So a few months ago I left university for the day, half way through, because I couldn’t take the overwhelming nervous feelings of being with my classmates, and lecturers, who are the type of people that make you feel on edge, never good enough. Leaving my coat, bag and items sprawled out across the desk to look as if I was just leaving for lunch, I escaped and walked home as fast as I could, heavily breathing because of the stress of the day.
I don’t know what it was, maybe the fact that my lecturer is quite harsh and makes me feel my work is not good enough, or because my classmates are all so pretty and skinny and.. judgemental. I hadn’t been in that lecture for a week or two, and we were asked to present our work one by one. Just because I had not attended, however, did not mean I had done nothing. I had gone to the library and spent a good deal of time doing my work. I noticed in class that my lecturer skipped me. (The group was very small, it’s just a small university and small group). She’d gone to the person sitting by me, like she knew (or thought) my work would be minimal. I looked confused, and she picked up on this, so she said she was doing it in a “random order”.. yeah right.
I was last, jheeze, didn’t see that coming. Anyway, she looked at me, and asks me if I have any work and if I want to skip this presentation. Normal people would be happy that they don’t have to show the work. Believe me, I had skipped every single opportunity to present up until that day. Literally, I would skip presentation days, even if it had marks that added up to my grade. I’d even lie and pretend I didn’t have my work, just to avoid showing it. Genuinely couldn’t believe how many times I’d gotten away with it to be honest! So on a normal day, I’d jump with joy. But that day, I don’t know, it angered me. For her to think I’d done nothing and was a lost cause, kind of hurt. I had laid there, all night, scared and anxious to show my work to the unrelenting group that constantly ***** and compete and judge, and then I’m just cast away? For the first time, I told her I wanted to do it. I told her I had done work. So I stood up there, in front of my once close friend/new foe, and an army of stereotypical fashion students, and showed my work. My hands shook, my breath was thready, but I did it. My lecturer didn’t say a lot, not good nor bad. Just that she was happy I was doing work. But after that day, and after seeing and truly knowing what was in the hearts of these students, who acted as if they were Gods gift from heaven, I just couldn’t go back.
Anyway, so there I was, going down the hill, and realising just how much I hated it. The coat, the items, my work.. they all remain there, after 3 months. I quit that day, for at least a while. The first semester I had failed 2 out of 3 modules, due to spending all my time in bed watching the most depressing films and TV I could find, alone in my room in accommodation, away from those I love (which I still believe to be a good thing, because even though I love them, my family add to my stress much of the time!), and just slept, or didn’t. I’d avoid the kitchen because my flatmates were so outgoing with eachother but awkward with me. So here I am.
It’s okay, it was my decision, and nobody in my family knows of it. But the worst part is that my lecturer (from a separate module to the other) emailed when she realised I hadn’t handed in my work. She was very nice to me, as I think she understood that I was struggling with a lot of things. But she told me the whole of next year, which is just a retake of this year, will be capped to 40%, which is just a pass. This has disheartened me as I purposely wanted to retake as I had scuppered my chances of getting a decent grade this year, and it turns out I may get an even worse one. When I read that email, tears rolled down my face and I just stared emptily into the air, for the first time, was genuinely on the verge of taking a packet of pills. I quickly thought about my family and returned to the real world, but it’s scary how close I came. It’s scary how I feel like this is all I have, without this I have no future, and without a future, what’s the point? I am not working in a plain retail job or as a receptionist, for one I can’t even answer the phone to an unknown person without hyperventilating, but also because I can’t just be one of those people, miserable, stuck in a dead end job. I might as well be dead, because I’d be a disappointment to my family, and my friends would all be ahead doing successful things, and I wouldn’t drag them down.
So, I think I’m accepting that I am just going to have to deal with a pass. My anxiety stopped me from attending lectures, and being this down stopped me from believing in myself, and maybe next year I will feel disheartened that however well I do, I can only scrape a pass. But, perhaps it just means working extra hard in the third year, I can’t think that suicide is the way out without weighing my options, at least giving a future a shot.
100% sure nobody got to the end of this, but I’m writing to express myself, I could never write about this stuff on my own blog, people would call me even more negative. I’m not able to tell anybody how I feel, not one person, so on here is like people are listening, even if they’re not. Phew, such a relief to finally get all this weight off my shoulders.