Well that was a Disaster

Two weeks into college & I hate it. Ok, there is a lot you don’t know. As soon as I opened my results of the 17th of August 2016, my whole life began to crumble. Long story short, my expectations (which are visible from my previous post), were too high. I got 490 points & was bitterly disappointed that I didn’t break the 500s. Around twenty minutes after receiving & recalculating my points over and over again, I began to sob. It was quarter to ten in the morning and the tears didn’t stop until one o o’clock. My parents & siblings were delighted with my results, but I still felt as if I had let myself down. I was not proud of my results, and honestly, I’m still not. Subject-wise, I was happy with most of my grades, bar one or two. Annoyingly enough, they just didn’t add to the correct figure. 

It was as if a cloud had settled over me, and I was hoping & praying that it would pass as soon as the following Monday, when CAO offers came out. As expected, well at least I thought it was expected, I got an offer of Arts in Maynooth. In an effort to make myself feel excited about college, I posted online & on social media to show everyone my own ‘happiness’. During that day, my actual unhappiness began to reveal itself. Once again, I began to sob my heart out in my mother’s arms. I was so gutted I wasn’t going to be in college in Dublin. Never in a million years, would I have ever anticipated a reaction like this. Slowly, I began to spiral deep into a hole of bitter disappointment & utter sadness. 

Despite my sadness, I was still determined to go to Maynooth and ‘give it ago’. I was secretly hoping that I would fall in love with the place, and never want to leave. My parents did everything to make me feel positive and hopeful when I thought of Maynooth. A week before college began, my father took me to the campus on a Sunday. It was disastrous, I hated it there. I felt as if I didn’t like the atmosphere, but of course I did, the campus was empty! Silly me, it was the weekend! I kept envisioning the campus crowded with people and I slowly started to feel a bit better. 

Positivity was the way in which, I managed to get through the dreaded Leaving Cert., but sadly that girl was gone. Everything appeared to be grey. I was irritable, negative, constantly stressed and sad. I no longer liked myself, but didn’t know how to make myself feel better, feel like myself. These feelings began to fester and waves of anxiety that I had previously felt in fifth year started to intensify. Throughout all the confusion, I was constantly talking to my family and the advice they offered was amazing. My mother encouraged me to listen to relaxation podcasts. Today, it is the 6th of October and I have listened to them everyday since. I started listening to them three times a days and slowly reduced it to once a day. However, some days are worse than others so I have to listen to maybe two or three a day. The most valuable thing I learned was that it’s ok to have bad days. Anxiety doesn’t just go overnight and I need to deal with it. Slowly, I am learning what steps to take in order to keep my anxiety levels low. Everything I experienced/ am experiencing is normal. Sometimes people don’t have to deal with these issues until later in life, but now it’s my turn, and that is ok! 

Once college started, I threw myself into my work. I didn’t want a build up of work to contribute to me not liking college. I tried to make friends, which is incredibly hard when you do an arts degree, because your lectures are so big. You could have three hundred people in one lecture. My schedule was nice, with only ten hours, but I like structure so all the free time didn’t suit me. Some days I would have a lecture at 9am and then not another until 5pm. The workload wasn’t too heavy so it was hard to fill my spare time, but I did my best. I spent a lot of my time either with people I knew from school or by myself. I am an outgoing person and I love making new friends. I never realised it would be so challenging.  

I began to chart my days out of ten. They never reached over five. Probably the most frustrating thing I found about college, was the lack of independence. My mother had to drop me to the bus stop in the nearest town in order to the bus to Maynooth, because the bus didn’t stop where I live. I always had to depend on my mother, when my brother who goes to college in Dublin could just get the bus from where we live. It wouldn’t matter to some, but for me it was an issue that drove, excuse the pun, me insane.

After two months of bitter disappointment, I was slowly getting to grips with the fact that, this was my life now. However, this didn’t bring me any joy. The hole of sadness was getting deeper and transformed into a tunnel of darkness. I saw no light, I wasn’t hopeful and trying to think positive all time, when you constantly feel down, is exhausting. The idea of dropping out of college, had always been in the back of my mind. Luckily, my parents were completely understanding because they knew how unhappy I was. That being said, it wasn’t a decision I made overnight and honestly, it wasn’t an easy one. There was lots I had to consider: what would I do for the year?, Was I just struggling to settle in?, Would things get better, if I gave it more time?, What will I do next year?, and Is this the right decision?. As soon as dropping out, started to appear as the correct decision, the once dark, grey tunnel began to get brighter.  

So that’s what I did, I dropped out of college. Luckily enough, before the 31st of October so the college fees my parents paid will be refunded. Now I have a clean slate for next year. I already have thoughts forming of what I would like to do. I picked the wrong course this year, a simple mistake, which is not going to define my life. Repeating the Leaving Cert., wasn’t a solution in my case, but it may be in your case. I will work for the year and in the process, grow and mature as an individual. What seemed as a disaster at the time, fingers crossed, won’t always seem as one. Onwards and upwards from here! 

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