Oh it's been a long time. Once again I had an accidental hiatus, once again I swore I would do better and start writing more, and once again it just didn't happen. Why? I graduated, and I'm seriously unhappy about it.
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This is what university does not set you up for. It does not set you up for the crushing reality of moving back home, a job market devastated by a global pandemic and the feeling that everyone around you is moving on with their lives but you're not. I helped my sister move back to London the other day which sucked. She came home for a few weeks at the beginning of lockdown, a few weeks turned into a few months and she finally got her life back right when I feel like I lost mine. And I am decidedly despondent. My good friend Han wrote about post-graduate depression on Twitter the yesterday and I don't think I've ever seen it summed up so well, so I thought I would add my two cents into the conversation and just talk about how I'm feeling.
Graduates this year obviously have it hard, as I mentioned in my last post we didn't have graduation, nights out etc, but now that the dust has settled on that disappointment we're having to deal with the next hurdle and that's how dire the job market is looking right now. But Emilia, weren't you going to do a Masters course? Why do you need a job? I hear you ask. Well yes, you're right. But after a lot of thinking I've decided that maybe a two year very expensive MFA isn't the right path for me. I'm still considering the MA route but there's a lot to think about and take into account. It may still happen, but we'll see.
And on top of all of this, I have debilitating existential anxiety that comes over me in gigantic waves the size of a tsunami. I've suffered with death anxiety for a long time but never in this way. My life suddenly seems stretched out ahead of me with no direction and no purpose and I'm just constantly thinking "one day I won't exist anymore" and this thought is just the most crushing thought I've ever had and I just can't seem to shake it at the moment. And how on earth do you even cope with this?? I'm feeling extremely nihilistic and helpless at the moment, and that along with just nothing to do is a pretty desperate combination.
I don't think we talk about post-graduate depression enough. Sure, there's the handful of students that get accepted onto graduate schemes and graduate jobs pretty much fresh out of university, but the majority of us don't have that and like I said earlier, reality really does hit hard. Finishing a chapter of your life as big as uni is never going to be easy and I just think there's way too much pressure put on graduates to "start life" when we've barely come to terms with the fact that life as we know it is over.
I think that brings me to the end of my brain fart. I'm not really sure what I wanted to get out of writing this post, maybe just to check in with myself and get all these thoughts down, but also to check in with any of my friends. I know a few of my online pals have also graduated this year and just wanted to put my feelers out and make sure you're coping okay. If you're not (this is something I repeatedly tell myself) this will not last forever! We'll find our places in the world soon enough, and we don't need to put any pressure on finding it.
With love,
Emilia xx