I came across a technique to find out what’s most important to you and who you are in the unlikeliest of places - the YouTube comments section. I actually feel ashamed in that I didn’t write down the name of the individual who shared this idea, but nonetheless - I shall discuss it anyway. Just give me no credit for it, because its conceptualisation was not from my mind, even if this application clearly links to my thoughts.
The concept itself focusses on creating a timeline of memories, beginning from when you were first aware of your existence. You should then analyse these memories to distinguish the reasons why they are so significant to you. The reason why then links to who you are as a person. Other memories which would have stuck in somebody else’s mind prominently may not have stuck in mine, and vice versa.
To make this really effective (rather than trying to dredge up every memory I’ve ever had), I’m going to use the first five memories I can think of, in whatever order I like.
In my blogging dashboard, I’m going to write down these five memories as headers first, and then flesh them out. However, you’ll read it as five distinct sections. Thank you for reading, by the way!
1. Being Thrown Against a Metal Fence
I was quite surprised that this was the first memory that popped into my head.
It actually relates to my second primary school. I was in Year Three - we had just moved up to Lincolnshire from Cambridgeshire in the summer, so I started my first day that September at a new primary school.
I remember I settled in fairly well, except for one person - let’s call her Hayley for anonymity (I’ve never known a Hayley in my life).
In this particular instance, I happened to be out in the playground. It was one of my first days at this new school, so I hadn’t quite integrated into a group of friends just yet, although a few friendly smiles had been passed around, and I was already settling into the work fairly easily (it was primary school stuff, after all!).
This school wasn’t very large. I’d say there was about 70 pupils IN TOTAL - not just in one class. 70 pupils, from Reception right up to Year 6. It was a tiny school, and in many ways I think that’s what made the bullying more of a shock. Although it would be feasible that there’d be fewer people with similar interests, I thought there’d also be fewer people who would be inclined to bully! Guess I was wrong there - because one person in particular took a real dislike to me.
So much so, that I remember strongly how she grabbed me and threw me against some solid, metal railings several times the very first time she met me. Over and over. I can feel the rattling of my body against the cold steel now. My skeleton jolted with every lunge.
I can’t actually remember quite how it stopped. I remember that a few people were just sort of watching - not directly, as such, but in the corner of their eyes as they played Stuck in the Mud - but none of them intervened. I had a feeling that Hayley may have lashed out at them at some stage, but I have no proof of that. Still, that particular episode did end, and in lessons and suchlike I was very happy.
Her behaviour as a whole remained hostile and unapproachable, however. But one thing I’ll forever remain proud of is how when I went home, I explained exactly what was happening to my parents, and I wrote the school council a letter. I wrote it on a piece of bright yellow paper with a blue crayon, and essentially described (in Year 3, 7 and a half year old language) how this behaviour was unacceptable, and I wanted it to stop.
It did stop, and actually, my classmates started to reject her. They completely turned their back on her, and were quite mean to her for our remaining three years at that school. Unhappy events still occurred at that school (that I have discussed briefly in previous blog posts, particularly to do with the eve of my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and food problems), but not because of her. I’m actually filled with guilt now when I think back to that, as I didn’t stand in to stop them turning on her like they did. I know she was cruel to me, and that perhaps in some way I should feel like justice was delivered, but I do not. I almost feel like I made her life worse than she ever made mine, simply because I became friends with everybody else, and we all excluded her.
Why does this stick in my mind?
The physical pain of it has to be why it sprung to mind at first, but equally the regret now leaves an emotional scar. I’ll never forget that look on Hayley’s face when I was standing at a bus stop in Year 8, and I saw her bus drive past. She was looking out of the window with one of the most sorrowful expressions I’ve ever seen in a human being.
How does it relate to who I am today?
In terms of bullying as a whole, I am wholly against it. I seek to comfort people and treat people well, because I know what it feels like to be an outcast. That goes for some of my experiences at secondary school as well, not just at primary school. I try my best to be a good person, especially since I have reflected upon how I perhaps could have done better in terms of reconciling with Hayley (rather than leading to her being shunned).
How does it relate to who I want to be?
I want to make sure that I have thought through my actions so that I do not just think of myself, but think of others too. I want to help others build their self confidence, regardless of if they were the bully, or the person that was bullied.
I don’t think this is an organic memory, because I see myself floating in third person. Clearly, if this were an organic memory, I’d be seeing it through my own eyeballs. It is therefore likely that I have constructed this through what I’ve been told by family.
My mother is there, and I’m floating with those armband thingimabobs doughnutted around my flobbiling baby limbs (do you like my word inventions?). II have a big smile on my face, and a mop of curly black hair splatted on my head (it is wet, after all).
That’s the extent of that particular memory, however it does link to my later meanderings into swimming as a child. Although I had to stop due to my health, I was actually a very successful swimmer for my age and had a lot of talent (not tooting my own horn or anything here, by the way ;-)).
Why does this stick in my mind?
I suppose I see this as the first real example of where sport and activity was integrated into my (family) life from a very young age.
How does it relate to who I am today?
I love being active, and whenever my health has prevented me from being active, I have been deeply upset. I now weight train regularly, both as a mental release and as a way of staying strong despite my diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
How does it relate to who I want to be?
If I ever have any family of my own, I want to guide them to be active from a young age. Professionally, I see myself having activity as a keystone of my career - with my first goal being getting qualified as a personal trainer. As for myself personally, I want to remain as active as I can for as long as I can in relation to my health.
3. Asking For Help to Learn How to Bench Press
A lifting-related memory was also one that immediately sprung to mind today. When I first started weight training, just after my sixteenth birthday, I had no clue how to bench press.
I swaggered (read: meekly shuffled) into the gym, and plucked up the courage to ask a personal trainer how exactly you are supposed to bench press.
This particular personal trainer was extremely kind - she spent more time than she had to showing me exactly what to do. I remember this was before this gym had been renovated, and they had odd-numbered weights - my barbell was 17kg, and that’s what I started bench pressing with before I moved up to the proper bench press station.
Why does this stick in my mind?
My upper body has always been weak, and recently I’ve been improving considerably in my upper body strength. It’s crazy to think how shy I used to be in the gym, when now I’m probably obnoxiously loud at times!
How does this relate to who I am today?
Bench pressing is now actually my favourite exercise in the gym, despite my love for squats, deadlifts and hip thrusts too. It has to be because it felt like the underdog exercise to me. I love it with dumbbells too - not just a barbell.
How does this relate to who I want to be?
I clearly want to keep getting stronger and stronger, both mentally and physically. I remember people telling me that girls ‘don’t get strong upper bodies’, and I wanted to prove them wrong. I want to keep proving them wrong, and I want to keep pushing myself to limits I wouldn’t have ever imagined would be real for me.
We’re jumping around ages here somewhat, but that’s fine. Back to… fourteen, I think this is? Maybe thirteen. I truly can’t remember the when as much as I can the what. I wouldn’t be surprised if my anorexia damaged my memory capacity at this time somewhat.
Anyway, this was my first hospital appointment regarding my eating disorder. I think I’d been dragged to the doctors’ (after initially being confronted by my parents and being made to ‘confess’), and they almost immediately set up an appointment for me at Grimsby Hospital to speak to some specialists.
I was still at that stage then when I didn’t really believe that I had anorexia, and I wasn’t sure what the fuss was all about. I was hell bent on continuing the way I had, until eventually I died.
Except - at this hospital appointment, I think I must’ve had an angel of a doctor leading the consultation. I think she was a junior doctor, and I also have an inkling that perhaps she had shared similar troubles when she was fourteen. She kept it simple for me - kind and simple. Rather than making me utter the words ‘anorexia’, ‘anorexic’, ‘starve’, or any other related food - she structured her sentences carefully so that I would only have to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
Even though these hidden utterances of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ still felt incredibly scary to say, they were masked enough to enable me to admit I had a problem. I could reply factually - yes - without having to acknowledge the diagnosis itself.
Why does this stick in my mind?
I think this appointment was the real turning point in my treatment and recovery from anorexia. I think she gave me just enough of a confidence boost to head forward with recovery.
How does this relate to who I am today?
Clearly, I’m not dead - I was able to adhere to my recovery from anorexia. And although I still have real, serious problems with an eating disorder and my mental health now, I am still firmly on the path of recovery. I also see her actions as an example of how people with mental health issues should be treated - with kindness, courtesy and a solid foundation of support.
How does this relate to who I want to be?
I want to be in a position where I can support others and help them reach a ‘turning point’ in their mental health journeys, so that they too can walk the road of recovery. Clichéd or otherwise, this would fulfil me more than anything.
5. When He Left Without Saying Goodbye
The final memory I have to share is another one from primary school - but this is one from Cambridgeshire, at my first primary. I will use a real name now, because I have no idea what his surname is, so if anybody else actually does know his surname, I’d be happy to get in touch and say hello again.
Anyway. I once had a best friend called Benjamin, and we were pretty much inseparable (at least at school). I view my time in Cambridgeshire with a huge amount of nostalgia, for this was the time that I was swimming, dancing, playing tennis and playing around at school with much joy and freedom.
I’d go to those awesome parties with Pass The Parcel, I’d play on trampolines and I’d build the best things with Duplo or Lego or a bunch of sticks and clay and mud. I’d climb over things (although I was never able to crack monkey bars) and otherwise treat life with that childish glee that I was lucky to have in a mostly peaceful and developed country.
However, my best friend Benjamin was to move away to America. I moved away myself at the end of Year 2, but Benjamin left at the start of Year 2. As a class, we made him a book of memories and I was the one that got to present it to him. I bloody bawled my eyes out, but at lunchtime we played together as normal and things seemed to be fine for a while.
But, at the end of the day, when I rushed to the gates to say goodbye to him, he had already left. I don’t think I’d taken too long at the cloakroom to grab my bag and coat, but he had already gone. Not on the playground, nor the field, nor under the chestnut trees, or on the winding path leading out of the school grounds. This was yet another small school - about 150 pupils in total here - so there weren’t many places he could be… but he had already gone.
I had already said goodbye, but I wanted to say goodbye again. I wanted to give him a hug. I wanted to keep in touch with him somehow. But he was gone - and in some childish sense, I felt like I had been abandoned - even though it was never really his choice to move anyway.
Why does this stick in my mind?
The beautiful nostalgia of a time I would really consider childhood, without mental or physical health difficulties, and the memory of my first best friend will always stick with me.
How does this relate to who I am today?
It’s only very recently, at eighteen years old - rather than five or six - that I‘ve started to build close friendships again. But nothing has ever felt as close as my friendship to Benjamin, even though I’m now older and can have more meaningful conversations and suchlike as a young adult.
How does this relate to who I want to be?
I try and be real in my friendships, and let my friends know what I truly think. I don’t hide away from conflict and instead seek practical resolutions to things, because I don’t want there to be a time where we may get caught on a bad feeling without being able to move forward if circumstances separate us.
That’s the good kind of retrospection. I think recently I’ve been too retrospective in the sense of degrading my every choice and questioning why I didn’t act differently - but that felt more like I was simply wondering both who and how I am today.
So, to conclude - I’m going to finish off on five points (in no particular order) that sum up who I am now, and five characteristics or goals I want for the future.
Energetic at heart, but easily distracted
Empathetic to others’ situations…
… but I still choose to be selfish at the wrong times
Determined (and at times, stubborn!)
An empathetic expert in my field
Stronger; physically and mentally
Overall, although this took some time, I think this was a very empowering use of my time. Give it a go!
