A six-month university semester to study in Manchester, United Kingdom was supposed to be the adventure of a lifetime. Looking back, it became the dividing line between thinking I was coping and realising there was a hell of a lot more going on in my head than anxiety and depression alone.

Walking along Newcastle Beach (like so many times before), I kick off Manchester Madness, a three-part series looking back at one of the most chaotic and important periods of my life. Part 1 is the build-up: disengaging from uni, drifting through life without much direction, and then suddenly having this huge adventure on the horizon.

Manchester became more than a student exchange trip. In my head, it was going to be the place where I beat social anxiety, became confident, found myself and maybe even found love. For a while, I felt almost invincible.

But underneath it all were patterns I didn't yet have names for — intense relationships, intrusive thoughts, jealousy, emotional instability and behaviours I would later understand very differently.

This is the story before everything went off the rails. Before the diagnoses. Before I understood what was happening to me.

And before Manchester changed everything.

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Created by Elliot Waters — Inspired by lived experience.
Mental health insights, real stories, real conversations.

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