Date: 13th March 2023
I am the hardest person to please when it comes to anything I do. I'm never good enough for myself. If I ask for help, I didn't do it soon enough. If I get a grade back for an assessment it could have been higher, I could have done better. If I make something, there's always some fault with the end result.
I've spent my entire life having to fight for praise, feeling inadequate, like the black sheep of my family. I found a sense of accomplishment acting at the tender age of 14 and was good at pretending to be someone else (the irony of that is not lost on me!). I thrive being told I'm good at something. I work hard and get rewarded. And I realised being "good" at something made my parents proud and that made me feel good. I assumed in order for them to want me to be around, I would have to achieve only the highest grades possible, work hard and maybe, then I would stop being the odd one out and start being the child who was 'good' at studying or acting or good at anything positive.
When I got into college, I got praised by tutors for my hard work and good grades and I felt like I had worth. Good grades made me happy for two reasons: firstly the people in authority were happy (so therefore I was safe was abuse) and secondly I felt like I had done something and had my hard work and effort rewarded by someone else who knew more about a subject than I did. My work and nerdiness had a place and I was rewarded for working hard. I got the happy hormones buzzing in my head every time I saw that D* grade (equivalent at A level to an A*) come back. I graduated college with two half BTECS both graded at Distinction* (basically the highest grade you can get) and did this while battling suicidality, self harm, an eating disorder and abuse from tutors. And I didn't feel proud - namely because I felt so shit about myself thanks to Saras handiwork. I do feel very proud of 16-18 year old me now though! She did the impossible and survived! And the grade doesn't matter to me now, college is mostly just a haze of pain and trauma for me, with a single memory of seeing Matilda the Musical on the west end for the second time, sprinkled in for a taste of what it could have been like.
After college I got into one of the best drama schools and submitted high grade work mere days after coming home from hospital. I graduated that same school 3 years later with a first class degree, having again, battled suicidal thoughts, self harm, eating disorder issues, survived 2 separate suicide attempts, 1.5 years of abuse from tutors and found out I'm autistic. And go straight from a high end drama school into one of the top universities in the UK (UCL), onto a new course with stupidly prestigious arts in health tutors (we're taking Professor Helen Chatterjee levels of prestigious!). And I feel proud of myself. I had proven everyone who told me I sucked at this applied theatre thing wrong and succeeded. I loved studying and loved the identity it gave me (and still gives me, I don't intend on stopping learning new things any time soon!)
But then weeks into the course, my world falls apart when my arts in health idol throws me away after a book review doesn't go the way she wanted. I get news of the court case. And asked to do an assessment that confuses the living hell out of me. I flunk countless parts of my first assessment and literally make it up as I go. And I struggle to ask for help, having panic attacks, worrying and overthinking everything. I dont ask for help anywhere near as much as I should have done and struggle on alone, brimming with fear and anxiety, convinced Im going to fail this course before I've even started. I basically bullshit for 3K words and reference things as I go. I build an argument, look at data, research and do my best. I pull on every single academic writing tool and tip from my BA my brain owns and work my arse off solo *again because I failed to get help, not because my tutors didn't offer help. I get my marks back today and I got 68% for it (a very high 2:1) and I'm disappointed in myself. Despite screwing things up from the word go and pretending the entire way I hadn't fucked things up (and therefore fooling another academic WHO SET THE ASSESSMENT into believing I understood the assessment) and I'm sad that I didn't get a first! I'm annoyed that i didn't do better. I see all the moments I failed, the spaces I should have done better and feel ashamed. My plans for a 1st class masters feels like its falling apart and if I'm not good at studying and researching and am average, then who am I anymore? I'm not saying a 2:1 is a bad grade by any means, its really good and i should be proud. But when you have based your entire self worth and perception of yourself on the ridiculously unachievable idea of being "the perfect hardworking student who aces everything and never struggles", getting a less than perfect grade... well feels like I may as well have gotten an actual fail.
So yes, from the outside I may look like the perfect student. Someone who buries their nose in a book at any given chance. Someone who spends hours upon hours researching and writing and detailing essays and planning, but at what cost? If I am never happy with anything I do and nit pick every little thing I do apart until it falls apart, something needs to change. Because I love studying and researching and arguing for/against something but with a perfectionist mindset, everything becomes too scary. I stopped asking for help because I felt like I didn't deserve it. Because I didn't want to take that help away from someone who may need it more than I do. Because I... well you get the idea. I always have an excuse that drives me away from seeking help for fear of appearing weak or like I don't get something. But we are all learning. I am here to learn after all. I am literally PAYING to learn. So if I refuse to take advantage of that, then why am I here? Why am I striving for the best but under the pretence of "asking for help (and therefore learning something new) means I have failed". Nobody will ever learn if that is the way they approach things. And I'm certainly not feeling like I am learning in a way that is supported. It feels like I am drowning and that is entirely my own fault and my own paralysing fear of not being enough for someone because I didn't know something!
Basically this entire post is to say two things: one, Beth Woolley is stupidly hard on herself. And secondly Beth Woolley is an anxiety riddled stress bucket who lives in fear of letting everyone down by asking for help! I need more therapy haha
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