i would like to make an announcement that will probably land me on the psych ward

i didnt unlock flying anywhere until i was caught up. 6.1. my first region was elpis (not counting azys lla for obvious reasons) because i didnt want to be running to the portal to pandaemonium upon the 6.2 launch. most regions? not before 6.2. didnt do the mount speed either. i was slow walking all throughout shadowbringers and endwalker. i saw the aether current count of the endwalker regions and just refused. too much. not looking for that many. i did, eventually, for every region......except ultima thule.

Letter 1

Dear Friend,

I felt unintelligent for the majority of my school life. Specifically though, from the age of 12, I felt hugely inferior to everyone else in my class and my year group. Looking back now, I can see that I wasn’t given the tools to truly understand how being dyslexic, and dealing with (as of that time undiagnosed) severe mental health problems, would affect my ability to learn. What appeared easy to grasp and do for my friends would seem impossible to me. I would come home from school and not do my homework, as I felt that there was no point working on something which I didn’t understand and would be incorrect. I knew I would fail, so I did nothing; I didn’t want to really set my mind to working independently at home, away from the help of may peers and my teachers, to ultimately have my worst fears confirmed: that I wasn’t good enough, and never would be.

The feeling of being less than, and never enough, would live inside me, corrupting my every thought, until I turned 18 or 19. To my younger self, there was just one way to release this, and that was to physically give it room to escape my body. I had been self-harming on and off from the age of 11, but it grew to a near nightly ritual when I was 14. I would come home from school, head upstairs to my room, shut the door, put my schoolbag down on the floor, head over to the back corner and begin. In the span of five or ten minutes, I could work out my frustrations about my day into my skin. I would attend school with arms and thighs covered in cuts, scars, burns and bruises. I was cautious, and to my knowledge, no teacher ever found out – or if they did, they never said anything. Looking back, it’s laughable that to me that, at the time, I thought I wasn’t unwell- I knew that hurting yourself wasn’t normal, but I also was aware that there were hundreds of people online with far more dramatic injuries than myself, or friends who were also struggling: I wasn’t that bad. Nevertheless, I knew that what I was doing to myself was abnormal, and should be kept secret. I would wear my PE skort under my uniform to hide my thighs, and I would play sports in my school jumper- changing quickly, in order to expose my arms for the shortest possible period of time.

Throughout the school day, I would go to a bathroom stall and just stare at what I had done to myself, proud of the fact that I was finally taking control and punishing myself for not being good enough. I would skip lunch, saying that I had homework to complete, and I would just stay on the floor of my form room, listening to music, and running through every reason as to why I was an awful human being. And this created a cycle. I would head to class, where I would be reprimanded for not completing my homework, and have my flaws pointed out to me in red pen, and to me, I would take this as confirmation that every time I hurt myself, that I deserved it, and that it would ultimately help me. I had literally fallen into a routine of self destruction; I had fallen into having a fully fledged addiction without really realising it. I was convinced that I was in control- hell, the element of control was the appeal. However, I would then notice scars fading under new ones, and I would feel a huge sense of dread and loss, and rush to replace them. My greatest fear was that someone would notice and make me stop – I needed this to function. Once, when sat in my safe space, against the radiator in my form room, a group of people were sat around me talking about self harm. I remember being petrified when one girl, sat in front of me, grabbed my right hand and rolled up my sleeve. I still can vividly feel the relief I felt that she had selected the wrong arm. However, that event made me more manipulative, and far better at hiding it. I would lie about injuries, claiming sprains in order to wear a bandage over my arms, I would permanently hold my jumper sleeve down by my fingers, I would cover my wrist in plasters, under my watch and wristbands.

I’m so lucky that my scars have faded the way that they have, and although the ones on my thighs are noticeable, I am able to conceal the ones of my arms with make-up easily enough. However, all these memories have been dredged up in the past few days. Lately, the weather has been getting colder and we’re heading towards fall. But with colder weather, comes the fact that older faded scars become more prevalent on the skin, especially being as fair as I am. Brushing my teeth, and groggily leaning against the sink for support, I glanced down and noticed that there were patches of my arm looking darker than usual. After heading to collect my glasses, I saw the remnants of a scar I had all but forgotten about (unless dredging through old journals, or in a particularly difficult spiral of shame and depression). Anyone could see it, and not notice the significance, but memories came flooding back.

When I was 16, after getting a mock GCSE paper back and gaining a mark considerably lower than my friends, I went home in shame, and carved the word stupid into my forearm. I remember it vividly, how calm I was, despite falling apart and screaming on the inside. I was methodical. I remember thinking I wanted it to be ‘unintelligent’ but I was scared that it wouldn’t fit, or that I would spell it wrong, and that I would be saddled with a spelling mistake blazoned on my arm for the rest of my life, validating my lack of intelligence to all who saw. I settled with stupid- this thought process was further confirmation to me that this brand was exactly what I needed. I remember finishing and being very proud of myself. I cleaned myself up, and settled in for a night of sitting on the internet, and neglecting the mounting pile of homework I was studiously ignoring. It wasn’t until I lay in bed that night that I realised that the very next day. I had another HPV jab due at school. Panic filled me. I grabbed my journal, and came up with plans of action of how to hide my forearm when being injected by a nurse in my upper bicep. Bullet points to detail how I was planning on lying about my dominant hand, wearing an arm brace and saying that I had slammed it into the car door, or faking illness and saying that I couldn’t have the vaccine that day. It was as though I were writing a shopping list. Seeing that now, it hurts to know that i was so isolated, and yet so convinced that this behaviour was rational. I was so proud of myself for coming up with my backup plan of wearing the brace, as the nurse who administered my vaccine that day said that it did not matter that I was supposedly left-handed, and proceeded to roll up my left sleeve. Still, after having the vaccine, I went to the little seating area, and, whilst the other people there were helping a classmate who was so terrified she had brought her stuffed toy frog to accompany her that day, I quickly rolled down my sleeve and felt safe in the knowledge that I had gotten away with it. I had outsmarted everyone, and continued to hide my destructive routine.

I’m 23. I left my home city and had the greatest time at University, and whilst relapse is an inevitable part of recovery, I can look back and see how far I’ve come, and realise all the hard work I had to put in, in order to claw my way out of that mental space which would worsen dramatically before it would get better. And, I’m not stupid. I categorically am not. Yes, I need extra time, and I need to put in more work than someone who doesn’t have dyslexia or any other learning disability, but that doesn’t make me stupid. It means that I’m willing to work my butt off in order to get where I want to go. It functions as a daily reminder that, regardless of the fact that there are days when it’s harder to locate than others, I’m determined to get to a place where I’m happy, both career wise, and mentally.

I am also old enough, and have enough hindsight and reassurance, that just because someone else is a lot smarter than you, it doesn’t make you any less intelligent. I would never dream of conflating a grade on a paper or test now with my personal worth. It wouldn’t even cross my mind. Around this time, I read Harvey and found this quotation, which in a way only a 16 year old could, displayed it across my social media platforms: “Years ago my mother used to say to me, she’d say, […] ‘In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.’ Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant.” Look at me, I’m philosophical and I read. Maybe I was hugely missing the point of what Elwood was attempting to convey here, or I was setting a goal for myself, either way, it’s laughable to look back at 16 year old me, obsessed with this quote, and thinking that I had also chosen being oh so pleasant. I was cruel to myself, and was permanently grumpy due to lack of sleep and exhaustion. I was not a nice teenager. Nonetheless, at some point over the last 4 years, I chose to be oh so pleasant, and my intelligence didn’t falter, but grew, when in an environment in which I was wholly supported. I leaned that, although I was so unbelievably privileged and lucky to have been given the education I had, an environment which strives for academic excellence, and prides itself on league table positioning was not one in which I could thrive. Whilst this is obviously beneficial to lots of students, it’s taken a long time to not feel guilty in saying that the system that prioritises those things was not one which was helpful to me, especially when I consider the handful of teachers who really did positively impact my life. And that’s ok. People learn in different ways. It just took me a little bit longer, and a little bit more work, than everyone else.

From,

Your Friend on the Bench