Date: 23rd November 2022
Over the past few weeks I have been doing a lot of reflecting on the questions of "do I feel safe with (insert tutors name)?". And if I do feel safe, why? What have they done to make me feel safe? Or what have I done to make myself feel safe in their presence?
With my history and prior experiences with people in authoritative positions (e.g tutors) misusing their power in a variety of detrimental ways, I completely understand why I get so anxious and scared around new people who sit in similar positions. I spot patterns in things, which is both good and bad for new people. It's good because I can pick up on when things keep happening in real time and hopefully, have time to solve the issue in question. But it's also bad because new tutors can accidentally trigger the repeated patterns from old abusive tutors and make me feel unsettled. But in the end, I will never win. I'll always assume people will leave and that I am "not good enough" until that is reaffirmed (or repeatedly not affirmed enough times that I truly know a person will stay and I am thus good enough for them).
Over the past couple of weeks, one lecturer (Luna) on my course has been making me feel safe a couple of times and I wanted to stop and unpick why I think I feel safe(r) around her than the other female tutors I had in my past. I'm going to be as specific as I can, give examples of her actions and unpick why I think these examples are important. I may even look at what I'm learning about academia, boundaries and new tutors as well.
So lets get crackin and break down my top 3 reasons behind why I think she's starting to make me feel safe(r) in her presence!
1. Luna is unlike any other tutor I have ever come across with her approach to teaching. While of course she is professional, she's also super down to earth and very human. She's unafraid to be honest - she tells us her funny mistakes and lessons she's learnt recently without batting an eye. She will literally say "I don't know the answer to that" when she doesn't know something. And she actively seems to seek ways to make herself less scary to her students - she's literally said that is her aim to me. She wears bright colourful clothes, dyes her hair and is friendly, loud and... well a human with a life outside of uni, someone who has quirks and hobbies and things she likes/dislikes.
The reason I think this is SO important and actually to be honest, a big deal to me, is because I've never had a tutor before seem so human. It makes her really approachable. I think one of the reasons I feel able to trust her so quickly, even when I am going through a lot in my own life that screams at me to run, is because she is so openly human. She's openly herself and wants to share her authentic self with us. By doing so, I think she is dispelling the myth that to be a university lecturer, you have to wear a suit, distance yourself from your students, know everything and be a perfect, flawless human who does nothing outside of uni. Like ever. She's making herself come across as a whole human who just so happens to be a tutor, rather than a scary, formidable tutor who somehow seems not at all human.
The reason this is a big deal in relation to feeling safe(r) around her is because by being herself and being unapologetic about the fact she has a voice, views and an opinion on various things, she's actively inviting me to do the same. She's actively creating a warm space where students are allowed to be human too. Which means I can make mistakes, I can be an anxious mess and not have to constantly mask how I am feeling!! I cannot begin to express how utterly huge that offer is.
I've been told (in so many ways) throughout my ENTIRE life, that I am not enough, that I am "too much" or that all I do is "offload on people". I've had friends tell me "you're too much" or "you're not the person I thought you were" when I stop masking. Even in my last university, the last time I forgot to mask, I got told off, excluded from projects and told "I scared the team". This makes me very aware of the 'dangers' of being my authentic self. So to have a tutor actively encourage me to be who I am, to take away the pressure to be 'perfect' and to create a space where I feel ok to be blunt, be unsure of boundaries and to ask for help/reassurance, is literally so incredibly freeing. I'm essentially being told by Luna that I am enough as I am, that I don't need to change parts of myself to fit in. I am allowed to have flaws and that's ok. Which of course, is going to be both terrifying but also something that makes me feel safe, especially when Luna is being herself around me as well.
Leading on from my last point.
2. She actually listens and wants to know about me as a person. When I've bought up things I'm unsure about or worrying over, she'll come back with suggestions that are useful as to how to solve whatever I am going through. When she asks about my day, she literally wants to know about my day. The good, the bad and the ugly. And doesn't miss a beat when I say I'm not ok or am anxious etc.
This lessens a great deal of my anxiety around communication with her. I know that she will ask questions she wants answers to and won't ask if she doesn't want to know. By doing this, she's again, allowing me to be a flawed human who is not always fine. She sees me as a person who has different ways of expressing herself and so on. She's taking the pressure off my back to be whatever "normal" looks like and that in itself is a rare find, let alone finding someone like that within my experiences of academic settings. It feels a little like I have found this mythical needle in a haystack!
When you combine point 1 and 2, you get a space where I am essentially allowed to just be me. I start to lose the fear of not masking - specially when my peers are all being openly themselves as well. I start to feel much more able to be honest with tutors and peers alike and to feel like I know where I stand with someone 24/7 just takes away so many opportunities for me to panic, stress and worry over something I said/did.
My final point?
3. She knows other autistic people and other people who have anxiety, so she 100% knows how to navigate the complexities that come with being neurodiverse. She's really good at validating how I feel and not trying to dismiss it, ignore it or tell me off in some way for being "unable to cope".
This is just as important as everything else I have mentioned, despite maybe seeming less important because you can be human but dismissive and lacking compassion and understanding of what life is like as a neurodiverse person. I can 100% see why a lot of people want to dismiss my experiences of the world, it's easier. And dealing with anxiety can be daunting, it certainly is for me and I live with this every single day. And in some fashions going "just don't worry" or some such thing, is a lot easier. BUT makes me feel faulty, broken and like I am actually offloading on someone or being too much.
By validating my experiences, Luna kind of combines everything into a nice, neat circle. She's approachable, she listens and she then understands/validates how I feel, which reinforces the idea in my head that I am worthy and a human who doesn't need to change or be scared of her. Plus she likes knitting and as a craft person myself, it's hard not to vibe with someone who will happily sit and knit and chat for 4 hours! I mean she literally set up my favourite ever thing in uni "crafternoons" (crafty afternoons). That was her idea and it makes me very happy to have space to craft with other people!
So for the first time in a long time, I'm feeling hopeful that I may one day in the future, feel safe around tutors again. That Luna might be able to help me learn how to be a healthy student who feels safe to be herself, simply by showing me a real life example and showing the world that academia (and being a teacher) doesn't have to be full of inflexible, super formal, scary and unjustified boundaries to prevent students from ever seeing the true lecturer. I think if more tutors were like Luna, the world would be a much safer, more accepting place for everyone.
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