For a long time, I assumed this was something I just had to carry on my own.
That changed when I became more involved in climate activism and student mental health advocacy. Slowly, I began to realise that these feelings weren’t personal failings or private worries but were shared, rational responses to a very real crisis.
Through my work with Student Minds, particularly as part of the Student Advisory Council, I’ve seen how closely mental health is tied to connection. This year’s University Mental Health Day theme of human connection feels especially meaningful in the context of climate anxiety. When the world feels unstable and overwhelming, it’s easy to retreat inward and feel isolated. But both research and lived experience consistently tell us the same thing: connection is one of the strongest protective factors for our mental wellbeing.
I’ve seen this play out very clearly through my role as a campaign lead in the Fossil Free Careers campaign at the KCLSU. What began as a push to challenge the presence of fossil fuel companies in university careers pipelines quickly became something more. Students weren’t just turning up because they cared about sustainability but they were turning up because they needed a space to talk about the emotional weight of caring so deeply.
One moment that stays with me was during a banner-making session. It was meant to be a creative, low-pressure activity, but it became a space where people started opening up about feeling trapped between financial security and ethical values, about burnout, and about the quiet grief of imagining a future shaped by climate breakdown. Sitting on the floor, painting slogans together, I realised that this was community in its most honest form. What struck me most wasn’t what was said, but how easily it flowed once space was made for it. Activism had created a micro-community where anxiety was shared, not shouldered alone.
That’s something I’ve learned again and again: climate anxiety becomes far heavier when it’s individualised. When young people are told, explicitly or implicitly, that it’s up to them to fix the crisis through personal lifestyle changes, guilt can quickly take over. Yes, individual choices matter. Taking public transport, reducing plastic use — these things are important. But so is naming responsibility where it belongs. At least two billion people globally face health risks linked to fossil fuel infrastructure, and no amount of reusable coffee cups will undo that without systemic change.
Nevertheless, when anxiety is reframed as a rational response to a systemic problem, and when it’s held collectively, it can turn into something else entirely: solidarity, purpose, and even hope.
Student Minds’ work has reinforced this for me. University Mental Health Day on 12 March isn’t just about raising awareness but equally about bringing communities together to take action, to listen, and to create environments where students feel seen. In a political and social landscape that increasingly feels fragmented and disconnected, these moments of intentional connection matter more than ever.
That’s also where universities have a crucial role to play. Students shouldn’t have to rely solely on activism to feel supported. Institutions can help by recognising climate distress as a real mental health issue, embedding it into wellbeing services, careers guidance, and academic conversations. They can support student-led spaces that prioritise care as much as campaigning, and they can demonstrate accountability by aligning their policies with the values they encourage students to hold.
For me, the biggest shift has been moving from feeling alone in my climate anxiety to feeling part of something larger. Community doesn’t make the crisis disappear but it makes it bearable. It reminds us that we don’t have to be perfect, and that caring deeply is not a weakness, but a shared human response.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: connection turns anxiety into action, and isolation into shared purpose. And in the face of a crisis as vast as climate change, that sense of togetherness might be one of the most powerful tools we have.