Beyond The Degree

So here I am at 6:52 am on December 31st, lying in my bed trying to manically be productive and get my academic life together. I realise that I probably should have started this earlier, but I think the deeper rooted point that should be taken from this is how quickly the first term of third year has flown by, and how I have not had time, up until these holidays to really stop and take a break. This is partially down to my studies, partially down to the extra-curricular activities I'm involved in, and just how busy life has been for me trying to work out what I need to do to build a career. Crazy.  The most important thing that I want to look back on this year is the mental progress that I have made. In the second semester of 1st year (2016), I was diagnosed with depression. One of the hardest things about this illness is that I never knew what to expect and when I was going to beat it. This uncertainty unsettled me further as obviously you can't be given a time...

KEY Gam – Godmother or Grandmother Boss-ass –  A boss. The best of the best – a real OG. I was very sceptical about writing about the decay of my mental health from the beginning, and admittedly there are some things I have chosen to leave out and will aim to come back to throughout this month whether that is on this website or in my own personal time. I have decided to write about this because I feel that I am in a place in my life where I am ‘free’. I also know that I can be perceived as joyous and content, but it isn’t always like this. I find my own mental health to be incredibly complex, as there are layers and layers of things that have taken me a while to address and think about. There is so much for me to write down, and if I wrote it all I could probably have enough words to fill about 100 book volumes. For a while, when thinking about my mental health, I used to cringe. I cringed because I felt uncomfortable and ashamed about the personality traits I used to...

Today I am really struggling to get my head around the fact it is August. I know at some point every year we often exclaim how quickly the year has gone but I am going to say it one more time because for real 2017 has flown by. When thinking about my summer break which started in June, I noticed how happy and care-free I have been as nothing is mentally draining me in comparison to the months prior to June and my university studies. It is no secret how badly I deal with stress and anxiety and how they are particularly triggered by university and are heavily driven by education. I thoroughly enjoy the social aspect of university but stress is something I have struggled with since AS Level. I know millions of people go to university and take A Levels, but I think it’s really important to point out that individually some people deal with certain situations better than others and education and academics are just two things I don’t deal very well with. Now as Cliché it may sound ...