It all seemed so easy, so simple. Three years in college, some work placement in the middle and then I could move into the real world. Everyone else could do it, why would there b any reason why I couldn't? And for the first three years it was all going that way. I got through first and second year pretty successfully (if I do say so myself) and I had done well on my work placement. All set, bring that final year on.
That's when things changed. Major factors that I had never counted for, even in the usual drama that was my life, came into play. That July, about 15 months ago now, I was told that I had been diagnosed with epilepsy. Right, big thing, but I'm not going to let it get in my way. How much can it affect me?
A lot it appears. Naïvely I continued on and returned to college as if nothing was wrong but that didn't last long. The fatigue hit, the headaches wouldn't leave me alone and the work piled up. All of a sudden all I could feel was anxiety, severe anxiety at that. I couldn't think straight, I was always upset and I panicked over EVERYTHING. I had to get official letter from my doctor to explain that I was literally too exhausted to come to class and that my medication caused lack of concentration (as if mine wasn't bad enough!) meaning that I was finding it difficult, no impossible, to work on assignments. This from the girl who never even took sick days as a kid. It was humiliating. It didn't feel like a weakness but more like I had been stripped of all power. Of course, that just added to my problems because I then had to deal with all that too.
It all came to a head about this time last year. I just couldn't cope anymore. Mentally or physically. I had spent the last week on an essay that I knew was useless. It was unlike anything that I'd handed up before, even the results of late nighters, and I couldn't shake the feeling that this was it for me. From day one I hadn't been the student that I used to be. I was never Miss Perfect Over-Prepared Perfect Student, but I was me. Unorganized and lazy but I knew what I was doing and what I was talking about. This year I was just lost, constantly lost, and others could see it too. So when a friend happened to mention that he was deferring his year, I knew that that was what I needed to do. I made myself a deal: If I got that essay back and I had done alright then I would try stick it out, if not, then I was out. I got the essay back, I got a 48.
In hindsight, considering everything, I actually did alright, but at the time I was totally devastated. It was the last straw. I begged for a chance to redo it but at the same time I knew that I really just had to bite the bullet and defer. It was probably the best decision that I made that year.
So now I'm back. A new year, a new me. I'm still recovering from everything from last year, I'm not back to "normal", I don't think that I ever will be. That's fine though. I started writing this blog as some kind of rant about me still being the disaster that I was - I'm only up at this ridiculous hour because I was working on an essay that was due over a week ago (I'm still working on the concentration issues) - but I now realise that I am so much better. I'm a little stressed, a little distracted, a little upset, but I am so much stronger, so much more together than I was. I am more free. I still have my issues, I still have things to cope with but I'm not what I was last year. I am the new me that I promised myself that I would be.
To end, after I got my diagnosis I was told that my three main triggers were probably tiredness, hunger and stress. Did no one ever explain to them what final year was?!
