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| Motel (2015), Clem Crosby |
When I was very young, probably around the age of 3, I was scared of strangers. Nothing triggered it. It was just one of those things. I wouldn't talk to any children or teachers in nursery, my mum came in to play with me to try to encourage me to talk but I would only talk when no one was close to us. In Primary School it didn't change. I was physically unable to speak. If I needed the toilet, I couldn't ask. If I was going to throw up, I couldn't tell anyone. I wet myself a lot of times and would have to wear clothes from the lost and found. I threw up in my lunchbox, in the queue, in the playground. I remember when I was about 6 I had a nosebleed and I couldn't tell anyone so I just used my maths book to catch the blood. It wasn't a fun experience. It was incredibly lonely.
When I was 6 or 7 a teacher thought it might be selective mutism (Selective Mutism is a complex childhood anxiety disorder characterized by a child's inability to speak and communicate effectively in select social settings, such as school. These children are able to speak and communicate in settings where they are comfortable, secure, and relaxed.)
That teacher became my playtime therapist. Every playtime she would sit with me in the classroom, just me and her, and she would ask me to read to her. The school probably had no idea if I could read. She chose a really basic book which I hated reading anyway. She would start off with letting me mouth the words, then I would whisper them. She was sat right next to me for the first few times. After that she would move her chair a little bit further away so I would have to be a little bit louder until eventually I was reading at a normal volume. That year I was in the school nativity. I was a narrator, and I have it on home video. I also left my own lessons to read books to the reception class on Fridays. I wasn't scared to read out loud. I was still a bit anxious to raise my hand in class or to speak in assemblies between the age of 6 and 11 but only at a normal level.
After that I went to Secondary School and was bullied the entire time. No one really knows. I never told my family. I didn't really have friends to tell. I didn't tell teachers. In my first year of Secondary School I made myself a target. I wore pants because I didn't want to wear a skirt. I was only one of 2 girls that wasn't wearing a skirt and we were both bullied. I have blanked a lot of the bullying out but I know that that was the year I found out what 'suicidal' meant.
In year 8 I bowed to peer pressure and I wore a skirt even though I hated it. This started a whole new set of bullies. I can't tell you how many times I was called fat and kicked in the legs. I wasn't fat, I was average. It was just obvious that I wasn't confident so yet again I was an easy target. My selective mutism didn't come back but I think this is when I started to get social anxiety. I wouldn't talk in class, I wouldn't speak to friends, I would go as far away from anyone as I could. Around this time there was stuff going on at home that I won't go into detail about but it made me a lot worse. I started to properly self harm. I can vividly remember the day it started. I was wearing a watch and I accidentally trapped my skin in the clasp when I fastened it. I would do that in lessons throughout the day as punishment. It progressed very quickly when I found a blade at home and took it to school in my pocket. I would cut myself at breaktime, only very lightly and there was hardly any blood, but it wasn't enough. I started to punish myself by not letting myself eat any dinner. I wouldn't let myself have a drink all day. If I had a drink I would make myself throw up. I started counting calories at home and had a chart online where I would track what I was eating. I didn't know what I weighed. I was only 12.
When I was 13 bad stuff was still happening at home. I still isolated myself at breaktime and lunchtime. I still didn't let myself drink. I would throw up after I ate. I started some of my GCSEs which was a welcome distraction. I was in touch with a friend from Primary School and I felt like I could be myself around her. Outside of school and away from home I started to find my own personality and I felt happy. I think that's what got me through.
14-15 was pretty much the same story but with all of my GCSEs. I would starve myself on certain days of the week. I would skip Fridays because Art was my least favourite subject. It's the one subject where there is no right answer and that was a massive trigger for me. I had to keep everything at school perfect because everything at home wasn't. I skipped school so many times that my dad had to come in to school to speak to the truancy officer. PE GCSE included weighing ourselves. I was amongst the top 4 heaviest, and I was the shortest. I was predicted all As. I panicked and I couldn't cope. I couldn't blank out what was happening at home anymore. I asked a cousin advice on what to do and she told my parents and everything seemed to crash all at once. I didn't get all As. My friend from primary school moved away.
I finished school just after I turned 16 with very few friends and a lot of bad memories. I couldn't go back there.
I applied for a local college. I wanted to do A Level English Literature. I also wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to do an Art subject. I wanted to prove to myself that I don't have to know the right answer. I ended up doing BTEC Graphic Design and I did enjoy it but I don't think it's something I will ever do well at because I don't do well without specific guidelines or instructions. I made a few friends on a very small course. I still couldn't really speak up. I still bowed to peer pressure. I smoked, I drank, I went to house parties that I didn't feel comfortable at. Every time I was going somewhere that wasn't within the college times I was feeling this internal panic. I could just about cope with it, with the occasional panic crying. I did ok. I got a triple merit. (I could have got a DMM. I was asked to resubmit my Fine Arts Project with annotations for a distinction but I couldn't physically speak to the teacher to tell him I had done it.)
I got rejected from 6 or 7 universities because of my average grades and lack of originality in my portfolio. I got accepted into my last choice. I won't go into detail about university because I hated it. It was absolutely the wrong choice for me. I hated living away from home and not knowing anyone. I tried to make friends and I think I did a good job at 'keeping up appearances', but I started to starve myself again. Stopped letting myself drink. My mental health got a lot worse and I couldn't really hide it anymore. In my first year at university I was hearing voices, self harming every few weeks and not really sleeping much. I was throwing up a lot more than I used to and I went to the emergency clinic a lot of times when I was having panic attacks.
My second year was a lot worse. I didn't get on with the people I lived with. In fact I was terrified of them. My mental health got very bad and I was paranoid about everyone. They would get drunk and bang on my bedroom door and window because I was the weird girl that didn't come out of her room. I lost a lot of weight because I couldn't go to the kitchen to eat. I started self harming more regularly. I would throw up to the point of throwing up blood. I would overdose and sleep through a day or two. I would drink to pass out. That year was the scariest year because I was making myself so ill that I wouldn't know what was happening. I would black out in lectures and not know how much time had passed. I remember leaving my flat to walk to a business studies class with a girl who lived in the same campus and then I remember her asking if I was ok back outside my flat. I couldn't remember any of the in between. I overdosed quite drastically once and I woke up in hospital. I didn't tell them my name and no one looked for me. I stopped leaving my flat as much and I only really turned up to university for deadlines.
I knew I needed to take a year out, but your year out is supposed to be a work year and the idea of being in a work environment with complete strangers terrified me. It still does. I get suicidal thinking about it.
During that 'year out' I realised I didn't want to go back because I was terrified of failing. I was terrified of going back and not being with the same people on my course because they didn't take a year out. I was terrified of the unknown and I would lie awake at night sick with anxiety. The voices would reiterate the fact that I was failing and that I will never amount to anything. The suicidal thoughts were stronger. The self harm was more frequent, eventually I was cutting at least 10 times a day. I have a lot of scars, most of which were during panic attacks when I felt trapped and like I couldn't breathe. Cutting helps me breathe even today. If I am feeling anxious about going to an unfamiliar place I will usually cut to calm me down. I'm not proud of it.
I think I probably didn't know how bad my social anxiety was a lot of the time because with school, college and university you have a routine. My issues always appeared when there wasn't a routine. I can force myself to perform to an expectation. I can force myself to turn up to a lesson, to work out the right answer, to meet a deadline. I can't force myself to meet up with friends, to work out how to start a conversation, to go to a social event. (I probably can force myself but not without feeling very panicked and wanting to self harm or worse.)
And this is where I find myself. That 'year out' was 5+ years ago. During that year out I met my girlfriend online. She is now my fiancee and the only friend I have. I wasn't able to go back to university. I haven't been able to get a job. Every day is a struggle not to self harm because I feel worthless. I am not doing anything with my life. I struggle to even leave the house for days at a time. I have tried medication and therapy and have learnt coping mechanisms for the voices and the impulsive thoughts. But I still feel so trapped.
It's unbelievably hard trying to explain what a world with Social Anxiety is like. I started this post saying that it's something I don't like to talk about. I avoided talking about it for most of it. And even now I can't put it into words because I don't know what words to use. Trapped is the only one that seems to fit. I feel trapped in my own mind. It prevents me from telling the truth because I'm scared of the consequences (being that the other person begins to pay too much attention to me which is a trigger). I tried to ask my GP to be referred for more therapy a few years ago and nothing came of it. That's because she phoned me and left me a voicemail asking me to phone her back about the therapy, and obviously I couldn't do that. She has left the practice now so I'm trapped again and can't make an appointment because it will be a different doctor and I don't know how attentive they will be. I applied online for eTherapy and after sending off the referral form found out they need to speak to you on the phone or face to face before you can use the online courses. I lay awake for 8 hours panicking about it. I tried every trick I could think of to calm my palpitations and eventually fell asleep at about 10am.
It's now 5am and I am still panicking about that self referral even after watching documentaries in the bath. I'm going to try to read a book in bed and hope that my referral gets an instant rejection because I didn't include my address or phone number (although I did include my GPs address and I feel so sick about the possibility of receiving a phone call from them).
I wanted to write this because it helps to just spill my feelings sometimes. And the anonymity of posting it on a blog no one reads is exactly the kind of non-attention I can cope with.
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