Originally posted via GoDaddy Blogs 27 December 2021. Copied like for like 21/03/2024.
My quietness over the past few months both on and off-line appears to have gone vastly un-noticed. As much as it is a double edged sword to my believed self worth and internal battles, the lack of acknowledgement also presents as a surprisingly blessing in disguise, Most who know me’ are now accustom to me vanishing without notice, ignoring the calls, texts and hiding away in my own world, however, without knowledge of my internal struggles, many deem this to be selfish and rude. And to be fair they have a right to believe this, after all, I am the most dependable and helpful person you will meet but my people skills are nothing more than “customer service” skills, designed to “fix a problem” or “people please”. Should the expectancy turn to socialising or be agenda free, I will question everything within my head, sit in a corner quietly, and try to shy away from the situation as much as possible.
I am sure anyone who gets to experience me in my “comfortable” stage will explain how I am funny, silly or something along them lines. After all we all need to wind down and for me to be in a position where I feel I don’t need to please anyone around me, I am a bubbly person. Strangely the place where you will see the care-free me the most is on foreign holidays. I like to visit places which see very little brits and you have to learn the language basics in order to get the most out of your trip. With little chance of having to seeing anyone around me again and knowledge of what happens when I stress about everything around me, I am more likely to get up and dance, sing, play games and enjoy myself. I am also more likely to have an alcoholic drink and “let my hair down”. This isn’t a change which takes place overnight however, my hypervigilance is usually at it’s highest during the first week meaning, in order to enjoy myself, I need at least two weeks away, otherwise it is just a week of heightened stress, anxiety, and depression, exasperated by the anxieties felt on both the first and last day of the holiday, my social anxieties just dangle around my neck are all very draining. One advantage is a reduction of stressors frequently experienced through the usual day to day chores, allowing for me to handle these a lot better than I can at home… but I digress.
As mentioned before, the past year has been very challenging when it comes to both my physical and mental health, filled with many mini implosions, strong levels of self doubt and many internal threats to give up University and force myself back into work. I fell so far behind on my Uni work that I only just scraped through the second year. April and May were spent with my head down in my books and throwing out one paper after another. I am fully aware that my finished work is sub-par and I I can do far better if I had put my mind to it however, instead of doing my projects and essays when I should have, I buried my head in the sand and let the dunes build up around me. By the end of May I had completed all projects as well as completing my exams in time however a couple of tutors refused to accept that my mental health was a good enough reason so I did have to re-do some papers during the summer term. This resulted in me having to sit in a quite room for a few days and write a couple of papers in Crete whilst the rest of the family enjoyed their holidays. I did pass the year, but by the skin of my teeth.
When coupled with my mental health journey (this update requires a blog of it’s own), my physical health (yet another Blog needed for this also), and my newly diagnosed “learning difficulties” (where do I start with that one), I have found I am taking far too long to just acknowledge what I am writing about, let alone keeping to the subject at hand. I often find myself deleting and re-writing my work over an over due to going off on tangent as you can probably gather in my Blogs, and Vlogs also. Throw in the daily events of an over active and very demanding home, you have a recipe for disaster. I am in hope that I can scrape through this final year without having to redo any of it, just as much as I am in hope that I am able to get more on-campus learning and time for my third year of studies. Whilst most are complaining about paying so much money for what is effectively an “open university” course, I only have two complaints over the past year. Online lectures are no good for my learning and the support and communication available during the last year has been terrible at best. I appreciate it was a new experience for all, however, for such a rich country to not be ready for an event of this scale is scary.
One plus note of the pandemic is the implementation of contactless payment in B&Q stores. Having spent the first ten years of my working life working for B&Q, I know full well how far behind they are on the competitors. The tills they currently use were introduced during my time at B&Q and I have not worked there for fifteen years, with the chip and pin system only being used during my last year of employment, having used the magnetic strip readers instead. Overall a poor performance for what is the biggest DIY store in the country, but once again I digress.
Given the recent increase of the “new variant”, my fears of on campus learning is once again flaring, with our January Exams being online like the past two years, I fear that judgement from markers will scrutinise this aspect. With such uncertainty still strong and my health being far from ideal, I have had to put thought to my future learning. My plan was to go for masters and then PHD in clinical psychology however I no longer feel this is a path I will ever be able to follow, it is probably best for my mental health and physical situation to take a break from studying for a while once graduated. This should in theory give me space to recoup and stabilise my rocky mental health, however, I just hope that a lack of structure won’t send me back to square one.
Take care people, you can’t take it with you.
Stevie