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| Pretty accurate. |
Well. I was super excited to go back to school. No more working in a job that felt so foreign and uncomfortable to me. Finally a chance to get on a career path and "start my life" so to speak. In fact, after 3 years of being done my undergrad, I couldn't remember why I hated it in the first place - I mean, aside from the whole depression thing. But, like, when I was there I still thought I hated school and not just because of the chemical imbalance inside of my head. But this past summer, I couldn't for the life of me figure out why. I mean, the schedule rocked. There was loads of free time (if you're a bum like me and can't get a job). Everyone who didn't seem to live in a dark hole appeared to be having a grand ol' time. Of course I was excited!
And then I went to school. The first fun, happy days were gone. We were getting into the "meat" of the courses. And I was brought back to the 4 years of hell (okay, slight exaggeration). I remembered why I hated it so much. I think I even found, well, not the reason for the depression and inability to communicate properly with classmates, but a pretty big contributor to it.
The anxiety! I'm not a perfectionist by any stretch (seriously, I half ass so much stuff, it's...[insert witty joke about half-assedness here]), but I AM a worrier. So now that I'm back in school, the anxiety that I had just happened to forget came screaming back to me. When I try to read textbooks, the time it takes and the amount of reading freaks me the hell out, so I lose focus because that's all I can think about. So I don't read. And then not reading causes me anxiety because I think I'm not studying hard enough and I'm going to fail and everyone else seems like they're reading everything so then I think I'm not doing enough by just going to class but then I try to read and I only get like a page in until my thoughts are gone and I've lost all concentration.
Ahem.
I worry. I thought to myself, "Ok, so maybe this whole reading thing isn't going to work out. You go to class, you pay attention and make notes (for the most part), you make Terms of Reference pages (I know, right?) for each chapter, and all of the slides are from the textbook and just highlight the most important parts. So not reading isn't the end of the world." And then I tell my friends of my predicament in hopes of receiving validation that not reading won't cause me to fail (thanks JV!).
Okay. So the reading thing is sort of taken care of. At least, I can talk myself out of my anxiety bubble for the most part. But then the assignments come. So I think, "This isn't like reading. It's something to DO, so you know you'll be fine concentrating on that." Yay me! And then I start the assignments. And the assignment anxiety starts up. What if none of these answers are right? What if I'm completely missing the point? What if I FAIL?! Cue loss of concentration and suddenly I'm curled in a ball in the corner of my basement with my hair all crazy softly singing to myself.
So then I'm just at a loss to do anything. I think about schoolwork and my stomach clenches and I get kind of weird(er) and dizzy. And you know what I realized? I'm anxious about being anxious. Seriously. I know I'm going to get anxious, which is a shitty feeling, so I get anxious about knowing I'm going to get anxious.
Unfortunately, my response to this is to run. Not physically, because I hate running. But metaphorically. Into a new program - maybe one that is for editing and publishing, because I love books. (You see, I'm also really good at convincing myself that any program AT ALL would be better for me than the one that I am in - of course, the height of this convincing is during Accounting, and probably because numbers make me break out into hives). Maybe into my Master's for English Literature! Yeah! I don't really like business anyway, but I lurve literature. I didn't have any of these problems when I studied it for four years or anything. I can just go back to University and study literature and - oh God, what if I can't think of anything to write for a thesis? What if I'm not interested in my topic? What if I FAIL?!
I need wine.
Love,
M
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