Sometimes I wonder about what it would be like if I could go back to secondary school and to sixth form but with everything I know now. Obviously it would help with the lessons and exams but what I’ve learned about myself would’ve completely changed my experience of school. I’m such a different person at twenty-three than I was at sixteen or eighteen (as I would hope we all are). Throw in the ups and downs of my mental health and I’d say I’ve learned a lot in those years. I’ve been thinking about this on and off for a while now so I thought I’d write down some of these thoughts and compile them here:

On Choosing Subjects To Study – I am fascinated by what my life would look like if I’d known I was Autistic, if I’d known about my mental health challenges, and this is a good example of that. Because of the identity issues that often come with BPD, choosing the subjects to study at sixth form was distressing. How was I supposed to know what I wanted to study when I didn’t know who I wanted to be, who I was even? I want to write about identity a lot more but it’s such a big subject that I haven’t managed to tackle it yet. I promise I will. In this case, I knew I liked Psychology and I knew I liked Maths but I wasn’t sure what to pick for the final two options so I did what I always do when faced with a question about myself that I don’t know how to answer: I filled the empty space with real people and fictional characters that I liked and admired, people that embodied the things I wanted to be. That was how I ended up choosing History and Physics. I don’t regret those choices but now that I know that that happens, I approach things differently.

On Standing Up For Myself – I was fortunate not to go through any extended periods of bullying during my school years. There were a couple of incidents but they never went on for very long; they either got bored of me ignoring them or I pushed back which made them stop. But I had several teachers who didn’t behave particularly well: shouting at the class, humiliating us, telling us we were stupid, etc. Back then, I just kept my head down; I didn’t want to draw any attention to myself. I was terrified of getting in trouble and standing up to an authority figure was something I just didn’t know how to do. I was just trying to get through it; I didn’t know that I didn’t deserve to be treated like that, that I could push back against it. Were I in that situation now, I wouldn’t let someone treat me that way, let alone anyone else. If it wasn’t abusive, it was a downright unacceptable way to treat the children they were responsible for.

On Trying To Fit In – When I was younger, especially in my early teenage years, I would look at the girls in my classes and in my year group and wish that I could be one of them. They were all so pretty and seemed to have everything and had been friends all their lives. I’d missed a lot of school due to illness and there was some hard stuff going on at home and my one good friend had just moved to the US. I felt very alone. I wanted to belong somewhere. I went on to find some amazing friends – many of whom I’m still friends with now – but the feeling of belonging is a hard one and one that I guess I’m still learning how to handle. But if I was going to secondary school all over again, that isn’t something I’d worry about. I think that the need to belong isn’t so urgent when you feel like you belong to yourself. I’m not all the way there yet, but further down that road than I was at sixteen.

On Blending In – It wasn’t until I looked back that I realised I was trying to be invisible. I didn’t put my hand up when I knew the answer, I hated any activity that required me to be at the front of the class, and I did everything I could to avoid drawing attention to myself. Even the way I sat – hunched over, trying to make myself smaller – reflected that. And yet I was desperate not to be forgotten. Apparently teenage me was an oxymoron. But no, I get it: I didn’t know who I was and I didn’t want people to know me, or remember me, as something I wasn’t. And worse case scenario, I embarrass myself and that be what people associate with me forever. But as I started to know myself, this behaviour started to change. Finding something that I loved and something that made me feel like I was where I was supposed to be, i.e. songwriting, really helped with that too. In a way, finding that gave me permission to exist, to take up space, and that gave me confidence. These days, I can look at myself and feel so unsure about everything but all I have to do is look back to know how far I’ve come.

The last couple of weeks have been hard, mental health and medication wise, but I’m hopeful that that will start to ease and then I can spend more time and energy on here. Thank you, as always, for reading.