Music, History and a Damp, Dark Hole in the Ground.
now this is a DAMN LONG READ so if you aren’t arsed, just scroll by. It’s just a wee bit of reflection.
I turn 21 in a week, and I feel like it’s time to reflect.
On what?
Anything and everything. The past few months, the past few years.
Heading to university, I thought it would be a complete trip. Going somewhere new and exciting? Great! Learning to live by myself! Great!
Wrong. Duh.
It was great, at first. I enjoyed this new place I’d never even heard of, the university I’d gotten into purely because they were the only one I’d applied to which offered the foundation year and offered me a place without GCSE Maths (GCSEs do matter a bit, kids.) I met new people, I enjoyed acting like an 18 year old, I enjoyed the wild nights in and the wild nights out. Until my mind began to fall apart.
I’d been in CBT prior to heading to university, when I was 17. I’d broken down in about May, confessed I felt terrible, and was quickly taken to the doctors. After a few sessions, I happened to miss a phone call meaning I missed my appointment. With me going on holiday after that, and moving away, I was signed off. I just accepted it, I was sure I was fine and cured. Not the case, unfortunately. It isn’t a cure. It’s a means of coping, and unfortunately as we’d focused on my anxiety which stretched to the point I was too scared to open a door for fear I pulled it and it was in fact a push, it meant that we’d not really focused on my low mood. So my low mood grew, despite how much I tried to ignore it. I had met new people, but I was still alone down there. I was from the North East, I’d moved to Preston in the North West where it felt like everyone knew each other. It was a full year before I actually came across another Geordie. So the loneliness manifested itself in maybe too many nights out, and the inability to pay attention in my lectures. I’d write notes but I wasn’t even taking it in. After some medication, I felt better. I’ll always be thankful for the woman on my course who fully supported me and even came to the doctors with me when I was too anxious. I was already on more medication for extreme pains to the point I’d collapse and throw up, so it was nothing different to me.
But I came off my medication once I turned 19, because I couldn’t afford it. I felt great, I felt ‘normal’ to an extent. But the next year was to bring the worst. It started off with isolation. After a few months, things quickly got messy and I was alone. I felt like even the people who were with me, weren’t. I’d just got a job, which was a great way of meeting people and getting out of the awful flat, but that was itself taxing and I had more than a couple of panic attacks in the year and a half I worked there. But the real kicker came in February, when the isolation was felt all the more when I was referred to the hospital for tests after finding a lump in my breast. A month of torment followed, being alone knowing my family were 3 hours away in the car, and then another month following my biopsy of waiting for the results. Thankfully clear, and I count myself incredibly lucky, but it was an eye opener.
I completely lost myself after that, no matter how positive I tried to be everything concerned me. Every little change, everything new. I started to feel like I really needed my medication again and on my wage I could thankfully afford it – but even then I didn’t take it. Because I was scared of ‘changing’. I was scared of being annoying when going through the side effects, and driving away the only people I had. The only change I wanted was to be perfect for other people, so I stopped dying my hair, I stopped wearing certain clothes, I stopped listening to certain music. I enjoyed my time at home thoroughly, being around my family and friends and finally going to Dublin for turning 20. But I look back at pictures now, and I feel like I can see the mask. My brown hair, my ‘grown up’ clothes and my tame makeup all feel like some façade. It only got worse, with my biggest low coming as soon as freshers came in September. Realising, even though I thought I’d found people, I hadn’t and it just wasn’t the place for me despite how much I’d done to fit there. I started back on my medication, but kept spiralling to the point I was on the highest dosage – which as of writing this I still am. I had sleeping pills as I couldn’t sleep at night, I lost a considerable amount of weight and lost all my focus. Work became an escape and I focused more on that than anything.
But then came the music. In May 2017, Paramore had released ‘After Laughter’ and after seeing them in the academy, I realised how much of their music I related to still, even though I’d tried hard not to listen to them because it was ‘mosher music’ and didn’t fit who I was trying to be. But in January 2018, they came back to the arena, and I met up with someone I’d known for years. I wore what I felt like, to match the mood of the music, I covered myself in glitter, and I danced the whole time. I went for drinks with my friends and met more people, and Paramore had pulled me and my friends together again after a while of distant conversations. I will be forever thankful for that, and forever thankful for my friends. I met them in college, and I don’t want anymore of my life without them. I also started talking to everyone I had spoken to on twitter, people I would consider extremely dear friends of mine. In an effort to not look odd I tried to abandon twitter but truth is I love too many people on there.
Two weeks later, I’d bleached my hair. A small step to some, but huge to me. I’d not touched my hair for 2 years by that point. I bleached it, I toned it, I dyed it lilac. It turned purple, but it was a new colour. I made do. Then when that washed out, I went peach. Then pink. Then dark pink. Just like I used to. I started wearing bright clothing, patterned socks shown off proudly in a funky pair of vans and some rolled up jeans, more colour in my makeup. I started putting on weight again, I started listening to everything I used to listen to. I went home every few weekends to meet up with my friends, meet up with my family and attend things with my mam. My family had noticed the difference in me, and say to me now they can see how much happier I am when I’m home. That February had shaken us all a bit, but they’d dropped everything and driven down to be with me.
Now, comes the joy.
Around May time, an article was put in the Chronicle. I’m a social media addict, and was scrolling through facebook when I noticed it. But I didn’t pay much attention, as I was trying to focus on getting the last of my work done. But then I was lying in bed after quitting my job, unable to sleep and wondering what I was doing, when I saw it again on my history twitter (something I set up to keep my mind focused on history and keep my interest up) I couldn’t ignore it this time, and I read the article. They were looking for volunteers. The Victoria Tunnel, this dark, damp hole in the ground I’d previously visited in 2013 and lived above up until the age of 12, were looking for new guides. I sent an email, barely even thinking about what I was doing, and got a swift reply asking me to fill out a form. Unfortunately I experienced a dip, and left it a while, but two weeks later once I filled it in and sent it back, I was surprised to get a reply to say could I come in. Once I was back at home, I went along, and within an hour I was being shown around the tunnel by Kelly.
Kelly is currently one of the lights in my life. She is a complete rock, a Geordie made of sterner stuff, and has firmly set me on my way to being me again. She works for the trust, but started out as a volunteer too. She instantly made me feel safe, and at home, and we spent a good hour in the tunnel just looking around. I went home excited, despite the different things trying to bring me down, and had already signed up to come along and follow along a few tours and get a feel of things.
It was terrifying. It was out of my comfort zone. In university, my anxiety is so bad I don’t do presentations in front of my peers, I do them alone for my lecturers in their offices. But now, in July, I do the WWII section of the tour. I walk people through the Ouseburn Valley and give them a history, I tell them about the war, and I tell them about the tales of the tunnel in the war. I even get a couple of laughs from people.
I spend most of my time now in a dark, damp hole in the ground and it puts me at peace. I don’t get any signal on my phone, I can’t hear the outside world, no one is judging me. People are there to hear the history of the tunnel, not judge who I am. Kelly helped me realise that very quickly and she along with other guides and Bobby have made sure that I am completely comfortable, and completely myself. We even went down the tunnel for a radio show by ourselves to see if any spooks were out – when would I ever have willingly gone down a tunnel alone talking on a radio program? Even more astounding, I make phone calls now. Yes, I pick up the phone, I talk to people. Something I was never able to do until I became a tour guide. I’m still a trainee, I’m still working on the Victorian section – numbers have never been my thing so unfortunately that’s been slightly more difficult to master(GCSE Maths result speaks for itself) but I’ve never felt so confident and fulfilled in my life.
Making it to 21 is wild, and I have so much more I could say, but I’ve rambled on far too long and it’ll be a boring read as it is. I’ve never written anything like this, but I’m hoping I can read it in a few years and be exactly who I want to be and where I want to be. I hope someone else reading this will be too, and see that it gets a bit better.
All my love to anyone who needs it,
Georgia x (Bee, as a few people call me.)
