I want to come back to this later but for a tl;dr starter for ten:

if you’re a new student w circumstances that complicate yr ability to study (care work, disability, illness esp) I get so much that you might not want to mention it in case it colours people’s first impression..

And it’s absolutely the case that you shouldn’t have to mention it to get support!

But everything, literally everything, is set up such that to get support, and to find what support you might be able to get, you probably have to mention it to someone

There should be someone whose job it is to offer student support with experience working w students in similar situations. If you can, make a time to talk to even just them, even once, even without giving many details, because you deserve support.

Prioritise non academic student support if you need to, since they’re not encountering you as a learner in a field in the same way if reputational first impression stuff is a worry.

For me a way to think about it having had to do this all the time is to compare the costs and consequences of the absence of that support to me with the cost of risking that bit of first impression with the institution.

Getting support from academic instituons is not uncomplicated and I guess recent events have taken the mask off the institutions themselves in terms of their priorities around this, but individual staff and depts are still committed to yr well-being and again: you deserve support