Long time no see

 Hello readers, 

 It's been a few years. Sorry. I don't really have an explanation to why I haven't posted in I think four years. I think the only thing I can think of is life. My ability to stay with something has never been great. 

A lot has happened since my last post. And I mean A LOT. I moved out of my foster parents house a few days before my eighteenth birthday into shared accommodation. Continued my A Levels (and somehow passed) and then applied for university. 

When picking my university, I did make a mistake. I fell in love with one. It was a nice place, good library, great support for my needs from staff and there was university accommodation literally over the road. There were a few issues however. The area wasn't amazing. Within my first week of my first year I had a drunk student in the halls come onto me and also break the common room tv. What a great start... I picked somewhere which ended up being to far a way from my support network which sucked. I felt isolated and alone. I don't make friends well at all. I don't understand social cues, or the how much is too much to overshare. I don't understand hidden meanings or the funny looks that people give. I have been diagnosed with ASD (Autism) but having that label doesn't make any of those things any easier. I can seem normal and smile and nod but I have no clue what is happening half the time. It doesn't help that I hate texting and social media. 

If you were to see my Instagram you might mistake me for a bot. My account is old but I have not posted in years. The only things I did post were pictures I took, nothing with any meaning and my username isn't even my name. It was the same with my Facebook but I recently changed that and updated my picture to a photo of myself. This made everything so much harder. I failed to keep in touch with my family and sometimes I would even 'forget' to contact my boyfriend. It isn't that I don't care about them and everything, it is just socialising is hard and tiring. Over text you can mistake tone and you can't see the faces. It is so much harder to tell what people are thinking. I just can never be bothered with it. 

This meant that after a few months at university I began to burn out. I visited my boyfriends family for a 'half term' or self learning week and got COVID. Luckily my symptoms were not bad at all but I took me out of my routine as I couldn't go back to halls until I was better. I missed a week of classes and I felt so behind and I struggled to catch back up, and so began flunking and not doing anything. When it came to the end of the year, me and the help team discussed this and we decided that I would retry the year. The only issue is I had one more chance only. We put in place more 'tools' to help me and I did last longer but I just couldn't handle it. It ended with me on my boyfriends bedroom floor crying curled up in a ball. It was then I decided to drop out. 

I was so disappointed with myself feeling like I had failed everyone around me. No matter how many times people said it was okay, or that university wasn't for everyone or that mental health is important... I just can't shake the feeling that I am not good enough. The whole time that I have known the people that care about me they have said that I am so smart and that I will thrive and I believed them. At first it was about A Levels. GSCE's I passed most of my subjects with flying colours. I got an 8 in Maths and a B in Further Maths. I was so proud of myself. Everyone was proud of me too. 

I loved building things, and I still do. Following instructions on a project, furniture, Lego, model kits or making paper mache sculptures... I enjoy it all. I also enjoy the beauty of architecture. Especially older buildings. And so, my carers brought up the idea of me studying to become one. I didn't know what I wanted to do exactly so I said sure. Now, I said I enjoyed it, but I don't think I enjoyed it enough to want to pursue a career in it, but I did it anyway. 

I originally chose Maths, Physics, Biology and Further Maths as my A Levels. I lasted most of the year before I had my first breakdown. So I dropped them and next year I began a new studying Psychology and Media. Not because I particularly wanted a job in it but because it interested me enough to want to learn about it. And I succeeded... I didn't get the grades I wanted but I passed... And then became university choices. Once again I chose a subject because I was interested in learning about it. I am sad I couldn't see it through but I am still watching YouTube videos on the topic and stuff now, even if I did drop out. 

I went on a tangent. The point is, everyone said I would soar to knew heights, but now I have temporarily staying with my boyfriend and various family members, unable to get a job because sometimes I'm not in the area because I am sofa surfing somewhere else, waiting for social housing to no success feeling like a failure and that my life has come to nothing. I feel like I have let everyone down even though they say otherwise. And this is only a fraction of everything happening currently. It's been a literal year since I moved out of halls and everything is stacking on top of each other and it is suffocating and I feel like it is all going to topple down and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. 

Anyway, I don't expect anyone to read this far. I just needed to share what is on my mind as it is getting to much. Just know that anyone out there who is going through something similar or if it completely different, you are not alone. Life can suck, but somehow we will all get through it. Even if we can't see how. 

Until next Readers, whenever that may be.