Date: 10th Jan 2020.
I suffer from anxiety attacks pretty frequently. They're a new addition to the overthinking, worrying and general trembling that usually accompanies my anxiety. I don't quite know where they have appeared from or when they will appear, I kinda view them as a train. Normally my brain (aka the "train") runs along its tracks pretty smoothly, with a few expected bumps and dips along the way. But when I get anxious, its like this train cannot stop. It smashes through stations, picking up speed as it fires downwards. It swerves round corners, half its wheels on the tracks and when the speed finally becomes too much, it derails, smashing into the ground, exploding into a million sharp shards.
I still don't know what triggers them or how to control them. They're kinda brutal, normally they involve a lot of tears, trembling to the point where I cannot physically stand, feeling so ashamed and wanting to avoid whatever has just triggered me to point where I can no longer act normal. Sometimes they occur in the middle of a lecture and it's so hard to sit there, being asked questions I can't answer for fear of exposing what's really happening, surrounded by people, with my heart about the beat itself out of my chest, my hands trembling to a point I cannot write and my eyes frantically blinking away the tears threatening to spill from them.
Very few people actually know when I'm having an attack because I have become so good at keeping myself together and composed until I either somehow leave the room or until it subsides. When I tell people they always look so surprised, like they somehow can't see calm cool and collected me, having anxiety. But recently my amazing group of friends, have started to notice - sometimes before I even notice - that something is going awry. And I'm so not used to that. I'm sooo not used to having people look out for me in an educational setting. My college was unbelievably bad at looking out for me when I needed them to. The tutors there would leave me sobbing in a corridor, tell me all sorts of terrible things and never really stop to ask whether I was ok. But here at The Royal Central School Of Speech and Drama, everything is so different...
Recently I've had trouble finding out info about my classes this term and the people at my college would have just left me to it... BUT NOT HERE! I had two amazing head lecturers (very important head of courses with lots of students relying on them type lecturers) helping me figure out what class I actually was enrolled in, letting me change classes when I got put in my bottom choice and just really wanting to make sure that I was ok. And this make me happy, because tutors should care about their student, they should want to pass on their knowledge, they should want to see their students smile and want to know they are doing ok and are happy. It really soothes my anxiety to know that I have people around me who really, truly, deeply care about their students. Who don't view me as a number in their system but see me as a worthy, valued, enthusiastic, keen adult.
And do you know what else is making me feel super safe here at RCSSD? It's not only my friends who have this ability to know more than I do about my anxiety bubbling up, my tutors actually seem to have this radar too and if I leave the room looking a bit off, they come out after me. Yes that's right, these AMAZING, INCREDIBLE people actually care enough about one tiny little student in their lectures to leave the room after them and see if they are ok.
So with a new term starting on Monday, I am more determined than ever to begin to understand my anxiety more and to stop listening to it when it tells me people don't care or think I'm not worthy of my place here. Because time and time again, my drama school lecturers are telling me - through THEIR ACTIONS - that this simply isn't the case.
So with the moon shining brightly in the slowly darkening sky outside this gently rumbling train carrying me back towards London, I'm sat here smiling because I'm heading back to somewhere I love and want to be studying at. There's no more dragging my feet to college, there's no more uncertainty over whether I am doing the right thing being here, because this amazing brilliant top 5 in the friggin UK drama school, chose me! They chose me and my anxiety and all the issues I carry with me. They don't want a perfect person, merely someone who wants to be there, who is keen, enthusiastic, passionate and full of drive to learn new things.
I didn't think a year ago I would be coming back to London for my second term at an amazing drama school, so next time someone - or something - tells you, you're never going to get to where you want to be, know I got told that too and I got to where I wanted to be, anxiety and all. I think so long as you are true to yourself and don't pretend to be perfect, you will reach your goal. Work hard, be passionate, do what you love and no matter how many people tell you no, eventually someone will tell you yes :)
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