If you have read my blog before, you probably already know that I don't really like my course and that my whole college experience hasn't been the most enjoyable one. I know I can't help disliking the course. But as for college itself? Well, I know all too well that unfortunately, I did let my ED essentially tarnish my experience of being at university... I allowed it to affect me physically, mentally, psychologically, and intellectually, in a number of negative and damaging ways. I didn't realise it at the time...or maybe I did, but I refused to acknowledge it to myself; just as I refused to admit to myself that I had an ED.
But this year...this year is going to be alot different.
I went to the library today for the first time ever since starting back. It's not one of my favourite places, to be honest, as for me it reminds me of...a few things. whenever i go and sit in one of the silent, shadowy rooms, surrounded by so many studious-looking young people who seem so thoroughly engrossed in a massive book of impossibly minute script, or whose eyes seems permanently glued to their laptop while they fingers rap upon the keypad in rather startling comparism, or who have their desk strewn with paper upon paper of neat, concise handwriting...whenever i go and sit in there I immediately am reminded of several things from my past two years in Trinity.
First of all of course...my general feelings of inadequacy... That I can't do this; that my course is a lost case and that coming here to try and study is just a lost cause as I am going to do shit anyway.
And then...hunger. Of wanting to eat, so desperately - but not permitting myself to.
And because I was hungry, I couldn't focus or concentrate. All I could think about was food, and how long it would be till my next intake of something small. And so the hours would drag painfully on, and on, and on.
How much time I wasted, how many tears of frustration and misery my inability to work caused me...it brings a hard lump to my throat when I look back at it, now. Especially in the knowledge that it was entirely my own fault and that I could have done something about it easily...but I was too afraid to change. And what if I did eat more and gain weight...and I was still unable to concentrate?
But then today I had a new sense of hope. I can't say that I came out the library after a couple of hours, having finished off what I wanted to do, full of confidence and self-appraisal, of course...that's just me. But I was able to concentrate, and I did what I needed to do, and I was happy enough with it. AND of course...I wasn't starving hungry. Before I had gone in there I scoffed the brown submarine roll I had made earlier with fresh tomatoes and hard-boiled egg, followed by a delightfully crisp Granny Smith. And just in the off chance that these wouldn't quite deter my peckishness until I was done, a variety of little snackrels were strategically stowed at the bottom of my bag: granola bar, Twix, banana, and a blackberry yoghurt to name a few. ;)
I know that I will never be good at my course. I know now I am no longer the academic, studious girl that I used to be at shcool, who would experience a rush of disappointment and anxiety if she didn't get the top grade in that biology test, or who might be found, right into the hours of the late evening, pouring over scribbley notes by lamplight or reciting key quotes and phrases so that they would be the last ever thing in my head before I went to sleep that night. No, that's not me anymore...to be honest with you, if I manage to get my pass in my degree, I will be both surprised, and satisfied. But at least now things are better, and that I have the energy and courage to try my best. To study as well as I can, without killing myself, and to do everything that I'm capable of to get through the final two years of my course. My ED might have played a part in making the first two years seem like a hellish, never-ending battle, but this is where the struggle ends; this is where my real life begins and when people can really get to see the real me. :)
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