SCABs

That Overwhelming Feeling – By @G_Medford

By Christopher Medford

 

That Overwhelming Feeling

 

One of my biggest flaws has to be that i have difficulty planning and organizing thoughts and tasks, this affects me in my daily life. I haven’t been one to blame this on my dyspraxia but as things become more difficult to manage and start to stress me out even more, things start to slip and I lose even more control. 

 

Like this week of the 25th November 2019 has been one of my most testing weeks of my life so far, im not superstitious but one may say I may be cursed with bad luck, there isn’t much I can say that is good that happens to myself with the exception of being a student of SCA 2.0, but being on the course is a blessing and a curse, I had the misfortune of missing a SCA blog entry on Saturday 24th nov, not due to negligence but to exhaustion of working over the weekend as an uber driver.

 

When I first applied to come to the SCA, I had been going through a rough time working for Ericsson as a media management operator, but I put up with the bullshit for many years just because I needed the money to survive and had no other viable options available to me to leave, being in such a low place I had been put on 3 month sick leave for depression, as good as it was for me to get some space from work and gave me time to put together a presentation for my interview, I always knew in the back of my mind that I would have trouble supporting myself if I ever gotten a place but never thought it would be this difficult.

 

So it’s been 3 months since I started SCA, an i have encountered a plethora of debt, maxed out my credit card £2.7k, before asking for help and now owe my partner just over £3k, so all in i am just over £5.7k in debt and this isn’t from a lavish or luxurious lifestyle, this is just so I could study full time. This course literally takes up every waking moment to the point i get anxiety if I have any free time, I always feel like I should be always doing something either reading a book, doing research or learning a new skill on adobe.

 

Before anyone says I came to the school without a plan, this is not true, before i got signed off with depression back in june, i signed up to uber to become a taxi driver within London, which has taken far too long for it to be viable option of income for myself. The transport for London private hire department slowed my application down so I couldn’t sit the topographical test until the first week of term at the SCA in September, as disheartening as it was I remained positive that i would be able to perceiver and it won’t affect me but i’m not so sure anymore.

 

It wasn’t until the week of the 18th November that transport for London granted me my private hire license badge and documents so I could become a taxi driver while i am studying to be an art director, but no matter how much you plan for something there is always something you just cannot plan for example i had to pick up a car i had to rent but the only time available was between 1-3 on that friday, which was in the middle of my classes, I had an overwhelming feeling of disappointment and regret due to working on a 2 week brief with Rachael that we had to get a brief signed off that day, I felt like I had let her down because of my personal life creeping into the classroom and not being able to do more.

 

But these feelings didn’t go away as I worked for the first time that friday night, i drove friday night into Saturday morning , Saturday night into Sunday morning and most of Sunday daytime, trying to make back as much as I could to pay for the car hire and my extortionate credit card bills, but I had a feeling that I had forgotten something but I couldn’t remember all I knew was that I need to be out of my house and just focus on making money to live.

 

Until Monday came and i got hit with the news from Amy in the office that I had missed my SCA blog entry for the Saturday, and because of this I had to write another further 500, my heart sank as it was just another thing more I had to do this week, getting another brief on top of another brief that had been set the Monday left me no time to write anything and this played on my mind as I drove around monday night after school, to try and top-up the little i made over the weekend.

 

Then Amy hit me another 500 words because I didn’t finish the 1000 words from the day before, I didn’t argue or say an excuse all i could do really was just reply okay. Writing has never been a strength of mine my dyslexia definitely plays a big part in this, I struggle to find words to express myself when I write, I limit the words i would like to use just because I can’t spell them even with modern technology, you still have to know how the first quarter of the word before the computer suggest the rest, And because of this my writing speed is far below what is expected of me, and not to mention my reading speed either.  

 

Everything I do takes a little longer than everyone else for im always double and triple checking my spelling when putting together presentations for class, but the cracks have started to show within the work that im producing, there isn’t enough hours in the day and i feel like i have had to drop my standards but work twice as hard just to keep up with everyone that I work with. Choosing what is more important in an evening such as driving to make money or making slides for a presentation the next day or writing 1500 words for a blog that i missed over the weekend are really starting to wear me down. 

 

SCA takes up too much of my time during the week that I have to question how much time I can dedicate weekly so i may earn to survive, at times like this I wish there was another way to be able to source funding so i may be able to make the most out of this short course. I do not want my creativity clouded with self doubt and worry because I don’t have the ability to pay for anything this reason alone is exactly the same reason i dropped out of my graphic design degree at the university of east london and again years later when I re-enrolled at the London Metropolitan University.

 

No matter how much you plan some things in life, some things are inescapable, but i have a loving partner behind that is pushing me to make sure I see this course through to completion but as much as they try to motivate me, everything that piles up on me makes me less capable of coping with everything and im scared that i may burn myself out again, every moment i feel like i have a small area of life under control or im making progress with a brief,and there is something else that’s just waiting to go wrong.

 

Recently I received a book from Marc, called the 6-minute dairy. Which has exercises to help me focus on all the positives in life rather than all the negatives. I have been trying my hardest at giving it ago, but it’s difficult to remind yourself about everything that is positive when every other phone call or message that I received gives me a healthy slap back to reality that certain things can not be left till later, and everything needs a solution as soon as possible.

 

But all I can do is tell myself everything is fine and I have everything under control, even if I don’t, just for the sake of I signed myself up to be here and have to deal with the consequences of my actions, temporary pain for permanent gain at the end with a shining career within advertising.

 

I’m not sure if I will ever find balance to ever be able to deal with everything, i may never ever really be able to be on top of everything but I will definitely try my hardest to do so, or die trying.

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