Tag: university

I just don’t feel good enough

I just don’t feel good enough

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

One of the first things that they tell you when you say you want to be a radio presenter is that when the microphone light turns red, you just need to relax and be entirely yourself. Just be yourself! Except, after three years at university, I wasn’t exactly sure how to do that anymore.

I know that the trope for going to university is that you ‘find’ yourself, come out of your shell, and settle into the person that you’re going to be for most of your 20s. But whenever people have asked me how I found my degree, I tend to come back to them with a conflicted answer: on one hand, I insist that I had some really good times with some fabulous people because that’s true and I hate being negative, but frankly, overall my time at university left me with a tendency to retreat into my insecurities.

I want to say that it happened all of a sudden, but I didn’t wake up one morning and decide that I was going to wear outfits to cover my callipers, start to speak less in social situations, or suddenly feel the need for constant validation from my friends; it was a much more gradual process of feeling like I wasn’t enough for the people and situations I found myself surrounded by.

In some cases, it was specific things that individuals did which made me feel this way – both intentionally and unintentionally – but it was more the general vibe that didn’t suit me. For example, I went to a very normal state school in Bradford, but an aspect of that school that I’d never considered as being integral to how I thought about myself, was that it shared its premises and resources with a special needs school. So every day my fellow students and I walked past, spoke to, and sometimes shared classrooms with severely disabled children and therefore, became accustomed to seeing disability. Consequently, I might’ve had my shoes stared at every day, but subconsciously I didn’t feel unusual because I was never the only disabled kid around. I never thought about the importance of this at the time, but then when I went to a university where I struggled to access disabled parking spaces outside of the colleges or faculties, and where I only remember ever seeing two other visibly disabled students, the impact of that mixed secondary school environment on disabled and able-bodied people alike became startling.

Another area where I didn’t feel like I was enough was in my romantic relationship attempts and sometimes my friendships. To be honest, the theme of my romantic relationships has always been that either I’m not interested when they are or they’re not when I am, they’re in a relationship with someone else already and are just putting loads of tedium or confusion on me, or doing the classically non-committal ‘I like you, but let’s just sleep together’ thing – or we met on holiday and thus continuing anything is pointless. I have been known to shoot myself in the foot by prolonging pointless situations because of boredom or stubbornness as well. So a great combo all around then! But the not thinking I was enough for lads was definitely at its height at university; I knew I didn’t feel good about it, but I hadn’t realised the extent of the toll on my self-esteem until I went to a radio placement 15 minutes up the road in Newcastle and I was surprised to experience someone openly and unapologetically flirting with me. I remember walking away from that situation thinking ‘wow, I’m not actually unattractive then’.

But of all the types of insecurity I’ve felt in the last few years, it was the insecurity in friendships that cut me the deepest.

Honestly, it’s taken me months to come to terms with how beaten down I felt at university and how that had made me into someone who rarely ever felt secure in their relationships with anyone. I’ve always been a person who cares about others very deeply and intensely, I’m reliable and I try my best to be everything those close to me need. But no matter how hard you try, you can’t be everything all at once and it can be difficult to deal with the times when you fall short of that standard you’ve set for yourself. So there were many times over the last few years when I didn’t know what I was doing wrong or why I wasn’t enough for my friends, and this just pushed me further into myself.

Unfortunately, feeling like you’re not good enough is something all of us will experience at more than one point in our lives, no matter how hard we hit the self-care routines, and so the best treatment appears to be recognising when the nasty voice in your head is becoming way louder than it ever was before and doing things to shut it up again. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no guru when it comes to this kind of thing, but I think that I knew that my radgy internal voice had become too loud when I went travelling with one of my best friends and thanked her for being so considerate about my feet. She looked at me, surprised and offended that those words had even come out of my mouth, but it was a clear example of how I’d begun to feel like I had to apologise for everything that I am to try and appease my environment. Something you should never feel the need to do.

Since then, I graduated, so obviously I removed myself from the situation physically but it’s been more about rewiring my brain to trust my instincts, stop overthinking everything going on around me, and actively practise confidence again. And now, with the very normal occasional few blips of insecurity, I’m glad to say that I feel more myself than I have for years. I still have wonderful friends from university, and I wouldn’t want you to think that I never had any great times whilst I was there because that just wouldn’t be true, but I didn’t lose any sleep about my degree ending, put it that way.

You might think that that’s a shame and I suppose that it is, but sometimes life just doesn’t go the way you expect it to. That doesn’t make the change a failure or lack, it just is what it is. There’s plenty of fun still to be had in environments that won’t make me feel quite so self-conscious 80% of the time. And that sounds like a much stronger vibe to me.

Graduation, but then what?

Graduation, but then what?

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

In my head, I think that I’m pretty good at hiding my emotions…but then every time I’m even slightly upset or angry, it usually takes my friends, family, or colleagues about 0.5 seconds to notice. So clearly, I’m slightly deluded. However, whilst it may be true that my overall mood is very easy for others to discern, I am that person who takes on a lot of things and eventually snaps when all of those things have piled up in my head. Then it’s in the moments when I’m close to snapping that my mood goes down, I’m tired, and I’m likely to burst into an ugly cry if anyone hits me with the ‘are you okay?’.

Don’t worry, I’m not about to confess to the internet that I’m in the middle of having an existential crisis…Though I will say that I’ve had a pretty intense last few months which have gifted me both good and bad stress, resulting in a few days when my mood hasn’t been as chirpy as it is normally. And one of these stresses has been something that I know many of my peers are overthinking right now: what the hell are we going to do after graduation?

For me, my graduation from university mostly brings a sense of relief. The last 3 years have been a lot of fun in parts but I’d be lying if I said that I don’t feel ready to leave; I’m tired of being confronted by the same annoying problems brought to me by Durham University, and I ache to leave the education system behind for a second. I mean, I’ve been in it for 17 years! That’s a long time. Granted, I had a year out before university but I did work in 2 schools for 6 months of that…then I taught in 3 of the 4 countries I visited…So no matter how much I know I’ll continue to study something for the rest of my life, I think I’d like to give formal education a rest for now.

It’s scary though. I can see it in my friends’ faces when we actually sit for a minute and talk about what we each want to do after uni: everyone masks the apprehension at being thrust into the adult world with talking about ‘panic masters’, internships, job placements, and the classically vague ‘maybe I’ll go travelling’ statements. The fact is that many of us have absolutely no clue what’s next or where we’ll end up, and it’s stressing a lot of young people out that they’re expected to have their whole life mapped out when just a couple of weeks ago we were sitting our exams.

I’m a lucky one in that I do know what I want to do, and I have made moves towards that, but even I feel like I haven’t had a second to breathe before I have to sort the rest of my life out. Also, there’s a stigma against the graduates who choose a different route from the traditional ones. For example, I know I’m moving to a new city and I know what I want to do there, but a career as a radio presenter doesn’t exactly have a cushty grad scheme for me to apply for, so whenever I tell people my plans, they inevitably sound half-baked, and that makes me self-conscious. Even though, we don’t all have to work in an office straight after university if we don’t want to…

Sometimes everything feels like it moves so quickly that there’s no way you can keep up, then other days it’s easy – occasionally, even a bit boring. I’m definitely not qualified to be giving advice on what to do in these situations given that I’m part of those going through the experience, but what I have said to my friends when we’ve been in the car or in a living room, stressing about the future, is that the best approach to have is to do whatever makes you happiest. That might be another year of university, working abroad and travelling, moving to a new city to start a new job, or having absolutely no clue and needing a couple of months of nothing to figure yourself out. Obviously, money is a factor in this and it’s not always easy to do exactly what you’d ideally want to do, still, try not to put so much pressure on yourself to have everything mapped out right now; take a minute to breathe.

Truly, there is no rush.

My dissertation was about sex! :o

My dissertation was about sex! :o

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 2 Comments

Considering that quite a few of you took part in the research, it won’t come as a surprise that I wrote my dissertation on whether physically disabled women are perceived as sexy by the societies they live in. (Big big thank you to everyone who took part btw). I don’t really fancy plagiarising myself here though, so I won’t go into the minute detail of the dissertation, but since so many of you contributed and were interested in the topic, it’d be rude of me to not give you the low-down of why I chose it, and what I discovered. So buckle up kids.

If I’m honest, my diss was partly another effort to understand why my love life insists on being so dire. In my first year of university, I wrote a blog about how a friend had asked me whether I thought my disability had ever hindered lads from asking me out or taking things further with me, and what I said then remains true for me now: yes, it has, but I’d be shocked to see anyone admit it. From all my research, and from what I’ve literally seen, able-bodied people are tentative to date or be intimate with physically disabled people (whether maliciously or not), and for the ones with the disabilities, this has at best resulted in being ignored or passively rejected, and at worst just straight-up abused.

The work that I’ve done so far is minuscule when compared to how much work needs to be done. I looked at ‘physically disabled women’ in particular but even that phrase is kind of hollow because it doesn’t even begin to describe the vastly diverse group of people it’s trying to categorise. Furthermore, I didn’t have the words or time to study the impact of race, gender, economic background, type of disability, and all the other aspects which would inevitably influence the experience of sexuality for individuals. I also didn’t have the opportunity to talk to disabled people directly; I used a tonne of literature, but nothing can come close to hearing the words from the ones who feel it. So, whilst my work was informed and (I hope) useful, to call it the tip of the iceberg would be a huge understatement, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I continue to write about this for the rest of my life.

Nonetheless, the overarching theme of this dissertation was one of acceptance and optimism from most of the people who answered my questions. What I will say though, is that often your optimism was naive; it was comforting, but it didn’t really line up with the reality of the world. People gave the correct response by saying that it shouldn’t matter if you have a disability, and it shouldn’t matter how that impacts sexuality because anyone can find love, sex isn’t a fixed thing, and disability shouldn’t ever threaten a person’s ability to experience pleasure within relationships. Only, saying that something shouldn’t happen, doesn’t make it not happen.

For months, I’ve been exposed to the disabled experience on a level that I’d never seen before: for the first time, I was reading and listening to things that felt totally relatable rather than 85% there. The fact is that like all of the ‘isms’, ableism is so ingrained within our society that just because I have a disability, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have prejudices against the disabled community. There’s plenty to unpack there, but I think I’ll leave that for another blog (or two, or three…). But to generalise, the truth is that we’re so concerned with looks and frightened by what we don’t personally understand, that the disabled body has been persistently and systematically defined as undesirable and in need of a cure. To put it even more plainly: I’m disabled, so that means that my body is wrong, so it can’t be pretty and it definitely can’t be sexy, and if someone does find it pretty, then that’s not because of the disability, it’s despite it.

Obviously, there are grey areas here, and each individual can (and is) judged to be beautiful, desirable, and every other positive adjective by individual people. But finding one disabled person gorgeous doesn’t a perfect society make. There need to be some HEFTY changes when it comes to what ‘society’ and individuals understand disability to mean because for pretty much all of history, it’s equalled a mistake that we should ignore and just wait until it dies (or kill it before it lives).

So…how did it feel to write this, when I was sort of writing about myself? Well, it wasn’t great to hear that disabled women are far more likely to experience abuse (psychological and/or physical) within romantic or sexual relationships than able-bodied women. Nor did it feel amazing to read countless experiences of disabled people like being asked to leave restaurants because their appearance might put people off their food, or being persistently pushed to the side and dismissed as irrelevant and pointless. It also almost brought me to tears in the library to read women say that it’d been easier for them to tell people who’d assumed that they couldn’t have children because of their disability that they were right when they weren’t actually right because they could have kids, but the support for disabled women just isn’t there since everyone assumes that they can’t have kids anyway and if they can, then they shouldn’t in case they pass their disability on. But again, that’s not even scratching the surface.

Disabled people aren’t the weak, infirm victims history and modern culture paints us out to be and there are so many examples of fulfilled, happy lives with a disability. However, I share the sentiment that I read basically all of the disabled community expressing, in that the worst of the ‘struggles’ I’ve already had and the ones I’ll continue to have aren’t because of my Spina Bifida, they’re because this world is doing its absolute best to ignore me until I croak.

The thing is though, I’m a loudmouth who’s got a loooot of years left and I plan on making people talk about this because, regardless of whether you’re disabled or not, it has everything to do with you. I hope that in some small way, my blog or whatever else I do in the future can contribute to disabled people actually being listened to and valued because we deserve your attention.

If I can manage that, then that’s a win really innit?

P.S.

Can we all pls manifest that I get a good grade on my diss lol IMAGINE

Why’d you text him again?

Why’d you text him again?

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Why’d you do it then, eh? Why bother texting him again when you know he’s a dick? When you know he’ll leave it a few hours (even though he’s always on his phone, and definitely knows that it’s there). When you know he’s not that interested – YOU’RE not even that interested. So if you don’t really like him that much then why bother with putting yourself through the annoyance of it? Why’d you text him, if all you’re going to do is avoid your social media, waiting for his name to disappear from your notifications screen? What’s the point? Just ignore him, and forget about it. Yes, good idea. Delete the message thread, forget about it, move it along. Until the next one that is…

Hands up if you felt personally attacked by that first paragraph!

Well, if it’s any consolation, I just read myself to absolute filth and those were all questions my friends have asked me plenty of times, though I’ve undoubtedly asked myself them more. So, why do we text him – or her ! – over and over, when we’re the first ones to admit how tedious it all is? Where’s the logic?

For me, I think it’s a combination of lots of things. For example, the being constantly exposed to media and culture where romantic relationships seem to be necessary for overall happiness, the desperately wanting to feel known by someone (and to know them), the hormones, and the heavy, heavy boredom. I think it’s defo the hormones and the boredom which override the logic on a consistent basis, though. Which is fun.

On a less personal note, however, I think that what’s keeping us shushing the logical parts of ourselves is that romantic relationships are all we ever seem to talk about. Whether it’s a discussion of someone you just walked past and found attractive, your favourite celebrity, someone you had sex with last week, someone you might ask out on a date, or even the more abstract discussion of ‘who, out of our mates, would you date if you HAD to?’, sex and relationships are just constantly on the mind. In fact, the only people I know who don’t discuss these topics as regularly, are the ones in relationships – but even they get excited by their single friends’ tales of romance.

I’ve no clue why all of us are so hung up on this aspect of life, and I’m well aware that I’m as bad as anyone for it. But it’s the New Year, and I hAvE a rEsOLuTion people !! I’d sincerely like to stop wasting my time just for the sake of it.

I love people, I love a flirt, and I love a bit of drama, so I’ve had my fair share of situations with boys since the age of about fifteen. Still, I could honestly only count on one hand the lads that I was genuinely interested in; everyone else, I either fancied but knew it’d never work, or didn’t even fancy them that much, I just liked the attention. Oh god that sounds awful, doesn’t it? But we’ve all done it! In fact, I’m 100% sure that there have been plenty of occasions when boys have been thinking this way about me; it’s not a reflection on you (though it can certainly feel like that sometimes), it’s just how it is.

A few months ago, I was sitting on my friend’s bed, having a bit of a it’s-winter-I’m-tired-I-don’t-want-to-write-any-more-essays-can-it-be-Christmas-now sob, and in the middle of it I said the words ‘I’m just so tired of feeling this lonely’. I know, tragic. And I’ve written many blogs about how I’ve not wanted to be single for years; how I’ve felt left out because the only romantic experiences I’ve had so far have been a headache. Though, other reasons have also exacerbated these thoughts, like how much easier dealing with shit like my feet would be if I just had someone there who’s interested enough to care. Or even the fact that doing things would be nicer if there was someone there to do them with. But as bored as I am of being lonely, I’m more bored of saying how bored and lonely I am. So I’m not going to do it anymore.

Famous last words…

I’m seriously going to give it a go this time though!! I know I’ll probably stumble, because it’s surprisingly difficult to avoid all drama at a university where that seems to be all anyone talks about; not to mention the fact that I’m a total sucker for the will-they-won’t-they first stages. But I’m unbelievably picky, and stuff doesn’t work out; I end up getting upset, feeling like a failure, and we’re back to square one. SO, I’m going to start asking myself if I really will benefit from texting him again, when I know that we wouldn’t work and I don’t like him as much as I like the attention. I’m going to wait and see if he’s got the balls to show me that he likes me, before I try to control everything. And last on the list of New Years’ Resolutions: I’m going to acknowledge that there’s no time for pointless drama when there’s a degree to get, and a life after university to figure out. No more drunk-texting: only fun, easy, stress-free situations.

Come on 2022, you can give me that, can’t you?

The stress of the sesh

The stress of the sesh

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

If we’re going to be honest about it, then realistically, most university students do not have a very healthy relationship with alcohol.

Or do we? Because, what do we mean when we say ‘a healthy relationship’? And does whatever definition we’ve concocted to answer that question change according to context? These questions can be rhetorical, or not, depending on your opinion and your own situation but for me, life as a university student is its own unique beast, and going back to a ‘proper’ university experience after quarantine has made me reassess my own relationship with drink.

Every student will know that one of the best parts of the university experience is the partying: the thrill of meeting new people and deciding whether you’re going to sacrifice tomorrow’s seminar for the sesh. Whether it’s the middle of the night conversations, the drunken silliness, the dancing, or the escape, alcohol and nights out afford university students freedom and liberation from not knowing who they are or what they want to do yet. (They also offer us an obscene amount of fun.) But our youth and our energy can cloud our judgement so much that sometimes we don’t realise that we’re regularly ingesting a really harmful drug. Saying that, I’m not about to bitch about drinking culture nor am I here to announce a ‘new, sober me’ because my love for the sesh and a vodka lemonade are too much to allow me to commit to that. However, after going out more this year and seeing familiar faces I’ve become a little paranoid about people’s perception of me after they’ve seen me drunk.

Unfortunately, we’ve all embarrassed ourselves when under the influence: we’ve said something we shouldn’t have, we’ve tumbled on the dance floor (although for me, that’s not particularly embarrassing lol), we’ve flirted with someone we shouldn’t have, and we’ve puked on someone’s floor. But what makes these things okay, is that most of us do our best to get drunk with and around our friends: with people we can trust. Having that security blanket of no judgement can mean that whatever mistake you make after that second tequila doesn’t have to define you for longer than you’d like it to. Although, if it was ridiculous and funny enough then you can count on someone having filmed it or made a mental note to never forget it and periodically remind you of it. Oh, the delights of friendship.

Occasionally however, in this university bubble you may find yourself with a group of people who have only ever seen you whilst drunk. And whilst that might not bother others, it doesn’t sit right with me because my next-day boozer anxiety makes me feel like I gave too much of myself to strangers. I don’t like the idea that there are people who only know me as whatever slurred words I said one night because I don’t know them enough to trust that there won’t be any judgement. I’ve never said anything that bad, or that deep, but still, I don’t know, I prefer to know people properly before we see each other drunk.

I think it’s also important to mention here that another layer of trust needed when drinking with people, is that you’re physically safe. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few weeks then you’ve seen that there’s been a huge and frightening problem with university students – mostly young women – being spiked whilst on nights out. Thankfully, it’s not something that has ever happened to me (touch wood), but if it did then the first thing that I would need in that moment is the support and help of those I’d gone on the night-out with. My friends and I aren’t always perfect when it comes to watching out for everyone on a night out because we’re young, we can get silly, and sometimes we can definitely get distracted by the fact that we’re horny, but I’m happy in the knowledge that if I were ever in trouble or if I ever felt like something was wrong then they’d sort me out in a matter of minutes. It might take a few minutes if they’ve been on the VKs, but it’d happen nonetheless.

So this week I mostly just want to encourage you to be aware of who you’re allowing yourself to be vulnerable around; drinking is fun, but only if you’re safe whilst you’re doing it. Watch how much of yourself you give to people – both physically and emotionally – and look out for your friends. Obviously, this would be the perfect time for me to say ‘drink responsibly’ but I don’t think many of us adhere to what the government describes as ‘responsible’ at this age…so I’ll leave you instead with this request: be careful.

It gets a little too loud

It gets a little too loud

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

A few days ago, I lay down to go to sleep but couldn’t because all I could hear was talking. I tossed and turned and I tossed and turned, but the whole time I felt like I was trying to go to sleep in a crowded room full of people talking, laughing, and arguing with each other. Then I realised that all of that noise was in my head. So I breathed, and I calmed it, and I went to sleep.

Now before anyone refers me onto a psychiatrist, I don’t suffer from any mental health problems which would mean that I hear voices; the only thing I suffer from is trying to constantly keep myself busy. I fill my days with activities to avoid being bored or feeling like I’m squandering my time (or that I’m alone), then in my head I plan, organise, and evaluate everything. Once I’ve thought about all the things I’ve done, or need to do, the next brainwave is all of the internal conversations about my friendships or boy tediums, and if I’ve exhausted all of that (and am nearing the days of my period), some cheeky insecurities will pop up to say hello.

It gets pretty noisy.

All of this isn’t to say that I’m unhappy, though; coming back to a more normal version of a university life this year has been something that so many of us really needed, and I’m glad to say that I’m pretty content at the minute. I no longer need to worry about the stress of a year abroad, or the fact that my degree makes me feel stupid. I’m able to get out of the house, go to lectures I enjoy, and socialise with people without breaking the law or having to cover half of my face. I’ve had insanely exciting news which has made me feel like I’m actually going to be able to have a career doing something I love – and I’m not going to go into details about it in case I jinx it. I get to see and laugh with my friends all of the time, and I feel like I’m getting pretty good at this whole adult-ing thing. But even the good times are mentally trying, and it pays to recognise this before something happens and your brain goes bang and you end up crying on the floor eating ice cream.

As is the case with many things, I’m not an expert in how to help yourself calm down and relax because I’m constantly trying to find something to fill my time. However, yesterday when I was doing my eye make up, I realised that I’d forgotten to breathe because I was trying to make my eyeliner perfect, whilst also thinking about an argument I wanted to (but never would) have with a lad. Needless to say, (once I’d remembered to exhale), it was clear that I need to work out how to slow down a little.

When I was younger, my granddad used to take me and my brother camping in the Yorkshire Dales a lot. I think of those times with an immense amount of fondness, but possibly the most influential part of those trips was the fact that when I get overwhelmed, I feel an intense need to go to those hills because of the silence. It’s so quiet up there that it kind of hurts your ears. But as much as I want to, I can’t be driving an hour to the middle of nowhere every time I feel a little claustrophobic: I’ve got a dissertation to write. Thus, I drive half an hour to the beach to look at the sea, I go home to sit with my parents and watch TV, or I read a book I want to read (not one that’s been assigned to me); I play guitar, I listen to music, or sometimes I just sit and stare at the wall for a bit. Although, that last one does sound like something out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest…again, I don’t need a psychiatrist, I promise.

Whatever it is, and whatever age you are, all I can say is that you should probably find something that gives you a moment of respite not just from other people, but from yourself too. Otherwise eventually, as everyone’s mum used to say: it’ll all end in tears.

See you later!

See you later!

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

As I write this, it’s 30th June 2021, and it’s the last day of mine and my housemate’s tenancy for our second year of University. When we first moved in, it came at the end of an intense 5 months for the entire world; we’d been robbed of our third term of first year by the coronavirus pandemic, and we were moving in not really knowing what our second year would look like. Some of us came straight away, but it took until September/October for us to have pretty much a full house. First term was absolutely riddled with lockdowns and being ill with coronavirus, though we still managed to have some hectic nights-out before everything shut and make our university house start to feel like our home. We even cooked a Christmas dinner and got all dressed up to feel some semblance of normality – shout out to Rish’s brief stint as a mixologist. Then second term came and we had to STUDY. There were countless library trips, hours spent staring at laptops, withering attention-spans, and a whole lot of delirious laughter in between some snowball fights and getting lost in the woods as we searched for some alpacas. Obviously, we also had plenty of seshes, but that’s standard Lavender House activity.

Finally, we got our first summer term at university together. The exam period was exhausting, but it came and went pretty quickly overall, and I must say that sitting next to each other as we all attempted completely different exams was surprisingly enjoyable…Though not as enjoyable as when we finished and were able to just relax and spend time with each other.

Completing a year of university during a pandemic has been a real struggle for my friends and I at points. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that I’ve felt moments of intense physical and emotional exhaustion, boredom, despondency, and isolation. But through all of that, we managed to laugh together every single day.

I was speaking to one of my housemates the other day about it, and we were saying just how strange it is that we come to university and we meet all of these people, and make all of these memories, then we all go off into the world and it’s unlikely that we’ll ever see each other again. Here, I probably sound super dramatic, and you’re probably wondering why I’m getting so sentimental when I haven’t even graduated, but next year is my year abroad so a lot of my friends will graduate before I come back, and also a little sentimentality wouldn’t hurt the English once in a while. After all, as much as we shy away from deep or intense emotion, it is true that we may never know what becomes of these people we’ve come to really care for in the past couple of years.

For me, if it weren’t for my university friends, then I don’t know how much I would’ve kept up with these blogs, or how confident I would’ve felt in making a podcast or being on the radio, and I most definitely would NOT have walked on a stage in front of everyone at our college fashion show. They’ve helped me to stop slut-shaming myself if I get drunk and feel like sleeping my with someone. They’ve let me cry to them about how difficult my degree is more times then they probably could’ve been bothered with, and they’ve forgiven my occasional tendencies towards passive aggression. But most of all, they’ve made me feel safe and loved, and they’ve made me laugh until my stomach hurt.

So whilst I know I will see many of you again, I wanted to take a second to give you some love as we all move out and go on to the next bit – whether that be a final year at university, a year abroad, a placement year, a masters degree, or the start to life as a university graduate. Regardless of how often we see each other again though, I’m going to steal the words of a friend I met and said goodbye to in Ukraine two years ago, and say that in the moments when I miss seeing you all the time, it’ll cheer me up to know that you exist somewhere.

See you later my loves x

Grind don’t stop

Grind don’t stop

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

What have I been thinking recently?

Not a whole lot if I’m honest. I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts. Pretending the sun is way warmer than it actually is. I went oUt oUt on Thursday; that was exciting. I watched The Little Mermaid yesterday.

I’ve been kind of tired.

We’re in the very last stretch of the university year and intellectually, I’m exhausted. I’m not walking around like a zombie, sleeping 15 hours a day – though I do generally need 9-10 hours of sleep a day to function, but that’s besides the point. I’ve been having a great time over the last couple of weeks, seeing and spending time with my friends and family and getting excited about restrictions easing. But during all the laughs there’s still this constant nagging in my head reminding me that I’ve got work and deadlines, and it’s making me really tired.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy my degree, because I honestly do find researching and writing essays, and speaking foreign languages incredibly fun. But this last academic year has been so taxing and I’m just bored of looking at screens. I don’t want to have to open up my laptop and sit for at least 5 hours a day doing vocabulary, or grammar exercises, or researching and writing essays. I look at the blank digital pages where my 2,500-word essay should be and though I’ve never struggled to have opinions, I feel like I have nothing worthwhile to say anymore. So I avoid it, but that only makes the process longer.

It’s just that the sun’s coming out, and restrictions are finally lifting after the most stressful year of pretty much everyone’s lives, but those deadlines still beckon. (!!) And I know that it might sound like I’m complaining about nothing but my friends and I have had a year of online university-learning and it’s been really hard. Just last term, we would each walk around the house letting out short screams or hysterical laughter or mantras of ‘can’t be arsed, can’t be arsed, can’t be arsed, I can do it, I can do it, don’t wanna do it, have to do it, gunna do it’ from the kitchen all the way back to our laptops, on our desks, in our rooms. And whilst it was always kind of funny to hear who was ‘losing it’ today, the stress and lack of motivation have been rEAl this year.

Nonetheless, even though we’re all burnt the fuck out, there’s really not that long left now: last push and then we can spend a day not studying, without feeling guilty about it or reaping the consequences the next time we sit down at our desks.

So, back to the laptop screens we go, but just for a few more weeks this time kids. Deep breaths.

Xx

I’ve changed my mind

I’ve changed my mind

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to do something brainy when I grew up. (This was obviously briefly interrupted by the oh-my-god-when-I’m-16-I’ll-go-on-The-X-Factor-moment, but then we don’t really need to give 7 year old me that much attention here…) I always knew that I was good at academia, and that I’d probably go to university and end up being a professional nerd. But as I’ve gone through the education system and I’ve learnt to hold my own as a young woman, I realise that I’ve been listening to those good old societal constructs again in telling myself that a profession determines my level of intelligence.

But before I go on to my potentially sickening motivational speech where I tell you to fOlLoW yOuR dReAms and dO wHaT yOu lOve, I’ve got to first acknowledge how successful we are at convincing ourselves, and our children that we need to know exactly how our life is going to play out from the first time someone asks us what we’re going to do after school. And it’s not that I think we should stop asking children these questions, it’s only that we take their answers way too seriously. We categorise careers and people according to what subjects they were good at at school, or their ability to write an essay, or to solve an equation. Yes, certain jobs require a level of academic ability for you to succeed, but intelligence isn’t limited to your academic success.

Before I started my degree, I was convinced I knew exactly what job I wanted to go into. I thought I was going to come out of Durham University and somehow weasel my way into a job in translation in the music industry – don’t ask me how I expected to get there, but that’s what I wanted to do. However, I’ve come to realise that I don’t want language to be the overriding aspect of my future career. Don’t get me wrong, I love languages, and I hope to continue learning new ones for the rest of my life. But I realise that I’m 21, and what I love doing more than anything right now, is writing these blogs, making my podcasts, and interviewing musicians on the radio.

So even though it’s not a ‘conventional’ choice, or something the education system taught me exactly how to get into, it’s something that I have a real passion for, and without indulging in my ego too much, it’s something that I know I could be really good at. Oh, and it’s kind of ideal for the whole physical disability situation because standing for long periods of time or walking long distances isn’t really a problem when all you have to do is sit behind a microphone or a laptop…so you know, it’s kind of a medical choice? But I digress.

I might only be really young, but my age is my power, because I truly can decide to do whatever I want to do with my life. Maybe I’ll get it completely wrong, but if I do then at least I tried! Plus, if it does all go tits up, then I’ll always have that cheeky Durham University degree in Japanese Studies with a bit of history, history of art, and Korean thrown in for extra spice on the CV.

So f*** it, let’s give it a go.

It’s exciting being disabled, isn’t it?

It’s exciting being disabled, isn’t it?

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 1 Comment

As some of you may know, next year I’ll be studying in Japan for my third year at university. This is obviously very very exciting, and something I’m really looking forward to. However, the prospect of going to live on the other side of the world for a year when you have a physical disability isn’t ever going to be stress-free.

Now, you might think that my already having been on a gap year should make this a piece of piss, but the part I fail to mention when speaking about my year abroad, is that each trip was never that long, and I came home for respite and hospital appointments in between all of them. Thus, fully moving somewhere for months on end poses different issues to the ones I had to deal with when I was 19.

For example every few weeks, I go to visit one of my doctors and she treats my foot. It’s not complicated treatment, nor is it particularly specialised. So, you might assume that it’ll be pretty simple and easy for me to go to Japan and find a doctor there who can do the same thing…Well the problem with seeing a random doctor in a completely new country is that that medical professional isn’t familiar with my biology, and my ability to maintain a healthy condition of my feet does hinge a lot on my doctors knowing exactly how far they should go with the treatment. Therefore, trying to communicate that to a doctor who’s language I don’t know inside and out won’t be an impossible task, but it’s still pretty daunting.

Another fun thing I have to sort out is my university accommodation for when I’m in Japan. Tediously, I can’t walk very far and considering the fact that I won’t be able to drive whilst there, I’m going to have to be hyper-aware of how far I have to walk to go anywhere. Therefore, I have to make sure that I find accommodation close enough to my lectures and public transport so that I don’t end up getting a blister/infection in the middle of my year abroad. This isn’t an easy task when you can’t visit the place beforehand to figure out whether the website’s version of ‘it’s a 5 minute walk’ is actually true or not…but we do our best.

The main activity for this week though, was travelling down to Leeds for a hospital appointment to discuss how the hell I’m going to have access to new pairs of shoes when I’m 5,833 miles away from Leeds General Infirmary. Thankfully though, my doctor is a bit of a legend and he’s already started the process to order 6 pairs of shoes, 3 pairs of insoles, and 2 pairs of callipers, so that I can go to Japan with enough footwear to (hopefully) see me through the full year. This will then mean that I shouldn’t have to worry about my shoes breaking when I’ve got absolutely no way of getting new ones. So that’s already one part of the puzzle solved – well, it will be when I’ve actually received all the shoes and have confirmed that there aren’t any problems with them…but baby steps people, baby steps.

I don’t often mention these parts of my life because I can’t imagine them being interesting for anyone else to hear about, when they’re definitely not very interesting to me. But then when I’m having a stress-rant to my housemates about the hundreds of things I need to sort, they make it clear to me that these are the parts of disability that the wider world rarely gets access to. I shroud what I find tedious in euphemisms like ‘oh, I just deal with it’, or, ‘I’m disabled, I have hospital appointments all the time’, and then I never actually give you comprehensive information about how Spina Bifida affects my life on a day-to-day basis. Obviously, I prefer the discussions relating to self-identity or societal perceptions because they’re more enjoyable for me. But clearly, if I’m asking the able-bodied to help make my life easier, then I should give you a helping hand by telling you what I’m actually dealing with.

I can’t promise the tales will always be exciting though…but hey, maybe if people know more about the tedious parts of being disabled, then someone will want to find ways to design or invent something to make that tedium go away. And that’d be pretty cool.