hayleyruth from the iVillage Coping with Depression message board tells her story about how adult education helped to turn her focus away from depression and put her on the road to recovery

My depression was the worst it had ever been on the day before I started college. I had spent the day hogging the toilet after taking some tablets and realising I didn't actually want to die after all, but lacking the courage to get help and tell anyone what I had done. I was 35 years old, married with three children and trying to put the lid on all my feelings about the sexual abuse I had gone through as a child, and the recent loss of my business. Usually, when I felt upset I would hide in the bathroom and cut myself, but this time the cuts didn't relieve the pain inside and the tablets were dancing in front of me, so I took them instead.

The next day I went into my local college which offered an Access to Higher Education course, a course designed for people like me who left school with no qualifications. Soon, I was replacing the thoughts of uselessness with thoughts of the Russian Revolutions. Instead of staying at home waiting for my kids to come back from school, I was leading the class on a debate on 'news propaganda'. In short, college gave me a reason for living for me and not just for my family. The sense of achievement when picking up my certificate is a feeling I will never forget, I went from having no qualifications to having the equivalent of 3.5 A-Levels in one year.

This sense of achievement is what is keeping me going today. Four years after leaving college I am in my final year at University, where I am studying History. I failed one of my exams last year by three per cent, but at the moment I see that fail as a blessing, as I am determined to get my cap this autumn. It has given me the confidence to believe in my own side of the argument. I feel that going to college and university has helped me prove to myself that I am worthwhile, and that I have and can shape a future.