Avin, Atifa, Eve | Māngere Bridge
“Well last year was my first year at uni, and I had a lot of stress towards the end of semester, because I had all my assignments and exams and all that, and so just cried. I just cried.
I was so stressed that I just cried, but then I didn’t really have time to cry, so it’s like you can cry later. You’ve got to do your assignments. So I did my assignments and then, yeah it was fine afterwards, but yeah that’s how I dealt with that stress.
When I moved, I moved to Auckland last November for my studies, and I, it was my first time living alone, and so I was stressed with financial issues, and just fitting in, finding friends, and I tried to think positive to get over it, and just be confident, and just move forward. That’s how I deal with it.
I think it’s that two weeks of the end of semester where assignments and exams are hitting in, and you’re working part-time as well, and you’re trying to make a proper living. That’s when it, it gets too, yeah the stress comes to you, but I think for me to handle it – is just friends. Friends and family. That support that you need is friends and family. That’s how I get over it.
I guess for us, a really huge thing is our religion, right? Our religion is, it’s just knowing that everything, the whole belief of, whatever happens was meant to happen. Everything happens for a reason, and there’s always someone looking out for you. Just having that knowledge and knowing that you have your family, and you have a support system around you is the best thing to be able to get through these really rough and stressful times.
We’re Muslims, all of us. Yeah, so we believe in Islam. We met in, we have a thing at the end of the year, well it changes every year. There’s a month where we commemorate the death of members of the prophet’s family and our religion. So we don’t really have a proper muster for Afghans in Hamilton, so we would come up to Auckland to the muster at that time, and that’s where we met. That’s how we formed our friendship, and we stay connected. She comes to visit me in Hamilton and now I’ve come to visit her as well. Even though obviously we both lived in Hamilton, we met in intermediate, but we got close in high school, and yeah that’s how our friendships formed.
Yeah, it’s just the whole knowing you’re not alone is so huge, when you feel alone in a situation, all your problems seem so much bigger and it builds up. It feels like when you’re just, you know, there alone. You can’t, you can’t let it out, I guess. You need that one person to let it go.
Yeah, one person to vent to, to release your stress.
Otherwise that’s how depression happens as well, when you’re alone, you don’t let it out to someone that you need to. You just build it up, build it up, and then, you know, it occurs, but you don’t realise it. That’s why family and friends are really important.
Just having those people you can talk to, share your struggles with and they can comfort you I think is super-super important. Thank you.”
**FEELING STRESSED?**
Check out these resources from the Mental Health Foundation: Stress and how to Handle it and the Five ways to Wellbeing. Need to talk to someone? Free text or call 1737 anytime.
