Greetings!
It's been a little while since I last posted so I hope you're all doing well.
I want to start by thanking you all for your response to my last blog post, written about mental health and my experiences with anxiety. Many people with mental health issues find them difficult to open up about due to the scrutiny they think they will face should they talk. What those people do not see is the incredible response other people receive when they do the same, and thanks to you I was witness to some of the greatest kindness, often by people I have never even met. Through sharing these stories with you and writing this blog, I have seen others show true kindness both to me, and to each other. So, I figure, if we can be kind to other people, we should also learn to be kind to ourselves. Therefore, I took a couple of weeks away from my blog to focus on myself, my health and my studies. Make no mistake, my degree is still keeping me as busy as ever! However, I have managed to catch up on a lot of things I felt I was falling behind in as a result of not feeling like my best self.
On that note, a general update has been requested. Get comfy, we have some catching up to do!
As I've mentioned once or twice (or in every post I've written), I am currently living in Exeter as a student at the university. I am in my second year of Medical Sciences and have now been back for five weeks, but honestly if you told me it had been five months and not weeks I would probably believe you. As with any person on any path, there have been highs and lows so far this term; the only difference being that my lows usually result in being bed-bound (or if I'm lucky, flat-bound).
Anyone who follows me on social media will know that I had my first exam of the year this week, worth 40% of the module. I realise this sounds like a very large proportion and when I first heard this, I too had a mini freak out. Everyone knows you don't reach full academic potential until right before the summer, and obviously that is completely unrelated to cramming for exams because you spent the whole year boozing and going out for brunch instead of rewatching the lectures. So putting an exam in week 5 of term 1 was like setting us up for failure... except for the (un)fortunate fact that I can't drink and I'm always in bed by 10pm. I say this with confidence knowing that if I tried to stay out past 9, I would collapse with exhaustion. If we're putting a positive spin on things (and you know I'm all about the positivity) it gave me a head start on the revision and despite being a nervous wreck around exams, I came out feeling relatively confident that I hadn't completely failed. That is about as confident as I get.
Being a student is not an easy life. Well, not for most of us anyway (I'm looking at you freshers). Some days we get lie-ins and have time to go to brunch, yes. There's no denying that's a perk. The perks we don't get, though, are things like going home to relax, or eating dinner at a reasonable time. Being a student is not just a few lectures here and there. It's hours and hours of coursework, revision and, if you picked a degree like mine, research! I am grateful to be here and to be engaging in something I have a real passion for but that doesn't make it easy, by any stretch of the imagination. It's not easy for anyone, so having an ongoing health condition thrown into the mix can make it seem impossible some days. In fact, some days it is just that: impossible.
This week I spent two days in bed, following my exam. One thing that you get warned about when you develop glandular fever (besides the fatigue) is how easy it is to push yourself too far and relapse. I thought, as most do, that I was managing my health and studies effectively but of course, you don't know whilst you're in the moment just how much you are pushing yourself. As soon as I got home on Tuesday after my exam, I collapsed onto my bed and barely moved for more than 48 hours. I didn't study, I didn't cook, I didn't shower. Exhausted doesn't feel like a strong enough word to use for how I felt. On Wednesday morning I woke up early feeling nauseous and dizzy, my first thought being that maybe I had caught an illness. As yet, I have never had the flu but I imagine the weakness and other symptoms I had is comparable. I was on a pretty difficult come down from the adrenaline that got me through the exam, feeling like a drug addict trying to get clean. So, I propose the question: how do you know when you're pushing yourself too hard? I genuinely believed that I was pacing myself and not taking on too much at once, yet I still crashed this week. I suppose maybe a better question would be: is it ever possible to know you're pushing yourself too hard, before you burn out?
Thankfully, the feeling subsided and I have felt much better the last couple of days. But "much better" isn't really "better better". I had a little bit of a reality check this week in terms of how much further I have to go before I will feel like myself again, but I do believe it will come. Despite all the doctor's visits and welfare meetings now, I will continue to work hard and eventually I will be able to tell this story in the past tense.
Until next time,
Charlotte x
Comments