I was so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere
Fell behind all of my classmates, and I ended up here– ‘this is me trying’, Taylor Swift.
Whether you opt to listen to Taylor Swift or not, it cannot be overstated just how relatable her lyrics are. As a suspended student with unmedicated ADHD, ‘this is me trying’ became an anthem of my struggle and my deep sense of failure. ‘Fell behind all of my classmates and I ended up here’ speaks to me in a way I sincerely wish it didn’t. In my case, ‘here’ is my messy, disorganised room in my childhood home, 10 minutes from the centre of a deteriorating Yorkshire town and 160 miles from where I want to be. ‘Here’ is an outward manifestation of my life: messy, disorganised, deteriorating and so unbelievably far from where I want it to be.
My ADHD diagnosis in September provided an explanation as to why I was struggling so much with even the simplest of things. This diagnosis had been a long time coming. I had been on the waiting list for almost 2 years and in that time I had seen a gradual decline in my ability to cope with life and the responsibilities of growing up. By the time my assessment rolled around, I was so far removed from the confident and ambitious teen who had been bursting with joy at her Oxford offer in 2022 that I no longer recognised who I had become. My ADHD was debilitating, and it had stripped me of my sense of self.
If you were to look at me last Michaelmas, you would have seen a broken student on the brink of self-destruction. I had fallen out of love with my subject, with Oxford and, frankly, with life. The people around me were the only thing I hadn’t fallen out of love with, and it was because of them that I clung on for so long, wishing more than anything that I could enjoy the little time that I had left at Oxford with them. A time that I knew I could never get back if I suspended my studies. For someone that had been so full of hope and excitement at the prospect of heading to university, so self-assured that she would thrive in that environment, it was incomprehensible to me that I was barely surviving.
It felt like my whole world was caving in on me and there was nothing that I could do to prevent myself from being crushed under its sheer weight. That metaphorical weight became all too physical the day before my Trinity collections. It all just became too much, and I decided that I couldn’t continue barely scraping by each day in this state of paralysis. It’s a scary thing in life when you just simply don’t know what to do anymore. I felt so hopeless. That day, I decided to suspend as a last-ditch attempt to get myself back on track. In second year, daily breakdowns had been the norm. Leaving my room when the sun was out was a rarity. If it hadn’t been for commitments to my cheerleading and rowing teams, I doubt I would have seen the sun at all. For their help I will always be grateful, despite opinions that my participation in sport was to the detriment of my academic performance.
When I was told that sports were partly to blame for my problems I was astounded. They failed to consider that I wasn’t struggling due to a lack of time or determination. I wasn’t struggling because my priorities were elsewhere. And I certainly wasn’t struggling because I couldn’t be bothered. In fact, I couldn’t have been more bothered, which made it all the more confusing when things were getting worse rather than better. I was struggling with an unsupported disability, which made simple tasks feel near impossible. For most of second year, it felt like an achievement to merely get through a day having showered and eaten. It’s embarrassing to admit how dysfunctional I was, but it’s a necessary admission that has enabled me to grow and improve.
What they also failed to consider was my DAS (disability advisory service) assessor’s advice to keep up my physical activity, as a way of regulating my dopamine levels to make me more functional. I don’t say this with malice or resentment. I don’t blame anyone at the University for the problems I was facing. I say this because being told that if I had just spent more time working, and less time cheerleading, that I may not have had to suspend, entirely missed the point of the type of struggles ADHD can bring.
Although the University can support students academically in various ways, in my experience they seem to have less success in the general welfare side. Yet, my negative view of their welfare support is in part due to my reluctance to ask for help early on. I expect that this is something that many students struggling with their mental health can relate to. You don’t realise how bad it is until you hit rock bottom. You try to cling onto normality for as long as possible because it’s scary to admit that you’re struggling. I definitely tried to convince myself I was coping when everyone around me could see that I wasn’t. If I had realised just how bad things had become sooner and asked for help then, perhaps they would have been better equipped to support me. I had gotten to a point where I needed a break from academia, and I needed a break where I could learn, without any pressures, how to navigate this disability that I had only just found out I had.
Before you discard this column as a drone of self-pity from someone who, in the grand scheme of things, is admittingly in a very privileged position, my intentions are to use this as a space to document my journey back to Oxford, specifically through the lens of someone newly trying to navigate their unmedicated ADHD. I intend for this to be useful as a sort of guide for students, suspended or not, to discover coping mechanisms not just for studying, but for life too. Drastic action needs to be taken to get myself back to where I want to be. I’ll try a new strategy every week and document how it goes. A variety of factors can affect ADHD symptoms. Sleep, exercise, food, daily structure, environment. Having this time away from academia means I can really take the time to work on the simple things and hopefully build really effective habits to stand me in good stead upon my return (fingers crossed it might help you too). I’ll read about ADHD and hopefully, by understanding more about the condition, I’ll understand how to adapt. This is what this suspension is about: adapting.
I will strive to be brutally and embarrassingly truthful about how my weeks are going and how my goals are coming along. Truthfully, I’m not off to the best start, having put my reading off all day. I’m writing this at 4:03am when I intended to be asleep by 11pm. Truthfully, I feel exasperated with myself for continuing this unsustainable pattern of unhealthy behaviour. Truthfully, I’m so so scared that I won’t ever have the self-control to break the cycle. And truthfully, I’m terrified that I’m going to throw away this once in a lifetime opportunity at Oxford and disappoint everyone around me, including myself. I’m desperate to get back. My readmission to Oxford will seem very tangible as my college’s policy against suspended students on site has been keenly felt and has isolated me more than was perhaps necessary from many of my university friends. I have felt so far removed from Oxford life that it has been hard to picture myself back in that environment. However, I must acknowledge as I strive to become a more responsible version of myself that this is the consequence of failing to complete work and suspending. Now, I must work towards improving myself such that I return to Oxford a much healthier, happier and responsible person than I left.
With all that said, even though I’m not where I want to be just yet, this is me trying.