What to do when compulsory units of study are forcing you to revisit your darkest moments...

One of my university subjects for this semester is on mental health. I have to complete it to complete my degree. The assignments (there are six) all expect us to review the experiences of other people and reflect on them.

• How did this impact your prior understanding of the experiences of mental illness?

• Write a letter to your family explaining the differences between lived experiences/portrayal of mental illness, including any effects it might have had within your family.

• What would you say to a patient who is a suicide risk?

• Review these films/books/movies. How do they describe the experience of mental illness?

I'm doing my best to hold myself together... but being forced to complete these tasks is pulling me back into that vortex of darkness and I hate it - I don't want to go back to stockpiling drugs and not eating to try and kill myself. I don't want to go back there and they're making it SO hard.

There's no support for it either. The university counsellors are there for educational dilemmas and do not deal with anyone who has self-harmed or considered suicide because they don't want to liable. They refer you to Headspace, which is terrible. Every time I've reached out to them I've been ignored. I've seen a ridiculous number of psychologists, who immediately put me in the too hard basket. I have nowhere to go, which in itself makes me angry. I see people discussing suicide on television, on reddit... they all seem to think there are so many resources to help that you obviously didn't take advantage of them and how dare you be so selfish... but I know how they came to that decision. The help people promise just isn't there.

So, I wrote this post. I don't know what else to do... but if nothing else, maybe when I do finally snap and manage to kill myself, people will find the things I've written... and I hope it stops them blaming me for doing it out of selfishness... and that the guilt for not being there eats them alive.