Well, dear reader. I have somewhat abandoned this blog, haven’t I?
I had to take a double take when I saw the last post was written in 2021. A whole two years ago. What on earth? It wasn’t a very… positive post. At that time, I was going through many hardships, and well, it took a long time to come out of that, to be honest. For now, I am on better medication, and it seems to have kept my mood a lot more stable. There are still many issues with my care plan, but for now, it is doing the most it can do at keeping me stable.
Anyway, that’s not what I’m here to talk about, for once. I wanted to talk about my thoughts, as I usually do. I am in a weird position at the moment, and that is that I am one assignment away from finishing my degree. Like, really finishing my degree (unless I spectacularly fail an assignment and have to retake…). The thought is so weird to me. On Facebook, I have been having ‘memories’ pop up saying 5 years ago, I was doing my first GCSE exams, and 4 years ago, I was finishing up my Access to HE course. It feels weird to me that the journey I started 6 years ago is almost over, and if I’m completely honest, I have no clue what I’m doing next.
In a weird way, it’s nice to feel normal. A lot of my friends have ‘rough plans’ as to what they want to do after graduation; some of my friends have no idea too. It’s nice to know that, for once, I am having a normal experience. It’s okay to not know what to do all of the time, and it’s especially wonderful to have a great support network that helps you through the unknown. I have applied to some courses and an internship, both are progressing in the right directions and hopefully at least one of those routes will have a positive outcome! But it’s okay if they don’t, too. I am, ever so slowly, learning to take things as they come.
Well. I started this post in May of this year and now it is almost the end of September… I graduated as you can tell by the above picture! I also decided what to do after university…. which was to go back to the same university and do an MA in Librarianship. I won’t lie; it was a bit of a panic choice. I liked the sound of the modules, and they lined up with my interests so it seemed like the right choice even if it was a bit of a last-minute job. So here I am, at the end of the introduction week and I haven’t been put off the course just yet. So that’s a good start, right?
But that’s not really what I want to talk about today. I want to link back to what I said earlier in the post. About the journey I’ve been on that I am reminded of thanks to the Facebook ‘memories’ feature. Today I was prompted by the memory of my first week of college. I wrote about it briefly here and looking back on that post, I also mentioned that I had attended an open day at the very university I ended up attending and still attend! But that’s a point I’ll come to later.
College was, and still is, what I consider to be one of my greatest achievements (getting a bachelor’s degree is now up there too!). 10 years before I started college, I was actually meant to be starting my secondary school experience. As some of those may know, I attended a whopping day and a half of secondary school before I became extremely unwell with ME. I had been ill prior to my starting secondary school, but that small amount of time in a new environment tipped me further over the edge. In a time that was meant to be part of my ‘formative’ years, I was suddenly thrown into darkness and instead of socialising with my peers I was stuck in a dark room unable to stand any noise. Back then, in the throes of a chronic illness and, subsequently, a mental health crisis, I did not see a future with me in it, let alone one that involved me obtaining qualifications that I could barely even dream of. Even writing about it now, I am reminded of my senses and the lack thereof during that time and I am so, so grateful to be in the position that I am now. Sure, the future isn’t always very bright, sometimes it’s at best a light grey, but at least it’s not pitch darkness like it was then.
When I attended college, after almost a year of doing the appropriate courses basically on a speedrun in order to apply, I was, of course, worried that I would experience the same difficulties. That I would attend a small amount of my classes and struggle in the same ways that I did during my secondary school experience 10 years prior. However, I proved myself wrong and survived the year of my studies at college with minimal payback (the payback I did experience was severe at times, but it was nowhere near the crippling experience I almost anticipated). I don’t have much to say about my college year that I haven’t already said in other posts, but I look fondly on a year that taught me so much about everything in such a short amount of time.
I document the decade of severe illness to my university beginnings in this post here.
Now comes university. I first visited The University of Sheffield in 2018 right at the start of the my Access to HE course and, as stated in the linked blog post, I very much wanted to attend. It was almost a dream to be able to attend university after a very unhelpful visit from a social worker aged 13 suggested I would never be able to do so. Not bitter. Anyway, I succeeded in getting into the university onto the course I had dreamt of for 2 years and that in and of itself was such an achievement that looking back on I am ‘proud’ of. While the 4 years of my degree were definitely not the smoothest, nor the most pleasant in some aspects, I graduated this year with a 2:1. Hard work and, I reluctantly use this next word, resilience paid off.
As I said in my Facebook post: “I’m doing this for the 11-year-old me who was so scared 15 years ago about what future she could have with chronic illness.”
It’s true, I live my current life for current me but also for that small child who didn’t think she’d amount to anything. So even if I’m not 100% confident in where I’m going to end up at any given point, at the end of the day, I am doing it for her.
I haven’t necessarily taken the most straightforward path to higher education but it’s not so bad in the grand scheme of things. It managed to work out for me and that’s all I can really ask for.
So my final ‘point’ (this whole post has been pretty aimless – I just like rambling) is this, I may not know what this master’s degree has in store for me. I may not know what I’ll do afterwards. What I do know, is that I have proven time and time again that I work it out in the end. I adapt. I overcome. That is one of the most important things to me, that I can prove to myself that I can do something even if sometimes it has to be a bit convoluted.
Well, I don’t know about you but I feel better for having written. It had no structure, no valid points and nothing really to take away, but I suppose reflections are meant for the author to reflect on themselves. I will probably continue to reflect outside of this post, especially as the date for 15 years of an ME diagnosis approaches (sometime in October I think) and I get more thoughtful about my progress.
Thank you for reading if you made it this far. I’m sorry it’s rambly, I write far more eloquently in the linked posts when my head was marginally clearer. But yes, thank you for reading and I appreciate the support as always – you know who you are.
Best wishes always and I hope to not leave it for as long next time!
Jess x
Rose Wrote 
So proud of you and your achievements! Lots of love xxx
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