Today I got my results for year 3 of university. I failed. I had braced myself for a third but I had not thought that I had failed. I will have to retake three modules in August.

I feel like ever since my grey cloud started following me at the age of 11 I have been failing life. Even though I am devastated- I am not unintelligent, I also love the subject I took underneath the depression- I feel that something has stirred in me during the last few months. I have the strength to believe there is a light at the end of the tunnel and this is my time to deal with my grey friend once and for all. I will beat this and I will make myself a life to finally be proud of.

I am going to work through this my identifiying situations that fed the depression and fixing areas of my life that the depression has hurt.

1. When I was 11 we went on a family holiday to the Philippines, where my mum is from. For the first time I really started to think about the enormity of poverty, the vast number of people affected all over the world and in addition to this I saw the effects of abuse to the Earth. I became angry, not understanding how people can be happy in the West knowing that they have so much when so many people have so little. I thought they must choose ignorance and how dare they do that. I vowed to take part in as much charity when I grew up as possible. The truth however is that these passionate feelings of mine have been dampened more and more. I am ashamed to say that to the 11 year old memory of myself that I have become one of the ignorant majority and I have done very little charity work.

I must reawaken this side of me.I will go to a volunteer information session at my local library next thursday. I will read more information to give me a good understanding of the issues that upset me.

2. During that holiday , I felt very ignored. I was also disappointed. I had prayed for all my life that I can remember for the wellbeing of my family in the Philippines and to see them, yet when the time came we did not get on.

I must learn to speak more Tagalog and Waray. This has already helped me to feel less ignored when there are parties of filipinos chatting away in Tagalog only. I will keep in contact with my filipino relatives on facebook.

3. At school I was always the fastest girl. P.E teachers encouraged me to join a running club or to ask my parents for training. My science teacher would giveup many lunch breaks to help me improve and at night I would lie in my bed with my eyes closed imagining my feet pounding every step around the track and the rate of my breathing. It happened suddenly, the end of my interest in running. I had so little energy I quit all sports. I stopped playing outside. I gave up. I remember the thrill it gave me and I want that back.

I will start running again and I will work towards competing in events for charity.

4. I started to skip classes as my confidence wained. I was being teased. Being called a lesbian constantly. I had been spat on and pushed and had rocks thrown at me and my best friend who is gay. I was also developing a distinct eccentric style, although I hung around with the goths, greebos and geeks, something of a leader of the misfits, I never really fitted into any one group. I developed a strong friendship with two boys: Adam and Mikey. Two other unlikely misfits, but more importantly we became reputed as a trio of underachievers. Where as I had previously skipped classes alone, hiding away in the library to read about the kind of subjects that weren't taught, I could now sometimes escape for adventures with my friends. Encouraging eachothers bad behaviours at school we became less and less aware of what the norm was and how far we were straying from it. We were favourites for helping with college productions and so had access to the cupboards back stage and the keys for the stage curtains. We would draw the curtains -bearing in mind these were in the dining room of the school and take our stash of beer from the cupboard and drink and often sleep in the dark behind the stage because we were always tired from staying up too late. I'm not writing this in a very well put together way because although anyone is welcome to read this, I am using it as a tol to unload my thoughts…well anyway what i'm coming to is that I did not do well at school.

I want to teach myself all that I can. Particularly maths, because never having been good at maths has always made me feel like i don't belong to the …what I see in my head as the 'high IQ crowd'.  Also I will teach myself physics and chemistry.

I think the next thing I lost was French.  I got an A* in French at GCSE and a U at AS.  I loved learning a foreign language and I kind of believed that maybe I should have been born French.  Yet again though, my passion wained.  I am a little ashamed to think in retrospect that it may have been rebellion/dissapointment at not being allowed by my parents to take part in the French exchange. 

I will learn French again and Spanish too, maybe moreso even.  It is easier and I love the way it feels on my tongue.  

5. Music and Zoology

I will practice as much as I can again and listen to music like I used to again.  

I am lucky enough to have parents who have spent a small fortune on me having piano and saxophone lessons.  Piano since primary school and saxophone since I was 13 I think. In sixth form I also had drumming lessons free of charge as free music lessons were a bribe for taking A level music at my college.  I had wanted to play the saxophone since I was a child, there were some fantastic sax players at the church I went to and I was inspired by some guy on sesame street too 🙂 .  It wasn't really until I played the sax that my love of music was ignited but when it was it was an obsession.  It was my life.  I played as often as I could and thought about music constantly , composing in my head.  It was a perfect tool for expressing myself through depression.  Music teachers always commented that my quality with music was the expression.  I don't know why it stopped.  I could never imagine it stopping.  It just did.  Like everything else.  Everyone had assumed I wanted to go to music college.  At times I did but I felt as though people thought that was all I had to give, my only quality and the only thing my parents had ever been proud of me for.  I started to hate it.  One day an old biology teacher approached me and asked me what my plans were , he asked 'are you still on your way to being a top zoologist?' – my enthusiasm for zoology during biology lessons was hard to contain, I replied back that I was going to go to music college.  He answered that he was certain one day I'd be peering over the ledge of a cliff looking at guillemots.  It was that day I went home and cried.  How could I have turned my back on school and wanted only music.  It was clear all along that I should have studied zoology.  I'm glad that day happened because from as far back as I can remember there is only one thing that can bring me out of any world of my own, make me forget all bad thoughts and engage my mind enirely.  That is watching an animal.  

There is more to continue, but for now many subjects are still too raw.  I don't know if it will be days, weeks or months before I continue this entry,  For now though, I will focus on setting my eyes on the future.  Sealing over the cracks I have already mentioned, aswell as the ones I haven't.