My Experience With: Stress, Eating and University.

I know I’ve been saying for a long time that I will do something lifestyle based and so, I am doing a lifestyle blog about things that happen on a day-to-day basis. I will be talking about my experiences with various things, some things will come back over and over again because my days are very much similar. If something else happens then it happens. Hopefully, you and I can get along and I can go along and tell you a little bit of a story about this experience I’ve had and then we’re going to talk about it. I’m going to discuss my reaction and my thoughts on the experience afterwards. Not only am I thinking about getting a dialogue going, but I’m also looking to make friends with people who have probably had similar experiences to me. Not only that though, maybe we can have a bit of a laugh and rethink this shit - maybe our minds can be changed and enlightened together. Or, you can just be here to enjoy the story and listen to me ramble on. If you want to read this in my voice then I kind of sound like a cross between Freddie Mercury and Scar from the “Lion King”. So get the full ‘experience’ there. So immersive.

My Experience With: Stress, Eating and University.

When I was a little girl, I think my parents noticed my anxiety around taking examinations from an age as early as about ten years’ old and honestly, I thank them dearly for picking up on it and trying to make me feel better via the right foods and the like. When I started going to secondary school, it got worse and worse to the point where I would pass out. My school, though I really did not like being there, did their best with me and tried to give me the best possible care and for that I thank them as well. When I went to university, I ended up in hospital. I had collapsed in a library and hit my head, knocking myself out. But this was the end of what was, in fact, a very long battle with what everyone labeled as anorexia. But it was not. I had no want to be skinny. I have never cared about that. In fact, it was not that I did not want to eat, but instead that I felt like I could not. My throat closes up and I would get headaches etc. Let’s investigate the whole story.

When I was in my second year of my undergraduate degree, I had started becoming more and more aware that I had to do well in order to stand out. People loved me and for once in my life, I felt popular for being smart. I loved my undergraduate degree and everyone on it - they were all so entirely lovely. But I had stopped eating. I had lost about thirty kilograms of weight and I was underweight to the point that I could not find clothes that fit me anymore. I could not even look at myself in the mirror without being horrified at the sight of myself. If you know me, then you will know that I enjoy being a little bit curvy because I dress in fifties clothes, which look nicer if you have a little bit of meat on you. I no longer fit into any of my dresses.

This made me even more upset and stressed out. Through my third year of university, I began getting sick, my periods had stopped and I, being about five foot six inches tall, weighed about forty nine kilos. Let us just put it this way, my BMI was about seventeen, which to me, is terrifying. Within the middle of the third year of my undergraduate degree, I was writing my dissertation and working on a few projects at the same time. My personal life was going down the damn drain - which I do not really want to discuss - and well, I was scared for my health in every way, shape and form possible. I could not even eat a slice of bread because it hurt to swallow. I visited a doctor who put me on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety pills and even though I was not suicidal, I was convinced that I was going to die. I had not slept in days and finally, in spring, whilst in the library - I dropped.

I dropped on to the floor and to my greatest surprise, one of my best friends came to my aid and got a nurse to help me out. They carried me into a different room and woke me up, making sure I was alright. This was a bit of a wake up call because the next year, I would collapse in a bathroom and hit my head so bad that an ambulance was called and I would have to spend the day in hospital again. I went to hospital only to have a bunch of panic attacks, one after the other. By the time I calmed down, I had already missed my shift at work and my mother was worried sick. It was time to change my life, so enough of the depressing stuff - here is how I got out.

When I started my Master’s Degree, I found that not a lot of people liked me at this new university because I enjoyed getting the brief and then just doing the work by myself. I was very independent with my work and I felt like on my postgraduate degree, there was a lot of faffing about by people who wanted to work as a ‘peer group’, which I did not understand. There was a lot of attempts at hand-holding when it came to assignments which I just did not want. I wanted my assignment and then I would go home and do it. That is always how I had done it. If I had a question, I would email the lecturer. But because of my astonishing independence and my lack of wanting to be nursed through my postgraduate degree, I was not very popular with some of the lecturers as well. One of my lecturers actually called me ‘stupid’ and ‘silly’ even though I was the only person in the class who had completed all of the reading for the entire module within the first week.

I took control of myself. I began eating right and I had a new ‘don’t give a shit’ attitude because of this animosity I faced on my postgraduate degree. All because of these people basically spitting in my face, I had two options, go down in defeat or take back my own shit and push against them. I pushed against certain lecturers and ended up actually getting a really good grade on most of my stuff. I began to put weight back on and finally, at graduation, I wore my favourite dark red rockabilly dress and heels. And guess what? I fit perfectly into it.

My act of rebellion was my refusal to be told what to do. When it comes to lecturers, I like them when they give you the freedom to do what you want with the brief and when I was on my postgraduate, I felt like there were a lot of times where they either would not let you do what you wanted or there were lectures that were completely and utterly useless to me. So, when you have someone who is pushing you about, push against them with your mind. Take control of your life in aspects that they cannot even see and make sure you keep yourself safe, keep yourself sane and drive yourself to the finish line.