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Thursday 1 January 2015
Monday 22 December 2014
How did I get here?
Several
minutes ago my brain was like a school fight. Not that the two halves of my
brain were having a row. That would probably hurt. Of course I’m talking
metaphorically here people!
You know
how it is. One minute you’re chatting to your friend the next a swarm of
running kids congregate out of no-where – a running and half-hearted jogging
heard of sheep that nearly knock those new patent shoes off. How is this any
relation to my brain?
All these
crazed kids are the ideas, thoughts that unfurled around my eyes. A fire that
when its centre found was distinguished as soon as I went to type.
So let me
claw at those dissipated thoughts. Cut off balloons.
How did I
get here?
Not
location. I don’t need Google maps. Mainly because I have hardly moved at all.
That’s the point!
I finished
Sixth Form Woo! Seriously, woo I could not wait to get my little socially
anxious mind away from that place. Or jungle – this would be the time where you
see that scene from Mean Girls where they all act like animals around a mall
fountain aka the water hole. But, that was several months ago, I don’t
particularly want to look at the number because it’s seriously depressing.
So this is
usually the part where, I would get teary eyed as I said au revoir to the
parents and watched them walk away from typically probably 70s dorm room. And
complain because my cooking skills go as far as super noodles (not true I love
cooking). But, I was always determined not to go down the University route. For
me and what I wanted to do, it was too clichéd. If they made an honest sale
poster it would say: get wasted all the time, get a degree, end up in a
completely different job and don’t forget the big bill we will leave you. It
works for some people, but I like to do things differently. **It annoyed me how
university was played as the only option. The universities you were applying
for a hierarchy that made teacher’s swoon at the student who claimed they were
going to the best universities. Other option Apprenticeship, but to strip all
the façade basically was suggested if you were ‘less intelligent’. Obviously
not true, but those were the connotations.
I’m a firm
believer that you can’t teach someone how to write (I’m talking novels etc. not
primary school literacy). Why? Because if you asked each novelist how they
wrote their book they all would have done it differently. It is finding
yourself. That and I also had the banner like dream of wanting to start my own
business. This particularly baffled most people, that and the idea of not going
to uni.
So, now
it’s now. Each day folds into the other like no school days ever did. Regret
has me stuck in a revolving door. I am me, but not me.
If society
saw me they would say these things that equal failure. You are unemployed.
Tragically friendless. You are not at university. You are just doing anything.
Mental health issue, what mental health issue? You are perfectly fine, get a
job.
This is
the part I don’t want to say. It is the thing I want to blip when meeting new
people. It’s the lip parting question that has my head hanging between blades. What are you doing? This implies job.
After some
convincing I applied for JSA. Job Seekers Allowance naïve as an 18 year old
suffering from social anxiety, basically generalised anxiety and as a result
depression. But, I think my parents were trying to give me a nudge into life.
DISCLAIMER:
This is not one of those weight loss ads that now I’m on this I have
lost…duh…duh…duh. So, now you all probably think I’m a Chav that goes to the
Jobcentre in tracksuit bottoms and a scrunchie. And that’s exactly what I am
talking about. Stereotypes. Not only do I think that it is wrong to brand
people in a negative light. Or link a particular image with negative
connotations. But, how can I say that to people without being looked down on
and the idea of social class rising.
As I sat
there with my mum to help me with the nerves. My first interview. The Jobcentre
lady talking about all the legalities and pointing at a screen. All I could do
was make that face. You know the one. You have to press down your lip to stop
the seams on your face puckering. It had been all too much. I could taste the
tears in my mouth. I wasn’t doing it for me, for my parents.
Now I was
just cast off as a failure of society. Low ranking. My already present shame
deepened in my chest and blossomed into thorns that stab at my heart.
For
someone who had social anxiety, my signature was signing my life away. Yes, I
knew I needed to get a job. Yes, I know it would probably be shit. Yes, I know.
Yes, you told me that I can’t just make my living being a writer. Yep, I know I
don’t have enough ‘experience’ to run a business.
If you
have social anxiety you will know how crippling it felt. I had assigned myself
a new cage, and I had turned the key. I was going to have to do things I don’t
want to do. Assign for everything and anything. My hell. Social anxiety hell.
To put
kindling in the fiery pit. My anxiety was and is building. The house. Same
everyday house was now my world. For days, I can’t say specifically when before
all this Jobcentre stuff I could feel the sense of doom that accompanies it. My
body was being tortured by anxiety symptoms and I felt like I just couldn’t
take it anymore. That the anxiety was going to be the end of me (note feeling
not suicidal). I needed. I need help. To then be put on a 4 months perhaps more
waiting list to get help. Burn baby burn!
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