I like to tell everyone about how much I hated first year and it makes me feel really rubbish to talk about. But sometimes when I think about it, I really enjoyed my first year and it wasn’t all that bad.
So why do I feel a bit weird when I hear songs I listened to in first year, or anyone even mentions it? Simple answer, my feelings of being anxious and depressed at the time have clouded my memories.
I was just sat doing my work and thought to myself I should write a list of all of the good things about first year, and then a list of all of the bad things about it. Turns out I didn’t actually have to write the list to realise that it would include a million good things and one bad thing – my mental health.
Every good memory I have or funny thing I remember, my head is like “yeah but you were really sad”, “did you really enjoy that” or “oh but then this happened”. This is sadly the same across a few different times in my life; most of school, sixth form and the start of uni.
If I could summarise how I feel about this with one thing, it would be the scene in Inside Out when Sadness touches one of Riley’s memories and changes it to a memory of fear and sadness.
As I’m starting to realise the root of the problem – that being my head, yet again – I know that I need to try and challenge the thoughts that I have. This won’t be that easy since I’ve always been someone to remember the negatives over the positives, but I’ve got to give it a go.
To anyone else who has experienced similar, try your hardest to tell yourself that things weren’t all that bad and there is usually a bunch of positives buried under the negative.
💛
What do you think?