you want. Lastly talk, share, talk, share and repeat, I cannot emphasise this enough, bottling up is not good for anyone. There is nothing you have to share that cannot be more manageable by asking for help or allowing people in when they ask “are you ok?” - it is far from a weakness, every one of us need it throughout life! 

Dear parents 

Accepting your child is now a young adult making their way in the world on their own takes a bit of getting used to. Time flies and it might seem like only yesterday that they donned their primary school uniform now they are fleeing the nest. Adapting as parent to changes that college brings can be hard, it can be anxiety inducing as you worry about every aspect of your little one who is now not so little and a young adult in their own right. That sense of loss of control in protecting your child as they make the way in the world can be hard for parents. 

Communication is key in knowing what is actually going on with your child. It will reduce you going to worse case scenarios in your mind which can really heighten anxiety. Keep things in perspective, break it down and let your child know it’s completely normal for parents to worry but agree how you will communicate with each other around sharing as things that come up. It means everyone knows their boundaries, your respect for their freedom and their respect for your concerns.  It can be a fine line between being in-the -loop and giving them the space to grow and find their independence so talking to your friends, partner and loved one will give you an outlet to support your worries. 

Sometimes in life we just need to talk and for someone to hear our worries. The first child off to college and the last child going can be particularly hard as you either adjust to brand new parenting experience with the first or manage empty nest with the last. 

This is where other interest in life can be helpful, meeting up with friends or rekindling friendships, exploring something for you, be it a hobby, course or pastime, it’s important that you have other focuses in life to keep a happy balance for your wellbeing. 

You may also have to adjust to a new routine, your taxi duties may have reduced, your help at home may have disappeared and your wee buddy might be at college so acknowledge those changes but now it’s time for you! If there are younger children at home it’s still important to find an outlet for yourself, this is key for any stage of parenting. Parent or not, you still have needs! Like the young adult you may have to find out who you are now, how you feel and know when you are ok and more importantly know when you are not. 

I say this especially to the Daddy’s out there because men tend to not share as much as females and sometime people don’t stop and say to a man “how are you doing now that x” is away to college? Talking to each other as parents, if you in a relationship together can be very important and even with co-parenting (if it is amicable) it’s good to check-in with each other because each parent might experience a different sense of loss as the child goes off to college and both parent may have completely different anxieties.  

There are many financial worries for parents when children attend college and that can be stressful. There are services available where you can talk to people about your financial worries and it’s important to reach out rather than suck this up as stress can often drip into other areas in life. It can be hard to carry it all yourself. It can be helpful to put any worries on paper, prioritising what you need to address first and seeing where you can draw- in help. It may give you a sense of control just enough to make sense of what you need to do to support yourself and move forward. 

This can be a great time all round for the whole family, it’s another stage that you are blessed to experience and it might take a while to adapt and that’s ok, be gentle with yourselves and you might  look back on this time with very fond memories. As the young are learning so are the parents, everyday is a school day for us all!

All good wishes, 

Tracy xxx