A young woman walks into the kitchen, she is carrying a warm water bottle pressed against her stomach and she looks exhausted. She leaves after grabbing a sandwich and as she does a female family friend who we are visiting whispers, “That time of the month”, to which my dad very casually blurts out “You…
Gaming
Mental Health in Gaming
This month we saw World Mental Health Day where communities around the world came together to raise awareness of mental health and how we can take care of ourselves and others. In addition to this, hopefully by now you have seen Concrete’s own Mental Health Crisis Campaign which hopes to open up a dialogue between…
Deputy Editors' Column
Survive and thrive
Concrete’s mental health campaign is now in full swing, and it’s enabled me to become increasingly aware of my own anxiety and mental health. Something I’ve realised in the last week is that I’m guilty of putting too much pressure on myself. I believe that people rely on me to be perfect and get things…
Features
Confessions from a foundation year student.
I’m not ashamed to say that I’m a student who took a foundation year. Well, not anymore. Every student I come across who has taken a foundation year agrees that there is at least some level of stigma surrounding the course. The stigma takes form in both stereotypes about the difficulty of the course we…
Features
What feminism do you stand for?
I am a feminist. This is something I’ve said for years, but only recently have I realised the ambiguity of this statement, and had called to question what I actually stand for. I identify as an intersectional feminist, and was aware of the other branches of feminism, but am shocked at the degree of polarity…
Comment
‘I felt like a complete failure, I felt intense shame’
At the age of 49, I’ve come to the conclusion the most dangerous words begin with the letter ‘s’. I’m thinking of words such as shame, stigma and suicide. Words that come loaded with some seriously heavy-duty emotional baggage. These are words I’ve given a lot of thought to. Back in 2011, I tried to…
Film
Identity: On screen
Identity, a gripping psychological thriller in its own right, offers an unusual insight into one of the most misconstrued mental illnesses explored on film. The film follows two seemingly unconnected plots – the trial of a serial killer and the mass killing of a group of ten people stranded at a motel. However, with a…
Features
Dealing with the “red tape”
If you look to the university world rankings, the UK dominates 40 percent of the top ten. It is therefore no surprise that we are the second biggest home of international students (beaten only by the USA) and that, for some, the news of competition brings concern. Whether jealousy, genuine economic worry, or good old…
Travel
Buenos Aires: a Latin American paradise
The Latin American metropolis of Buenos Aires is fast becoming a go-to place to visit. The shaky Argentinian economy has led to a push in expanding their tourist industry and thus this is a destination which has only really been explored within past decade. Being divided into neighbourhoods, each with their own unique perspective and…
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