Adventure is out there

When I opened my A level results day envelope I was a bit gutted, I hadn't done amazingly, yet I hadn't failed either. So why did I feel so gutted? I had passed my exams &  my place was ready for me at Portsmouth university for 2013 after my gap year. But I just couldn't feel excited or happy. I felt numb looking around at everyone else so excited to be going away to university & starting this new chapter in their lives.

 

I guess I felt so gutted because I genuinely had NO idea what I wanted to do. The course I had gotten onto at Portsmouth wasn't really what I wanted to do but as it was a "degree" and I had achieved the grades to go it was the one I applied for. I watched as my friends and school mates went off to start their careers & it was SUCH an odd feeling.

 

I started my internship at a local theatre company which I thought I would be doing for my entire gap year. I loved the theatre, I still love the theatre & being on stage in the West End would be the ultimate dream. But this internship wasn't really what I expected it to be and so I left.

 

I then got a job at Sainsbury's bakery which got me through for a few months, but I felt so useless in my bakers hat and apron, slicing peoples bread and packing rolls. I felt so incomplete and I was miserable. This is going to sound pretty drastic but my life all changed (for worse & then better) one Saturday in January. I was totally and completely in love, and I had in some ways taken a gap year for the sake of my relationship. But it fell apart. It wasn't meant to be. And so there I was, with no friends around me, heartbroken, working in a bakery that I felt so inferior in & I was so so miserable.

I lost so much weight, I was not myself. I had lost myself through stress of my future and through wanting to be part of a two rather than comfortable on my own.

 

Somebody very generous saw my miserable state. They saw my pain and they said to me "What do you need?" I don't know why I said it, and maybe it was a bit of a joke, but I said "I need to go to the other side of the world for a little while" And just like that, the money had been given, the plane ticket was booked & I was on my way to Australia.

 

I thought in Australia I would find myself & come back completely healed & knowing what I wanted to do with my life. And in some ways, it did that. I found out that I am stronger and braver than I used to think I was, and I let go of a lost love overlooking the sea. I also sat in a café on the beach and applied for beauty school back home in London, as that was a hobby I enjoyed and after being so miserable in a job beforehand I wanted to work in something I loved.

 

So, back home from Australia & I started at beauty college. It was hard work, long days & hours and commuting into London. And surprise surprise it wasn't what I wanted to go into anymore. But this course was a wake up call for me. When I was carrying out treatments on clients, I realised I liked to talk to them and they would open up and tell me their problems (beauty THERAPIST eh?) The girls at college were all so lovely and when they would ask about my past and school they would all say "Why aren't you at university?" "You are so bright!" It made me think that maybe, just maybe a university would accept me for a social work course. Social work had always been close to my heart (Tracy Beaker has a lot to do with that!)

 

I looked up social work courses in December 2013 and my heart sank. I did NOT have the grades that any of the universities were asking for. But I thought, heck, I'll give it a go. I applied for 5 universities: Kingston, Sussex, Canterbury, Winchester and York. Straight away Kingston, Sussex and Canterbury declined me. I was feeling at a low again when an email popped through from York. They had invited me to an interview. I laughed out loud. YORK UNIVERSITY? Up there as a top 10 in England? I had no where near the grades they were asking! But off my ma and I set to York. I have never been so nervous as I was before that interview. It was intense, with a written exam, a group activity and then my one on one. The first question the interviewer asked me was "Bethany, do you think you could of worked harder at school?" I think I laughed. Of course I could of! "What stopped you?" And then the babble of the past 2 years of my life came flowing out my mouth. This interviewer was clever. In asking me that question he heard all my life experience in the space of 5 minutes. He didn't care about my grades. He wanted to know about ME.

 

I didn't hear back from York for ages, and meanwhile I had an interview at Winchester. I was gutted when I got rejected from Winchester as ideally I wanted to go somewhere nearer home. But eventually it came through, I had gotten into The University of York to study Social work. I was so so happy. I was working at the time for SNOG and it really felt like I finally knew in which direction my life was going in.

 

So there we have it, 2 years of my life summed up in a blog post. I'm off to York in 12 days & I am nervous but excited & feel a total sense of peace that there is where I am meant to be. It has taken a long time, and it's been a long tough road but I've made it, with thanks to my loving family and God.

 

Adventure is out there.

 

 

 

 

The 4 S'

I want to dedicate this blog post to a friend of mine who is going on a life changing rollercoaster at the moment.

Pastor Rick Warren wrote a beautiful article in Christianity magazine about his son's suicide and how his wife and himself have gotten through the past year. The article has really helped me after the suicide I witnessed, but the article can be used for any challenging, upsetting situation that anybody goes through. From a death, to a heartbreak, to loosing a job, to your plans being drastically changed from something you have had your heart set on to being thrown into the unknown. I don't want to focus on the suicide aspect in todays blog; this blog is for all of you going through life changing situations and will hopefully help you make sense of the emotions you are feeling.  All of the words I am typing are my own, but the four headings (shock, sorrow, struggle and surrender) are Rick's idea.

 When something sad or bad or disappointing happens to us, there are 4 stages that we as human beings go through.

The first is shock. Having recently been diagnosed with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) I can tell you that shock is a horrible, horrible feeling. It's not just the immediate after effect of a situation where you feel slightly dizzy and sweaty, its an on going thing in some situations where you can become quite a different person to who you used to be and is something that needs to be dealt with in whatever way you can. I'm not going to write much on shock because I think it is self explanatory, but for some people shock can last a few minutes, others a few days, and for others, many years.

 

Stage 2; Sorrow

After the shock comes the sadness. The depressing "why me" thoughts. The thoughts that your life is unfair and that it never goes your way, and WHY is God throwing yet another crappy situation into your life.  Sometimes the sadness from whatever has happened to you can overwhelm your whole body. Some people will become reclusive and quiet and not want to speak to anybody. Others will weep out loud, the cries coming from the pit of their stomachs. Sorrow is normal & if anybody tells you that you are being over dramatic about whatever you are going through - walk away. Yes there are always going to be people going through tougher situations than you, but its hurting you so much right now because it mattered to YOU.  Sadness is SO normal, and yet even as I say that, you must try not become a mere sadness. Yes, be sad, cry & need cuddles and question things. But don't let it stop you from doing life.

 

Stage 3: Struggle

 

I suppose sorrow and struggle could be a blended stage. However in the struggle stage, part of you knows you need to be trying your very hardest to move on. But it is a struggle. People may ask you if you still believe in God and all his plans for you. My response for this would be "I have never doubted God or his existence, but I have doubted his wisdom" (we shouldn't doubt God's wisdom, but for someone struggling it can be difficult to see what he is up too)  It's a struggle to find motivation, a struggle to stop talking about it, a struggle not to think about it every waking moment. I guess part of the struggle is accepting that this (whatever it is) has happened; but it's part of your story now...

 

Stage 4; Surrender

 

So you were in shock, you cried, you tried to sleep, you struggle to return to normality and then something inside of you whispers that you can let go now. I've written these stages in the space of a few minutes, but in reality these stages can take a long time to get through, and you can sometimes do a full circle of the first three stages before you reach surrender. Saying "I surrender" is scary. It means you have let go of whatever has happened to you and put it elsewhere. For a Christian, they can say "I surrender" to God, and know that God will take them in his loving arms & protect them and help them every step of the way.

Surrender is saying "I don't know why God has put me in this situation, but I would rather walk with God and have all my questions unanswered than have all my questions answered and walk without God"

 

I hope this blog can help some of you in whatever situations you are facing. I found having names of the stages of the emotions I was (and am) feeling helped me to conquer those feelings a little better, and I hope it can do the same for you.

 

Bethany x