I did have an initial wakening at 5am, but I felt good for sleeping through. I watched E4 for a little bit and then drifted back to sleep, waking again at 7.30.
It was bright and I felt fairly refreshed. I also decided not to go straight to the gym and exercise, and to try to nap a little and enjoy the refreshment of sleep. I took the morning slowly and woke up, dressed in my blue/red/great short/blazer/brogue combo and went to the Coffee Lounge to get an Americano and a banana. Even though I had no lesson prepared for my first lecture, I cobbled together a couple of presentations from previous years and went through them with the students, asking them to grade them and give them feedback. They were:
The Sun Online/WW1 pitch
Drink/Driving campaign
Barclays Academy
As I went through them I sensed a low level anxiety inside of me and every time there was something that pertained to death (e.g. war veterans, graphic imagery around drink driving), I could feel little palpitations. The only way I could get through it was by fully throwing myself into the presentations and feeling the emoitons, otherwise I would have had a full blown anxiety attack in front of the students.
After the break and in the workshop, one of the students Michaela talked to me about an issue she has with me. Before Christmas, I unfortunately shouted at her in front of the class and she felt embarrassed and humiliated. I do feel bad about that, but she has been licking her wounds ever since. She kept on trying to rely on the story that she is a black girl who has had it rough 'I don't know her'. And then I said 'You don't know me - I'm the queer kid from a smalltown who got beat up every day. Rise above it.'
I gave her some tough love telling her she needed to hold herself accountable but I could tell she just felt sorry for herself. It will be a lot of hard work with her.
The other groups are on track: Imogen's group are being productive with a campaign called 'Unmute yourself' and getting young people to speak out about issues that matter to them. One group want people to take an ASBO Pill, which I suggested they leak as a PR or publicity campaign. Michaela's group are doing something on rebellion. I really want them to pull it out the bag because it will be less of a headache for me and a real victory for them to push their campaign over the line.
In between lessons, I rang Anxiety UK, who basically told me to go to the GP - I have a GP's appointment tomorrow. I am wondering if I should go back on the meds and the woman on the phone said maybe I could give myself a timeline of 6 months and come back off them, to help me through an especially difficult period. This seems like the most sensible course of action, but I am not looking forward to symptoms and bouts of hypomania.
I then went to the Insight journalism lecture, where Debbie and Paige presented photos from their genderqueer shoot. Zak, Marta and Fay went to take more pics for Instagram while George stayed to do page layouts. Debbie and Paige are editing something verbally in the background as I write this and Suzanne Dixon, my manager has just texted me.
This is possibly in relation to the 'media 11'sending another request to meet as the validation deadline is approaching soon.
I went to see Suzanne and she asked me if I was worried about the letter. I said no, but it had placed a focus on other areas of my life where I wanted to put more energy into (e.g i’m Freaking out about everything). Then we met with Rebecca from enterprise to talk about how we might incorporate them into next year’s programme. It should be simple enough.
I didn’t get to spend much time with the journalism students in the end, and departed the lesson to meet with David Dorrington from games. I told him I was suffering really badly from anxiety at the moment and I know he was looking at me really weird. He is having problems too though. But we went through his programme and tried to align it with the proposed changes. I briefly spoke to Helena the QA woman before going home - when will we do something nice she asked me? Good question.
I went home and ordered a chicken Bhuna and mushroom rice. I watched a documentary about bear death experiences and also listened to the recording from a psychic I went to see in the summer. It made me feel better for a little while to have some belief, some faith in life after death. Is that so bad? I resolved that dying in itself is probably not an unpleasant experience but the terror I am feeling around it is untenable.
I spent the rest of the night in anxiety until I rang David. He had been out drinking four pints and he is celebrating his new business. I feel selfish thinking about my own mental state... I asked if I could go round as the doctor’s is closer to his than it is mine. I was in a real funk until I had a brainwave - that I should ask my friend Andy if he wants to move into the Atelier. I thought it would be exciting and allow me to live my dreams if he says yes. He is married to new cross though and so i’m Not sure he’ll say yes.
David was trying to cheer me up but I was nearly because i’ve Spent the whole day on edge. We watched family guy and discussed me going back on meds. I feel this is probably the best option for the tome being, as I am losing the ability to think straight. I’m currently laying here freaking out about the world millions of years after my existence and it is terrifying.
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