Dear Anxiety...
You suck. You’re everywhere and it doesn’t feel like you’re
ever going to leave. You’re the butterflies in my tummy all day, every day and,
to be honest with you, I’ve had enough. I’m tired of dealing with you and I’m
tired of the confusion that you’re making me live with. I want to be able to
live my life not feeling constantly scared of messing up or getting things
wrong but you’re making me feel like that’s not an option. I started university
in September, with a lot of trepidation and a very great awareness that I’d
always said I didn’t want to go. I spent a Gap Year hoping to find something
that would jump out at me. Something that would make me feel: ‘this is what I want
to do. All day. Everyday.’ And then I could put uni aside, and dive into that.
As you know from a couple of my blogs, my Gap Year didn’t quite go to plan and
many things threw my world around for a bit. I feel like that took over for a
while and maybe the idea of something i knew
was coming, something stable…not a car crash, not a sudden hospital visit…something
planned, would be good. I thought I knew what was coming and that I would be
happy.
I don’t think I’ve gone a day over the past seven weeks
without crying…it’s not the people. I’ve met some amazing people and got some lovely friends. It’s just the
whole uni thing. The whole education thing. I know that I’m clever. I’ve done
the GCSE’s, I’ve crawled through the A-Levels. Those are things I felt I probably
should do. So that even if I didn’t
go to uni, I’d have them to show people that I have the abilities for whatever
career it is I end up wanting to do. I just hated the stress. I didn't like sitting
in a classroom listening to someone talk about something that yes, may be interesting
and fun to learn about, but knowing that I’m being told it because I need it.
For an essay. For an Exam. If I could have just sat there and listened and not
have felt the pressure of remembering, perhaps I would have felt differently
about education. But I couldn’t…and I don’t.
I chose English Literature because, at A-Level I found it
fun. We read a couple of books in a term, would spend weeks talking about the
background and picking apart the story and then I could write anything I wanted
about what it all meant…I could use my imagination and decide what the author
was thinking. I’d write it down, throw in some extra words to buff up the word
count, hand it in, get it marked and do another. At A-Level, I found the
freedom of it so much fun, I did the revision for the exams as a break, a
relaxation method if you like, between learning about rivers and volcanoes…facts,
all these facts that I needed to memorize for later.
So when I had to start thinking about what I wanted to do
for the next three years, or possibly the rest of my life, beginning the
university application process, it seemed English Literature was my best bet. I
mean, it’s three years of reading books, right? I love reading. It’s my thing.
It’s what I do in my down time. It’s my treat at the end of a stressful day.
Well, now it is my stressful day.
Now books have become something that I have chosen to spend the next three
years pulling apart. Taking the stories I like to enjoy just for their
imaginative content, their way of taking me to another world, and what am I doing?
I’m trying to think about how all these stories are really about this world and
there’s really no escape. That everything we read is philosophical or has some
moral message. That’s not fun. For me, that ruins the whole idea of the story. I
read a books and stories because for me they are completely unconnected with
what is going on in my life. They’re a break from reality. Now I’m letting
reality completely take over. The world of imagination is being destroyed
before my eyes.
Now, anxiety, you may wonder how you come into all this.
Well, right now, as I’m writing this letter, I’ve got butterflies and feel
slightly nauseous and it’s all because I’m writing you a letter. I’m trying to
take a break from the books and work that are causing my stress to get it out
in the open, write it down and get it off my chest. I’m feeling this way
because I’m not spending this time
planning an essay on a Middle-English lay by Marie de France. A poem I enjoyed
reading perfectly well until I realised I had to write an essay on it. It’s a
story, a pretty story. A world completely away from this one. One I’d like to
enter to relax. But I can’t because I’ve got to read it knowing I must pick
apart the language…think about it’s history. I don’t want to do that.
I don’t want anyone to read this and think I’m saying nobody
should study English Literature. I’m simply venting how I currently feel. For
me reading is for pleasure. Now it has become a chore. This is also where you
come in, Anxiety. Since I thought I could probably get myself through three
years of English Literature and am now finding myself struggling after only 7
weeks, I’ve begun to suffer from some
serious loss of confidence in myself. I feel as if this is wrong for me. I was
never meant to be in a classroom and the last seven weeks have proved me right.
Now what do I do? Perhaps I want to do something creative. I’ve always been
someone who wants to do things. I
want to draw, doodle, design, write (creatively!),
blog! I want to have freedom to put what’s in my head down on paper. I’ve
always been happy looking after young children, my nieces and nephews, cousins.
I thought maybe teaching was something I could do. I’ve done work experience in
schools – one of these experiences left me crying at the end of the two weeks I
was so sad to be leaving…surely that’s a sign?
Yet now, when I think about these things, I feel positive
for a bit about how right they would be for me, but then you take over and all
the things I can think of that would make that job hard or that I wouldn’t be
so good at or I wouldn’t enjoy so much, try and persuade me that I wouldn’t be
able to do it. That I shouldn’t do
it. I’d have to train, I’d have to learn new skills. You’re telling me I can’t.
You’re telling me that everything would be a mistake because it seems to keep
happening. I learnt to drive and ended up in a crash, I tried to have a stress
free year and I ended up in hospital having my tummy cut open. I thought I’d
manage uni……now I’m here. You’re everywhere and you’re trying to tell me that
you plan to stay.
So now I’m stuck. I don’t know what to do and it’s driving
me mad. I don’t feel able to carry on with this university plan but I don’t
know what there is that I would do instead. I know there’s things out there but
you keep telling me I shouldn’t try, or that it’s not possible, or that I’ll
regret it later. You keep telling me life is hard. The only safe option is to stay put. Since I’m here. But I don’t
want to. I don’t feel I can write the essays due in the next few weeks let
alone the essays I’ll have to write over the next three years. I don’t feel
confident about anything and I want to find a plan. I want to stop, pause life
and breathe. How can I know what I want to do while I’m stuck doing something
already? I can’t look around, see what there is, take a deep breath, explore my
options, while I can see three essays sitting in the corner. I don’t want to do
them but what if I have to. What if I don’t find another plan? Then I’m here
and I’ve just got to do it.
All I’m saying, anxiety, is that I’m tired. I need a
breather. I need to clear my head.
So please, please go away.
That’s all.
