The "Post-Uni Blues"

I think the “post-uni blues” should be coined as a valid term. Graduates get the you’re-in-the-real-world-now talk, the no-more-partying-now-missy look, but an ending on such a scale deserves more than just snide remarks. It’s a common phrase that the three years of university are the best of your life, and they are, for more than just the social reasons. You’ve spent time building a home, friends, self-discipline. A degree is such a massive achievement, but apart from your day where you get to throw your funny hat in the air, the “what do I do now” can be quite engulfing. For three years you know what you’re doing, you have a routine and an aim, and when that’s gone it can be like having the rug pulled out from underneath your feet. What they don’t tell you at the ‘careers office’ is that it’s a completely valid feeling; It’s ok not to know what you’re doing, to not have the answer or a solid successful plan. They don’t tell you that other people’s opinions on your various wacky post-uni dreams don’t matter and that you can change your mind and do something unrelated to your degree- it definitely will never make those three years a waste of your time.

I kind of fell apart slightly when I finished uni- I’d suffered bad anxiety attacks before, but this spiraled into a depression that felt unjustified. You’re supposed to have the world at your feet when you finish university, and you really do. I just didn’t want it at all. I’ve always seen it as a weakness but someone said to me that so many people must feel similar sorts of things in various forms when they finish university and that I should write about it.

On a holiday to Bulgaria two years ago was the first time I experienced a full blown anxiety attack - it was a new and slightly scary place, I was on a coach exertion without air conditioning and began to panic and made my patient ex-boyfriend get off the coach. I physically couldn’t sit on the coach a second longer. I barely left the hotel room for the entire two weeks, I didn’t eat or drink and the only time I felt ok was when I was asleep. The minute I woke up and remembered where I was and how I felt the day before I plunged into the same anxious state and couldn’t shake it off. I thought it was because I was scared in a foreign country, that I’d be ok when I got home. I didn’t know what an anxiety attack was, I thought I was just being neurotic and going crazy. It didn’t get better when I got home- it got worse.

I’d stand under the shower and cry into the water every morning, every single minute of everyday was so hard I didn’t know how long I could keep it up for. University was the single most important thing in my life, I’ve never felt so sure about anything, I knew I was in the right course, the right place, had amazing friends and loved my life, so I just couldn’t understand why this was happening to me.

I could barely sit in a lecture theatre- I’d sit by the door ready to bolt if I needed to. I just couldn’t stand being anywhere I thought I couldn’t get out of. It kind of felt like claustrophobia that had escalated from being on a coach train, bus or a lift into every day. I was suffocated by everything, by every minute of everyday. The only relief was sleep.

I was desperate for someone to tell me a straight forward answer- that it was my sugar levels dropping that plunged me into cost sweats and dizzying panic, or that I was pregnant and so it was the hormones that were makig me feel crazy.

I’d go pale and my skin would burn it was so hot, I felt sick and dizzy, and it felt like an invisible hand was clutching around my throat. I could physically feel my windpipe being squashed. What made it so difficult was although I was aware that was all in my head, that it’s a physiological problem, its completely real to me. People saying- “what have u got to be nervous about?”makes me feel even worse because it highlights my loss of control. I felt completely out of control of myself and my life.

The holiday to Bulgaria was September, October is a blur of fear and tears, my mum meeting me at Waterloo station every week, me just crying and crying sitting in Costa coffee with her but refusing to come home. I knew that if I went home I’d never go back to university, and I saw myself as a failure if I gave up. I never missed a single lecture, I’d sit by the door, with water, banana and rescue remedy and complete focus on the class- blocking out everything else. If I could get my mind to switch off from the fear and relentless anxiety I felt in the background ,it would fade, and I’d realize that I had felt fine for 40 minutes. 40 whole minutes of feeling fine was heaven. I hated being in a crowd, being too hot, I barely went out, avoided house parties and spent a fortune on taxis to avoid trains and buses to work. I’d serve tables in my part-time job with blood shot eyes, customers probably thinking that I was crazy. People that know me would describe me as bubbly, outgoing, always up for a party. I felt I had completely lost myself. I told no more than a handful of people what I was feeling because I felt pathetic.

November I had a trip booked to Dublin. At the time leaving the house and going to uni took so much energy, a plane journey and a weekend away seemed a complete nightmare. But I didn’t want to cancel because then I felt “it” was winning. I remember the morning as we left the house; every time the thought of “oh god I can’t do this” came into my head I’d visualize holding a baseball bat and bat the negative thought away. The whole journey I blocked it out completely, I wouldn’t even think about thinking about it. I was on such a high when we arrived in Temple Bar I was grinning from ear to ear. I had only 2 bad episodes in the entire weekend- Temple Bar is a crowded place and I’d start to burn up in a packed bar. My ever-patient best friend always knows because I turn a shade of green but she wouldn’t make a fuss. I’d concentrate entirely on what she was saying, watching her mouth, her teeth, hearing the words- like a kind of tunnel vision so there was no space for anything else in my brain apart from listening to her.

On the plane journey home I remember think, "shit- If I can do this weekend, I can do anything." Then there began to be more space between each attack, it went from constant, down to every hour, to every day, down to every couple of days and eventually faded to nothing. By the following Easter I was on a trip skiing in Switzerland; getting in ski lifts and zooming down mountains. I’d still go green and my legs would turn to jelly, but I’d be doing it! I was in the Alps when a few months ago I could barely leave my house.

…

When it started happening again this year, I fell a lot harder, I think because I felt that last time it was something I went through and had overcome, where as now it felt like it was more of a possibility that this was who I was and it was always be a constant battle to hold it together.
I sunk in to a very black hole. I had gone from being in the library for 10 hours every single day, focusing all my energy on the final months of my degree to feeling completely lost when I handed all my work in. Someone else told me that they felt like they had lost something on their last day of uni and the emotion when you finish such a defining time of your life is definitely in the realm of loss. University was finished and I had nothing to hold onto, to focus on. I had lost my outlet for such an immense amount of energy.

I took a week long trip to Barcelona and had to most amazing week with a large group of my closest friends. It was the perfect way to celebrate such an immense ending. Our group was so mixed- from Brazil, Iran, Bulgaria, Norway and we were all going in very different directions. The last day we were all extremely hung-over and had long journey; an hour on the Metro, 30minutes on a bus and then the plane. Being dehydrated, tired and ill in a hot stuffy environment I had an anxiety attack. What made it worse was that I knew that once I got off the train, I had to get on the bus, and all of that was before the airplane. I felt anxiety wash over me in cold sweats, I kept touching my throat at the invisible hand that was clutching it and tried to keep talking to my friends to take my mind of it. I always finding singing or humming really helps, although that’s the last thing you feel like doing- it’s a way of controlling your mind and breathing.

I was so exhausted by the time I got back to my messy student room that night I slept fully clothed, my pillow soggy with tears of tiredness. From then on it spiraled out of control- I was living half the week at my university as I still had a job there and half the week back at home. It’s a very strange limbo between your last exam and your actual graduation. Third year students were drifting around town looking slightly lost (probably slightly pissed on the remainder of their loans). I didn’t want to move home quite yet, I wasn’t ready to say bye so I drifted between the two. Everyday consisted of ways to battle the anxiety and depression that was slowly engulfing me. I didn’t want to move back home because I felt I was giving in- something I didn’t allow myself to do last time and therefore attributed it to my recovery. Everything was done in 10minute blocks, I just concentrated on feeling okay for 10minutes at a time, anything more was completely impossible. The train journeys back and forth every week where ridiculous hard- I couldn’t get on the tube so would go a long way round and I’d have a pack of frozen peas because my skin would burn up. I felt I couldn’t talk to my friends because I felt I was failing- they’d watched me get better from being so bad before- getting sick again meant to me, that I had failed. It got to the point that I thought I was going to pass out at work, I just wanted to run out of the restaurant, I felt I wanted to scratch out the feeling inside me. I thought work would think I was pathetic- poor little student feeling sad that uni is over.

But they didn’t. I called in sick and went home for a week and did nothing but talk to my mum and go for walks and not really see anybody else. I’d said to my boss that I was just feeling under the weather and he said “I totally understand- I totally burnt myself out when I finished uni- you’ve burnt the candles at both ends.”

I felt suffocated- suddenly without the structure and focus of uni, I felt I had nothing- all the plans I had made to go travelling were completely overwhelming. I couldn’t even get round Tesco’s. I just wanted a plan, I couldn’t stand feeling I was wandering off into a horizon of nothing, the unknown. I couldn’t stand the thought of the anxiety and depression defining me, defining what I could and couldn’t do with my life.

You start small. The minute I thought past tomorrow I’d fall apart at thought of everything I couldn’t do, so I’d mentally block out anything apart from that one day. I’d think- “Right now there is no tomorrow, or next week, all I have to do is feel okay today. Nothing else.” I made “collage of positives”. The collage was a list of moments when I had felt really happy that I could pull up when I felt really bad- a conversation I’d had with one of my best friends about living in Virginia water with lots of kids one day, walking our dogs by Virginia Water lake. I’d remember how I felt the first night in Barcelona, completely in love with the culture and with such an amazing group of friends. I’d think of my mum, how I can ring her any time day or night and she always knows exactly what to say to make me feel better. I’d think of Mil Palmeras- where I am now- where only good things have happened to me, where I have only good people and sunshine in my life here. It sounds all a bit American happy-clappy, but to change what’s going on the outside you have to start with the inside. I didn’t touch alcohol cigarettes or coffee for months, partly because I didn’t like anything that made me feel out of control, but also because I thought being physically well would give me more strength to be mentally well.

I spent a lot of time with my lovely grandma, the most wonderful and wise person I know, who never ceases to inspire me. She reminded me that life was long and spacious; space to change your mind, to make mistakes, to change direction.
She took art and history at A-Level then decided to become a doctor. She did a foundation year and went on to qualify as a doctor from Kings college London. At the time few women were doctors- her family wanted her to go out to work. She plays the piano up the grade 8 and it takes my breath away when my 82 year old grandmother who is almost completely deaf sits down at the piano and plays with such ease and grace, everyone immediately has a lump in their throat.
She’s been an evacuee, been married and widowed, been a student, a mother a doctor, become a Buddhist, a councilor, and at the age of 65 travelled around India for 3 weeks. She now lives in France and her French is unbelievable (although she’ll tell you otherwise) and has two sheep and a donkey at the bottom of her garden. Life is long and that’s a good thing. It’s overwhelming in a good way not a suffocating way.

Martin Luther King said- “take the first step in faith- you don’t have to see the whole stair case, just take the first step.”

And I think that true- we can’t see the whole staircase because with every new thing we learn in this life, with every new person we meet, the staircase changes shape and direction because we change. I do believe in fate and paths but am growing to have a little more faith in that we are not out of control of our lives. There is nothing in this life I can’t do if I put my mind to it. We are of the Western World of education and opportunity where if tomorrow I decided to be a doctor, it’s not a physical impossibility that I won’t become one. It’s an empowering thought to realize you are restricted by nothing but yourself.

I also learnt that we can’t measure ourselves against others and their achievements. Bravery is only born through conquering fear. For me it was the bravest thing in the world to get on that plane here last week when all I wanted to do in that moment was run in the opposite direction. To all the other passengers it was just another flight. I was brave that day, and I think I’ll only get better if appreciate that every time I get my heart rate to go back to normal- that’s an achievement in itself. I’m not a failure if I don’t go travelling, it’s a failure if I go when I don’t want to. I have time to change my mind a hundred times about what I want to do with my life and there isn’t a wrong answer.

It’s so easy to feel boxed in by the post-uni question "so what are you going to do now?" So many graduates must feel pressured to come up with a suitable answer, a worthy direction that proves to the questioner that the last three years haven’t been a waste. I say sod the question. University can never be a waste. I learnt so so much there, not just in class but in the environment; living in a place where everyone wanted to better themselves for a variety of reasons- for a better life, broader mind, high paid job, a wider social network. I believe education is the most important thing we can give to ourselves- I don’t mean pieces of paper that tell you have a degree or a-levels or GCSEs, it’s the desire to expand the world you live in, expand your mind- and that thirst doesn’t end with your last exam.

It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks of your post-uni answer, because the reality is, whether you said you were going travelling, starting in office on Monday, or going on the dole, the person will have forgotten your answer 30 seconds later. It’s not their life.

I do think things happen for a reason- I’d be blundering off in the wrong direction unless I had been ill. It made me stop and really think about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. I was particularly lucky because with any type of anxiety or depression, the two most important things are to talk, and to exercise. I had a very strong support network of people around me, but the internet is an amazing tool for those who don’t feel they can voice how they feel. I thought I was crazy- that no one would understand how I felt and by looking on the internet makes you suddenly feel like you not a random crazy person- millions of people have felt like you do. It helps you stop feeling so hopeless because it was the thought that I’d feel that way forever that completely suffocated me. Acceptance is the key to understanding- the day I realised that I wrote this in my journal-

“This suffering Is not just cutting me, its opening me- opening avenues that bleed, yes, but they are avenues in new directions, new understandings, that hurt with every thought, but the less I resist, the less it drowns me.
I’m not shrinking back, I’m changing direction, it’s just taking time to be brave enough to open my eyes and see where I am now standing.”

One day doesn’t define the next- in fact one minute doesn’t define the next. If you fall over it doesn’t mean you’re going to be stuck down there forever- if you don’t have the energy to pull yourself back up immediately- don’t lose faith. You’ve not failed; just give yourself a little time. You’ve actually got more than you think.