Attendance and Mental health

Whether you're at uni, sixth form or school i'm sure you've found this. Your attendance is prioritized above your mental health and you're either forced to attend everything, or shamed for not doing so. If you suffer with any form of mental illness you'll know how hard it can be to function day to day, some mornings you'll wake up and feel like shit. The last thing you want to do is travel to uni, school etc to sit in a room full of people while you're feeling this bad. But what happens when you take the executive decision to stay home and avoid making yourself feel worse? You get an attendance email, usually very stern reminding you that 'attendance can and may affect your grades' now let's talk about that, because this is what pisses me off

Especially at my uni they're praised for being supportive and understanding of mental health and those who suffer with it (utter bollocks) and for such an 'understanding' university, you'd think they'd be supportive of those students who are unable to attend things due to their mental health acting up. NOPE. Now i'm not saying that i don't think attendance is important because of course i do, but for those students that are unable to attend they should not be made to feel guilty for this. If i'd broken my arm or leg and couldn't make it into lectures because of this i guarantee my tutors would understand. They'd understand that the physical ailment stops me transporting myself to the lecture and they'd probably email me notes and make a huge fuss. But when my mental well being is stopping me from attending this is never seen as a valid excuse.

What's even more ridiculous about this is that the majority of university work/deadlines and assignments can be done from home. So if my peers or i am having a bad mental health day we can work from the comfort of our own home, we can be comfortable in our environment and because all of my work is submitted online we can upload it if and when we need to. Now, those grades we get are based off of the work we do and submit, which in my case and the cases of many others is done from home. So why, should attendance affect those grades that we have worked hard to achieve? It makes no sense right? If i'm still handing my work in and meeting deadlines, why should my overall grades be affected by my attendance?

And also, not attending things doesn't make you a bad student. It doesn't mean you aren't trying or working hard. As much as your school or uni might try to make you believe this means you're slacking, it doesn't. If you're having a bad mental health day and you decide not to attend a lecture or seminar, you are making an informed and mature decision to stay home and look after yourself. And this time off should not make you feel ashamed either, you should take as much time as your mental health requires of you. It's so easy these days to get in contact with tutors/lecturers over email, you can do work from home and work online and let them know you won't be coming in. WHY is there still shame in this? I just don't get it. You need to work at a pace that works for you, don't feel as if you have to attend everything just because your friends do and don't let tutors make you feel bad for taking this time for yourself. Don't let anyone in your life tell you that you're uni/school work is more important than your mental health because i promise you it never is. You can't hand in your best work when your mental health is flailing. It's like trying to walk on a broken leg, it needs to recover first. Just please can everyone look after themselves during deadline/exam season. And remember that your mental health always comes first. 

love,
Molly
xx