Surviving Brain Cancer in a Precarious Nation
Part 6: Wasted.
In September 2009 I went to my fresher’s week at Staffordshire University. The returning anxiety issues were almost back entirely. After an introduction in the main “Red Lecture Theatre,” I wanted to retreat by to my car to calm down from the social anxiety of being around a busy social area with some nervousness about the start of the whole 3-year course.
On my way out of the building a fellow fresher stuck up a conversation and we ended up chatting about the course in the main lobby. At this point, my anxiety was making it hard for me to contain it so my worries about how I was coming off to a stranger were only feeding my worry further.
My symptoms would be knotting feelings in my stomach, a dry throat and post nasal drip, just like when I had to leave early on the last night out with the bank team. I was making conversation but not making eye contact because I was aware that I probably looked odd showing fear at a simple conversation.
This was a pattern that happened many times meeting people for the first time there. Some groups were connecting with me regardless as they probably thought I just had asperses or some spectrum of autism. After the first few weeks, I had got settled with a group I had joined in a fresher’s quiz which enabled me to be myself again and join them at the Student union most days.
Because I was commuting in and slightly older I was the only one with a car which meant giving people lots of lifts around Stafford which I found made up for my poor social skills.
To complicate things for me, there was a girl I really wanted to date but being she was on a games design course, she had quite a huge choice and seemed to always be seeing lots of the more confident types.
One chance came around where there was a rock gig being played at the Student Union so I thought I would go along and see if I could ask her out that night. With all the pressure I had put on myself trying to control the anxiety I bombed big time because I just made myself sicker and this time everyone noticed I was struggling to hold back a panic attack.
I left early and ended up puking before I got in my car.
On the way home I felt deflated that I just could not control my anxiety like I had when I first started at the bank. It was so disappointing to me that it was now getting in the way of my social life to the extent that I couldn’t even ask a girl out on a date. After a few months, I was down to relying on telling her over the phone which was an instant fail. Of course, I felt shame and embarrassment for a while after, that I had waited all this time and copped out by telling her over the phone.
Luckily at Christmas, it was all forgotten about and our group of friends was just as before.
To be more proactive I decided to attend weekly counseling that the University provided all students struggling with mental health issues. It was like I was able to blank out the recent problems I had faced by analyzing where the anxiety had all started.
One friend, in particular, shared a great deal in common with my music tastes and in the New Year we were jamming out tunes with his guitar at the student dorms where I was becoming a regular visitor. My surreal sense of humor seemed finally appreciated there.
These friendships helped provide me with some rest bite from the anxiety that had plagued my first semester. My new friend and I had also maxed the marks in the first group project as we were literally the only 2 in a group of 5 that showed up and put in the work for it.
We were surprised the tutors noticed because the other 3 had terrible marks which delighted us that they hadn’t dragged us down. Throughout the degree, we would both manage to keep our heads down and make the most of what was not just a really fun course to work on but incredibly well staffed by the tutors who were both friends and mentors to those that cared about their degree.
By the end of the first year I was riding high, celebrating with a final night out, somehow dutch courage was working again that night. Starting the second year it turned out that 20% of students had dropped out, leaving the marking much more competitive as the people who couldn’t be bothered had largely disappeared. Instead of commuting from home, my friends and I got a small student house together. While moving in my anxiety made an unexpected and persistent return, even with counseling.
I made frequent trips to the doctors about it this time and to treat the throat problem they prescribed me a steroid based nasal spray which seemed to work for only a few months at best. There would be times where my friend would get frustrated with me for not being able to attend social events because I was just getting worse and unable to do fun things around town.
Once 2010 came and I returned to the house I was really sick and I couldn’t find any coping mechanism that would help. It made me depressed that I would end up staying at the house constantly watching housing programs because it gave me the comfort of what my family would watch a lot at home.
Something that was a great distraction for when I felt so ill during my second year was the camaraderie working in teams to produce a game by the end of the year. We were just lucky that we had some of the hardest working students on our team which enabled us to produce one of the best presentations later that year.
When summer came I got tickets to see Recoil live at The Round House in London where I was to finally meet a girl I had become friends with online but missed a meeting when Depeche Mode was playing in 2009.
I was incredibly attracted to her and despite the distance of her living in London I really wanted to give it a go. Just like how I bombed a year and a half earlier at the student union I was doomed being in the midst of an anxious breakdown.
I didn’t look great either as it was so difficult to maintain weight when suffering these bouts of anxiety and depression. During the gig, I had started at the font with her and her friend. I was standing right in front of a bass amp which went full pelt to the extent you could feel the bass going through your entire skull which set off my gagging problem.
After the set, I retreated to the back of the crowd wiping the tears away due to all the painful retching. I the girl I was interested in passed by giving a wave, she looked concerned by was also on her phone so didn’t stop to chat. When I finally got outside my hearing was really bad with my ears ringing and feeling worse. I decided to just go back to the hotel to recover.
Shortly after this short trip to London, everyone at the student house was preparing to leave for the 3rd year. The 3 friends I was living with had already found a new place which meant I would have to find my own for my final year or commute from my parents like in the first year. Looking back Its very frustrating that I wasn't able to be myself and be a good friend to all of them because I was constantly withdrawn dealing with an uncontrolled mental illness that was spiraling out of control.
It had blighted both my social life and private life at uni leaving me isolated and distanced from my friends who were all amazing people that I would have loved to have enjoyed my time with more instead of having to deal with social anxiety. Although I was doing well on the course, I felt my time had been wasted because you are only young and at uni once. One symptom that also started during this time was random extreme fatigue, where I would be in my room working on the computer feeling fine and then suddenly feel like I was up at 4 in the morning, desperate for sleep.
To be continued…