I guess it’s better to get your crisis over with early, right?
Hi again, it’s Smudge. I used to be a very active user here around 8 years ago. For those of you who don’t remember me (probably most) I was a very geeky teenager who lived in the middle-of-nowhere Scotland and spent most of my time hiding in my room writing about Warrior Cats and being antisocial.
After I left high school, life started to look really positive. I got into one of the top universities in the world to study Neuroscience. I could finally escape from my tiny town, get away from that claustrophobic community where everybody knew everything about everyone. I could recreate myself so I wouldn’t be known as the shy weird girl anymore. My eyes would be opened to the rest of the world and it would be brilliant. I had everything planned, I would get my biomedicine degree and then I would go to medical school and become a doctor…
Of course, things haven’t worked out exactly like that so far.
It would be a big fat lie to say that my university experience has been all bad. I’ve met a lot of fantastic people and gained a lot of important life skills along the way. Without university I probably would never have met my boyfriend, Calum. I haven’t told you about him yet, but that big cuddly Canadian giant stumbled into my life over a year ago and never left. Seriously. He even lives with me now. Throughout everything he is keeping me happy and keeping me going and I don’t want to imagine a future without him by my side.
But to most other people at university I’m still that shy weird girl - who knows if I will ever be able to leave that label behind? I had big hopes of finally finding my perfect friend group, finding people who actually had things in common with me. I could finally have the social life I’d always dreamed of. That hasn’t happened. I found a group of people to spend time with but I don’t feel like I belong in their group. They are who I thought I was before I came to university – nerdy, introverted and would prefer to stay in with a book than socialise over drinks. I feel like an outcast but haven’t found the courage to search for other friends. Maybe now is the perfect opportunity.
I’ve failed my 2nd year of university.
Right now, I’m in a weird state of limbo. It feels like everything is crashing and burning all around me; university is starting again next week and I have no idea what I am going to do. Do I want to try and resit 2nd year? Do I even like Neuroscience anymore? Do I want to start again and study something completely different? Do I want to stay in this city? Absolutely no idea, but this weekend everybody will be moving back and I don’t even have my meeting with the progression board until the 18th September.
At the same time as this is happening, I am going through a worrying situation with my health. I had some concerning results from a pelvic examination so next week I have to have an ultrasound and transvaginal ultrasound of my womb and ovaries. This is terrifying to me because the only thing I do know for sure is that I definitely want to have kids in the future.
Why am I writing this blog post? I wanted to document this shitty period in my life in the hope that in a few months’ time everything will be back on track and looking positive again. I want to (hopefully) show you that even if you make a huge mistake and things are looking really bad, more often than not, in the grand scheme of thing’s you can look back on it as just a tiny blip.