By Eva Menovsky

MOST CHALLENGING THING

Quitting SCA and starting again this year.

I guess some people could find more challenging things about my life than quitting SCA and starting again. But it had changed a lot for me. 

I started SCA in 2017, with the JOHN intake. Named after the creator of the original School of Communication Arts. 

And I had a lovely time there. I made lots of friends, who I still see at this day. I learned so much, things that made a difference to how I see life. It had started a unstoppable process in me. And when I moved back to Amsterdam 3 months later, I had brought that all with me.

I had quit after the first term. It was hard to explain why, despite the fact that I felt I had to. 

Most people called me brave, I called myself a coward. 

Now looking back, choosing for your own mental health, is the bravest thing anyone can do.

But quitting SCA wasn’t even the challenging part. It was what was coming after. 

SCA and London had brought something out of me. Suddenly I wasn’t running. I was standing still. In the middle of the chaos of SCA, I was standing still. I had run from my problems all my life, I had moved on or moved away or just moved passed it. But I had never taken the liberty to actually deal with them. There has been quite some pain, heartbreak and discomfort during my life and I had never process it. 

So I went to SCA and I immediately felt that SCA and London had this effect on me, where I felt like I was home. SCA has the influence where you have to look in the mirror, and see who you really are. When I looked in the mirror all I saw was this 7 year old kid, who’s daddy just left. She was trying to be a big girl and dealing with everything, since she had this enormous weight and responsibility on her shoulders. So she would be brave, but from the inside she would be fragile and insecure. 

I never noticed this, but it was that girl I saw in the mirror every time I looked in one. And that had to change, so I gave myself half a year to change the way I view myself. Which was way too short, so I gave myself another year. And in that year and a half, I started to see myself as the women that I am today. With all her darkness and insecurities, but also with all her beauty and uniqueness. Today, when I look in the mirror, I see myself. It was a long process, it took me literally a year and a half of non stop working, and working on yourself is the hardest thing to do. Cause where do you start? 

So, to be me, completely, in all its shapes and forms, unapologetically, is difficult. For everyone. 

To start SCA, again, together with the workload, the competitiveness and the constant pressure you feel from yourself, is even more difficult. 

Still, not the real challenge. 

The real challenge for me is, that Marc will shove that mirror in your face again and you will have to do the whole thing twice.