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Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

Writer's picture: AndyAndy

When the seas are calm and the waters crystal clear, life feels good. After navigating a  stormy few months earlier in the year, life for me began to flow. And by ‘flow’, I mean I really felt like I was in that state where every aspect of my world was as it should be and I was keenly attuned to my inner and outer worlds. I was fully focussed, engaged and enjoying life; a state of being I have rarely experienced before. However, good old self-doubt decided to sneak in.


When I was training to become a counsellor, I vividly remember the second theory weekend of the course focussed on structural ego states, as they are described in Transactional Analysis. Life was really good at the time and I felt like I was in that 'flow state'. In order to explore our own selves in terms of ego states, we were invited to engage in a variety of reflective tasks. It was while doing a couple of these, that self-doubt surfaced. I could only identify ego state contaminations and issues from the past, but not that applied to me in the present. This triggered the following thought, “Andy, you’re either now some extremely self-aware, highly evolved being, or you have numerous, huge blind spots.” I immediately scoffed, dismissed the former and became increasingly anxious that I was delusional. How could I have shifted from being in a flow state to this in the space of just a few hours?


Of course, experiencing self-doubt and engaging in destructive self-criticism are common. But, at that point I had spent over two years in therapy and I had worked really hard on improving myself over the previous few years. In 2014, after a number of episodes of mental ill health during the previous eleven years, I was diagnosed with Type II Bipolar Affective Disorder. Now, I’m a great resistor of labels, but my extensive reading about this illness after the diagnosis did help me better understand the crushing depressions and less frequent - but bloody marvellous - hypomanic episodes I had experienced. With wonderful support from family, a few close friends and professionals, I survived and life was good. I felt far more balanced. However, the legacy of mental illness includes lingering doubt and the tendency to sometimes view oneself and the world through dark, psychopathological lenses. This bout of self-doubt was surely a product of this. I thought I might be hypomanic and experiencing grandiose notions of self-worth, instead of this flow state. It was also a small step to thinking how I was not worthy of this current happy state anyway, even if it was real. I made many poor choices when I was ill and hurt people I cared about, so happiness is not something I should be allowed to experience - it’s easy to see how the spiralling, paralysing negative thinking characteristic of depression begins.


Sadly, I did go on to endure further bouts of depression after that weekend. In fact, it was only a few short weeks before I crashed into an episode that lasted for a few months. Fortunately, Sam and my family were there to look after me while I recovered and I can never adequately express how grateful I am to them for their unerring love and care. When I return to wellness after each episode, I try to identify any causes and lessons I can learn. After this one, and with some useful insights and encouragement from Sam, I knew it was time to finally end my teaching career. When your work role becomes so integral to your identity, which it most certainly was for me, it’s tremendously hard to let go of it. However, having done over 20 years in the classroom and senior leadership, I had to face facts - my investment and response to the demands of the role made me unwell. It’s a challenging job and one that’s woefully undervalued by most in our country, but it can be incredibly rewarding and I have no regrets whatsoever about my time in the profession. I still love teaching and do some private tutoring alongside my counselling work, but doing it full time was just too much for me. Perhaps if I had remained a Head of Sixth Form, a role I loved and first gained after 4 years of teaching, rather than eventually serving as a Deputy Headteacher, things would have been different. But, I knew I’d served my time at that point and instead gained a part-time role as a careers advisor in a sixth form college while I completed my counselling training and before then setting up in private practice.


So, why has self-doubt crept in again recently? Well, apparently moving out of education entirely is a massive step for me. I think after 27 years, I have become institutionalised within a system that I now consider fundamentally flawed and barbaric in its impact on children. Despite my views of our education system, there is comfort and great pleasure for me in working with such a variety of wonderful people. Teenagers can be complex, gloriously eccentric and very funny. I love working with them. Equally, I work with a team of genuinely caring, kind and dedicated women. We get frustrated and often lament the egocentricity of said teenagers. Through gritted teeth and with clenched fists, we sometimes bemoan the behaviour of some of our teacher colleagues and senior leaders. However, we also reflect on the greatness of students and colleagues, and there are many opportunities to do so in such a wonderful college. I will miss all of them when I leave in 4 short weeks and stepping away comes with anxiety and self-doubt. Can I make full time self-employment work? Will I earn enough money? Am I a good enough counsellor? Am I good enough? Etcetera, etcetera. 


Despite these anxious thoughts and some self-doubt, it actually feels good to hit the ‘fuck it’ button and take the leap. It’s the real life I want to create, one in which I’m turning what once seemed like a fantasy, into a glorious, multidimensional reality.

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