8/10/2024
Entry One - 19/09/2024 Yesterday was my last first day back at university. I can’t believe I’ve made it to the third year. I can’t wait for this year to be over and done with so I never have to go back to academia ever again. I’m starting a Neocities site to give myself some purpose for this year and a new project to work on while I’m here away from home - something positive to associate with a scary place. I am completely new to HTML and I feel a little out of my depth, especially considering all the amazing sites on here. My favourite one I’ve seen so far is the one that’s themed like a monastery. I love church imagery so much, the artist behind that site is so creative and talented! As are many other people on here. I don’t think I’ll be able to make anything anywhere near as awesome as everyone else here, at least not with my current skill set, so I’m not sure anybody will be reading this - and it’s a little strange to be talking to nobody like this lol, but I suppose everybody has to start somewhere! I’m going to try my best. I’m a twenty-two year old music student and I have social anxiety, consequently I have no friends on my course. I’m lonely here. When I’m home alone I’m relatively happy, I don’t think about my loneliness very much, but when I’m at uni surrounded by people huddled in groups with their backs turned to me, laughing and chatting and studying together, then the loneliness really hits me. The worst part about it is that the other students are kind to me. Most of the time they ignore me, but when we do interact everybody is kind and polite. I’m not bullied or ostracised, so I can’t make myself feel better by telling myself ‘It’s not me it’s them! You wouldn’t want to be friends with them anyway!’. I can only blame myself. But I’ve tried, I’ve really tried. I’ve read How To Win Friends And Influence People cover-to-cover, I’ve done therapy three times; having finished my high-intensity CBT course just last week, I’m on medication and I try to be kind and polite at all times - I hide my safety behaviours and recall everything I can remember about social cues during every social interaction at uni, and when I get home I log the interactions and think critically about what I did well, and what I could have done better. The thing is, social anxiety has been running my life for so long, that if it went away tomorrow, I still wouldn’t be able to make any friends, because I don’t know how normal people interact. I don’t know how to make friends except by pure luck - you’re in a situation where nearly everybody has friends besides you, and by some miracle there is another person in the same situation, except unlike you, that person feels confident enough to initiate an interaction, and so they see you specifically and decide to befriend you. That’s the only way I’ve gained a friend since somewhere in my teenage years. Each year I’ve gone into with hope that with perseverance and effort I’ll be accepted and I’ll finally be able to enjoy an academic year studying what I love with social security. But each year my hope has been squashed. So this year I’m focusing on surviving. Just surviving the year with no pressure to make friends. Being friendless does make life harder on a music course, where we’re put into bands and expected to work well together and organise rehearsals and meet-ups outside of university, but I’ve made it this far. Only one year left to go, and then it’s all over. If anybody is reading this, thank you. If you also struggle socially, I hope reading this entry makes you feel a little better about your own struggles. Social anxiety can often make you feel alienated, like you’re the only person who struggles like you do because it seems like everyone else is doing fine. But you’re not an alien, you’re not a freak, and you’re not alone. There are other people fighting the same battles as you. I see your struggle, I know your battle, and I’m proud of your progress - however small or mighty. You and I, we’ve both got this. Signing off now because I have to get ready for uni. Wish me luck. Goodnight lonely creatures.