Nine years ago on a February night I sat in a small classroom with twenty people I didn’t know and took the G.E.D. exam. I hadn’t studied; I never studied for tests. I didn’t find it difficult and within few hours I had completed the exam. A few weeks later I came back for my scores and was told that I passed with fifty points to spare. It felt like a miracle; the scores on this piece of paper meant that I never had to step foot in my high school again.
Nine years ago, I was finished with high school; finished with the daily anxiety attacks that turned my fellow students into hateful, terrifying specters. I was finished with carrying the backpack that was causing crippling pain in my back and I was finished with falling asleep in first period due because I hadn’t slept all night.
Before it was decided that I needed to drop out I was consistently told that I would look back at high school as the best years of my life. Work would be so much harder, I was told. School was simple, a place to make friends and take advantage of the fact that I was actually a very bright, intellectually curious person.
That’s now how it went. Instead, I was bullied starting when I entered first grade and continuing until my anxiety had a complete hold over me. By that point it wouldn’t even matter if I was bullied, because my mind had convinced me that everyone was against me and wanted me dead.
It’s hard not to feel like a failure. Deep down I understand that I’m an intelligent person and I feel like I should have known better when I started believing that everyone was talking about me behind my back. It’s hard not to feel like my bipolar disorder stole something precious from me. I could have easily finished high school were in not for the anxiety and depression; knowing that is painful.
I did my best with my tenth grade education. I worked, on and off, while the illness allowed me to. Three years ago when I moved to California I dove into part-time temp work when it became necessary for me to bring in money. All the while I was job searching; feeling inadequate by all the requirements I didn’t meet. “Bachelor’s Degree”, “Associates Degree”, even “some college” were all terms that filled me with disappointment and made me feel as though I was too stupid to work.
Despite feeling as though I wasn’t intelligent enough to answer phones for a living I got a job as an administrative assistant. The company that hired me was small, and as indicated by their craigslist ad—which was in all capital letters—they desperately needed an office assistant of some sort. So I began to feel comfortable. I was convinced that my job as safe as long as the company was afloat. I didn’t think about school. I didn’t think about my tenth grade education. I didn’t think about job searching or all of the requirements that I didn’t meet.
Of course I was laid off, because the fates had apparently decided it was time for me to learn a lesson in hubris.
So that brings me to now, nine months after being laid off. I’m still unemployed because of all of those requirements that frustrated me so much when I was first looking for a job. Because of how many people are out of work, employers are looking for candidates with large amounts of experience and some sort of college education.
I still feel like school might just kill me. I haven’t had an anxiety attack in over three years, but who is to say that the minute I sit down at a desk it won’t all start rushing back?
Despite that, I’ll be starting college on August eighteenth. Because I’m never content to do things half-way, I’m going to be taking ten classes. I keep telling myself that it’s been ten years since I’ve been in a classroom. So much changes in ten years.
I’m prepared. I’m working my way through “Becoming a Master Student” by Dave Ellis (more on that later), my classes are paid for and I am patiently awaiting the announcements regarding which textbooks I need. I have a backpack, a netbook for notes, pencils, pens, folders, notebooks and everything else I could possibly need.
I have everything except for self-confidence.
But that’s what this is for, sort of; a space to shout in to the ether and try to work things out with words. This is what I consider an introduction. Anyone reading this now has a better idea of who I am, where I am, and where I was, despite the anonymous nature of this blog.
I’m Fluff, and these are my issues (and volumes).
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