Unboasting (Part 2)

Last week I posted Part 1 of my unboast, where I talked about how I recently ended up at the bottom of a bottomless pit. Now I get to talk about the nicer bit, about how I - with the help of a fantastic set of friends - managed to claw my way back out of the pit. The way back up: The point at which I left off was the torture of dissertation deadlines: I felt so utterly rotten and useless; I’d been given more than a year in which to finish the larger of the two, and I still ended up needing an extension. I then began to question whether I had made the right decision in opting to do a dissertation in lieu of exam for my Shakespeare module. I knew everything I needed to write; it was all there in my head, all in plain sight. It was like looking through a window, behind which was the solution to everything. Except, there was no way to actually access it. I knew it was there, but I could not for the life of me work out how to extract it and fashion it into an essay. I’ve written before about having brain fog, but what I was experiencing while I was trying to finish my dissertations was on another level entirely. I couldn’t concentrate on anything, and when I did try to force myself to concentrate on writing, I would start spiraling into a panic attack. Several times I found myself feeling like giving up, and then guilt-tripping myself for failing so badly at the last hurdle. Luckily for me, I have some incredible friends who were able to say what I needed to hear at the right times, to give me enough to keep going a little longer. I guess this is probably going to sound like an award acceptance speech, but I feel like I should thank those people. There are four in particular who were amazing, and they all helped in different ways. So first up was the boss lady, who kept checking up with me to see how much further I’d got, and to force me to get up out of my seat and speak to my department about the problems I was having. Then the bff, who reminded me that I didn’t actually *have* to do anything; if I wanted to I could just stop and not do any more. This sounds like a very backwards sort of advice in this situation, but for some reason, that knowledge that I wasn’t obliged to do anything, helped me to carry on. Next, there is my amazing friend, the internet queen, who proof read and kept reminding me that she believed in me and my ability to finish what I started. And last, but certainly not least, is the gym buddy, who gave me a few metaphorical clips round the ear, and told me to buck my ideas up enough times that I actually did :) I do feel like this is a bit of a cop-out post, because it wasn’t really through my own efforts that I managed to crawl back out of the pit of despair, but because of my amazing friends knowing what to say at just the right times. But I don’t feel like I can claim responsibility for something that I didn’t do much for myself. So to everyone, thank you. You’ve all helped me to get through it, and to learn things about myself that I should probably have already known, or was ignoring…

Unboasting (Part 1)

I’m not quite sure if unboasting is a thing, but if it is, that’s what I’m doing. Since my last proper post (ignoring the reblogging of adorable and uplifting motivational stuff), I have reached the bottom of the bottomless pit of despair, and I have (with the help of some VERY special and lovely friends) managed to claw my way back out of it. The way down: I don’t cope very well with stress and I have known this for a long time; however, I also work at my best when I am under pressure. I saw a graph the other day on here that illustrates it perfectly. A few months ago I had to make the decision to defer my graduation until later in the year (I was supposed to finish my degree in May and graduate in July; I ended up finishing my degree on Wednesday, get my results mid-September, and I’ll be invited to next year’s graduation ceremony), so my 10,000 word dissertation wasn’t due until 1st August, instead of the original date in late April. I also made the decision to do a dissertation in lieu of exam for one of my modules (Shakespeare), which was also deferred until 1st August. When it came to August 1st, I was panicking like crazy; I barely had half the 6,000 words I needed for the Shakespeare dissertation, and I still needed about 1,000 for the other one. Thankfully, my department took pity on me and extended the deadline until Monday, when I successfully handed in my main dissertation, and then again until Friday, and once more until the following Monday for the Shakespeare dissertation. The problem? Every time I sat down and started trying to write, I started to panic. I was so useless, why was I even bothering trying to write this thing when it was all bullshit anyway? I still had so much to write, and not enough time to do it in. I kept calculating in my head over and over how many words I would have to write per day, per hour, per minute, to get the job done, and the answers always made the prospect of finishing look bleaker and bleaker and bleaker. I found a temporary solution to this problem. Stop writing; buy ice cream; feed face; stare into bottom of empty tub; cry. It ended up taking me a whole week to write 500 words. That’s just over 70 words per day. This was really, really bad. I felt like I would never see the end of it, and all I could hear going round in my head, over and over, was Useless. Worthless. Stupid. Failure. And then, in my aunty’s voice, This Is Important. You Must Do This. You Must Finish This Thing. Then back to my scathing internal monologue, Failure. Disappointment. Then, probably because of the stress, the lack of sleep and the overindulgence in ice cream, coffee and energy drinks, my MS symptoms started to flare up. They were having a great party! My right eye decided that it had seen the left eye doing its little jive, and it wanted to give it a try. Then they both decided they’d work together on it, and leave me with double vision for a bit. That was the point at which I reached the bottom of the bottomless pit.



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