My Chronic aspirations

Some people are brought up to aspire to do a job with not just a good income but a great income. Some people have to do that kind of a job out of necessity. Some don't even get the chance. Some...some just don't know. 

Whilst I was growing up, I was taught about the importance of "meritocracy", work hard enough and you can achieve anything. My parents for the most part still hold this belief, they both became engineers through hard work and seizing all of the "right" opportunities, my mother especially had to rely on those which were externally provided due to her working class upbringing. She has always been some what of a role model to me simply because she has proved that if you put your mind to it, you really can achieve what you aspire to. That being said, she also believes that her career was chosen for her as she entered her profession through an apprenticeship. My stepdad on the other hand was especially gifted in maths and he essentially found engineering through looking at a prospectus and thinking "I'm interested in that and I could do that". 

I have never been one to aspire to money, but I think that's because I was never taught to, I was taught to have dreams and aspire to whatever my heart's desire. This was enforced by my middle school   RE/History teacher, who once stopped a lesson to talk about all of the jobs he had previously. He told us that the reason he'd worked his way through so many was that he was in the pursuit of happiness so he left a job whenever it became a drag. He spent so long looking for the spark that makes you feel excited to go to work or persist through difficult situations, that when he eventually found it in teaching he knew he would hold onto it for as long as he possibly could and this passion really shone through his teaching. He is up there with the best and most memorable teachers and his lessons really stuck with me. He taught me to aspire to true happiness rather than job security. 

Throughout my time in education so far, I've been asked a heck of a lot about what I aspire to. In middle school I was the " shy art girl", the type of person people would come up to and say "can you draw me?" I became really interested in fashion and spent lots of time drawing up various designs for clothes. I experimented with my style and have been through many different phases of clothing styles, in middle school I was also a major anime geek and learned lots about various popular Japanese clothing movements. I tried "fairy kei", "Sweet Lolita" and some non Japanese clothing styles such as "emo" and "pastel goth". 

What confirmed my love was a school trip, which I got selected to attend, to clothes show live at the Birmingham NEC. I saw my first fashion show, which inspired lots of my art afterwards, however a lot of the fashion at the show was what my classmates considered to be "conventional" and "very on trend". I didn't get the appeal of emojis and crop-tops at all, even so, afterwards I spent so much time changing my style. I felt like such an outsider, especially as I hadn't lived in the village as long as most of them had, so I wore clothes I hated to try and fit in and I experimented with makeup because I learned for the first time that lots of them not only wore it, but actually believed that every girl should wear it. A cruel tool to fix those who aren't seen as naturally beautiful, the opinion held at the time by most of my peers, who were only 12/13 years old. 

My dreams of fashion died when I changed my mind about taking GCSE art within the first 2 weeks of starting it in secondary school. I remember thinking "I hate this, there's no sewing on the course, what's the point, I can't get stuck with this!" so I switched to one of the few courses with spaces left: BTEC Health and Social care. I really loved the course during my first year of studying it. However, during this first year I really wanted to be an "astronaut" so I did everything I could to attempt to become really damn good at science, alas, it wasn't meant to be. For the first time, I learned that most of the time people choose careers in areas that they are good at and that there are some things that no matter hard you try, they just won't work out. In this case, I was good at science but my maths skills were non-existent, I had a knack for biology, I was decent at chemistry because I thought that experiments and cooking were one in the same (all you had to do was follow the recipe) and physics...was a nightmare. Whilst I did end up in a high set for science (set 2A) because I could do 2 out of the 3 disciplines, I came to the understanding that I had to find something else. 

Health and social care turned out to be a hidden talent, so I began researching careers in the industry and finding out what kind of A-Levels I would need to enter it. Baring in mind that I started acting when I was 5 years old, when I found out that it is possible to become a "drama therapist" I was all over it. Yes, I decided that was what I would become. When I moved up to secondary school, I discovered the writing side of acting for the first time and I really struggled with it, since the vast majority of the year group was essentially made up of 2 schools which had merged together, only half of us had learned how to write about acting and the other half had only learned about drama practical. If you couldn't already tell, I was part of the latter group because my middle school didn't do any kind of written work in drama. In spite of this, I thought that with my ability in English and my history of acting opportunities, I thought that all I would have to do was put a bit more effort into my work and the writing would match my practical ability. Nope. I actually failed every single one of my GCSE drama mocks. I wanted to be a "drama therapist" up until I reached year 11. I wouldn't accept failure and still believed with every ounce of my being that I could do anything I put my mind to no matter how long it took. I asked my teacher for help with writing but he refused because he didn't believe I could do it, in that moment I became more determined than ever to prove everyone wrong...

My life completely changed in September year 11, when I was 16, suddenly my world crumbled and I had to face the idea that aspirations have to be realistic. I found Health and Social care too easy and got really bored with the subject yet I still believed that continuing to pursue drama therapy would re-spark my interest. Then, after an incident in PE, I fainted for the first time. Initially, it was thought to be due to poor eating habits and exhaustion, however it happened again and again and again. I was given medical leave for a week and the moment I returned to school, it kept happening again and again and again. I spent the best part of a month being told to "snap out of it" and "stop faking it", I did my best to explain that I couldn't control it but nobody really believed me until it became such a problem that I had to go to the doctor. There had to be an explanation. My doctor confirmed it wasn't eating or sleeping habits, although they were contributing to the severity of my anxiety, so a blood test led to a hospital referral, led to 48 hours in hospital having every check in existence, including blood pressure checks every few hours and a very painful heart ultrasound...and after all of that, they found nothing. I was asked if I felt stressed and I said "no" because I genuinely didn't, it was GCSE year and I felt confident in the fact that I started revision before practically anyone I knew. So I was sent home with no kind of diagnosis and no advice other than, this is just a phase, it should go in about 6 months. It didn't. 

From that moment until after my exams, I endured a lot of hell from people who refused to see this as a problem I genuinely had no control over other than how I mentally handled it. Name calling: I endured it from students and teachers alike, cyberbullying: I tried to report it but nobody believed it. My school even tried to exclude me for having an illness, thank heck for my parents who explained "you wouldn't exclude someone for having a broken leg so why would you exclude someone for having a mental illness?" Thankfully, I was able to stay in school and even though I missed a few exams due to having "attacks" I still passed every single one of my GCSE's, except maths, averaging at around a B, with my highest grade being my Distinction* in Health and social care. I even passed my drama practical assessment in spite of having to attempt it twice due to an attack. I was also given a diagnosis that summer: NEAD.

My disorder has many names, PNES, NES and NEAD. I personally use NEAD, which stands for "Non-epileptic attacks disorder", it comes under the bracket of Functional Neurological Disorders (FND) and is a chronic disorder that hardly anyone knows about. Even the NHS doesn't fully recognise it yet. Before you ask, it isn't epilepsy. Even though it looks like epilepsy, it is pretty harmless, there is nothing physically wrong. Instead of having the "fight or flight" response, my body randomly goes into a "freeze" state meaning that I have a variety of responses...

• I can go into a completely unconscious state
• I can have fits
• My breathing can go really shallow or really rapid
• I can be semi-conscious
• My "attacks" can last for anytime from 5 minutes to 6 hours
• I can get up, be fine and re-lapse
• I can recover instantly or it can take ages for me to recover
• Sometimes I can go about my day as if nothing has happened, other times I'm completely exhausted and want to sleep the rest of the day away
• I'm usually not "with it" enough to be able to think for myself
• It can happen anywhere at any time
• There is no cure and no reliable way of making attacks shorter

When I got my diagnoses, I was given a thin information pack and was told to live my life as if nothing had happened. Literally the only advice I received was "continue as normal". What I wasn't told was how much would change. When I started college, I decided to keep pursing my dreams of becoming a drama therapist, since I struggled with GCSE drama, I decided to take BTEC drama as it was significantly more practical and thus my forte. I also took A-level English literature and language combined, A-level Early Modern History and, since I failed maths, I had to re-take my GCSE. Within 4 months of starting my BTEC drama course, I was no longer deemed "well enough" to stay on the course, this feeling was mutual between myself and my college teachers who were worried that I wouldn't be able to complete the course in spite of my passion and work. So I dropped drama, which simultaneously crushed my "drama therapist" dreams and a part of myself. Drama was a major part of my life for so many years and I loved it with every once of my being, it was a passion I had pursued for 13 years and I felt, and still feel, like I lost a part of myself. 

Again, I had to find a new aspiration. One thing I haven't mentioned so far is that I have been a member of various creative writing clubs since middle school, I even wrote articles for both my middle school and college newspapers, and I always have a book on me. I spent most of my time in middle school and secondary school living in the library and I read whenever I get the chance. That being said, I majorly overlooked my passion for English for the longest time. As I got older, whilst my family kept their meritocratic ideals, to the extent that at 13 I was told that I was going to have to work hard and aspire to either pursue a degree or an apprenticeship. This meant that I had to pass my A-Levels if I wanted to achieve anything in life. They also started to increasingly put forward the idea that earning money is very, very important. This made it very awkward when I decided to put all career ideas on hold and focus on what degree I was going to enrol onto. 

When I first told my family that I was thinking of doing an English degree, they struggled
to get their head around the idea. I was basically telling them that I wanted to do a humanities degree with absolutely no idea of what career I wanted at the end of it and with no guarantee of a career in the first place. I was advised to be more realistic and find something which would enable me to make money. Me, being the person that I am, did the exact opposite. Whilst I buckled down and focused the vast majority of my energy into being 10x better at my A-levels than I was at GCSE, I also put more effort into my once "hobby" now "passion"- creative writing. 

Before I dropped Drama, I joined my college's creative writing and started performing my own work for once. I performed a poem I had written for the first time at a college "poetry café", it was absolutely terrifying and I loved it. I had to do more, so I signed up for an international poetry day celebration event in a nearby village, initially just to watch others perform but then someone invited me to perform a poem or two and the rest is history. Since then I have performed at 5 different venues and am currently, in spite of lockdown, considered to be a regular at 2 of them. So yes, even though I don't act anymore, I still perform. I'd be lying if I was saying it is smooth sailing, it isn't. I have stage fright in a way I never used to and there's always the risk of my NEAD playing up at a night (as it frequently does) and for a long time I loved it. Now I like it, I love seeing the amazing friends I've made at the night, but I think poetry will be a hobby, the spark may have gone and I may not enjoy it as much as I used to but I still enjoy it enough to want to keep doing it. I love the people I get to perform alongside and I wouldn't change it for the world. 

What has any of this got to do with anything? Well, when I started performing, I started focusing on improving my creative writing craft, connecting with others who care about writing and sending my work into the world. This combined with my grades helped my family support my theoretical choice of degree and thus my potential career options.

Alongside this willingness to perform, I went through a bit of trial and error. I failed my maths re-take again, having gotten caught up in the algorithm and I started an EPQ but dropped out after 2 weeks because it was too much for me to manage.

Then I had to start the process of applying for university and it was a fun nightmare. Yes, looking at courses and universities were so much fun, but knuckling down and specifying my degree as well as where I wanted to apply felt impossible. When I had my end of year review, I told the teacher that I was thinking about entering the teacher profession and asked if I should give up creative writing for either a teaching degree or a solid literature degree. He told me something along the lines of "don't give up creative writing, you'd be wasting your time teaching", even so I asked him about how he became a teacher and at the end of the meeting, he advised me to do a joint degree or a degree which included literature and creative writing. I was so confused at the time but I came to realise that he was half right.

I enrolled onto a few summer schools  in order to attempt to fix the problem (and because I'm that much of a geek that I love being in some form of education and hate the idea of leaving it) and I felt even more confused in spite of the glowing comments I received on the essays I produced. Heck, I switched a course on education for a humanities course and then chose to write a history essay instead of an English literature essay because I felt more inspired by an image of a 1960's sexist swimsuit advert than learning about a 16th century writer- none of this made any sense to me whatsoever. 

That same summer, frustration with my failed 2nd attempt at my maths GCSE in combination with family history of dyslexia and dyscalculia led to me having a 4 hour straight literacy and numeracy assessment and a few weeks later, a diagnosis of dyscalculia. Whilst any kind of diagnosis brings up all sorts of emotions, I felt relieved that my lack of ability with maths wasn't to do with lack of effort or interest and it gave me a sense of direction as it reaffirmed that humanities based subjects would be (mostly) a good fit for me. It also led to me making the decision to take up an AS level in Sociology in my final year of A-levels. 

My final decision about my degree came down to what could I not live without and what I couldn't imagine doing. In spite of how much I enjoyed sociology, I decided it was too number based for me to be able to handle it at degree level. I considered History briefly but then realised that I was happy researching it as a hobby. Ever since Drama was out of the picture, the only things I spent my time doing (other than studying) was essentially reading and writing. So I decided that I wanted to mostly read and applied to do English literature with creative writing at 5 universities. I was fortunate enough to have been given offers from everywhere I applied to and I made my final choices this year. I am beyond delighted with my degree choice, I am lucky enough to be fully supported in my pursuit and I wouldn't change my choice for the world. 

Seemingly once you make a decision, that's it, but no. I am still frequently asked what I want to do and for the longest time ever I have had absolutely no idea. I'm aware that lots of the careers in this field are difficult to enter and I'm aware that specialising in one career means loosing opportunities in others. So I've found myself, more recently, wondering if there is such thing as a realistic aspiration? And I've been wondering if I've been wasting my time searching for an ideal that just doesn't exist. I think that it's okay to enter into something and be unaware of the outcome, simultaneously the unknown drives me absolutely mad. 

So here I am, YET AGAIN, in my search for my white whale and just when I think I've reached the point where I can say "I just want to enjoy my degree, my career will find me whenever it wants to", I find the most intense spark I've ever found. Teaching. I'm currently doing teaching virtual work experience and the more I do, the more I love. Why that is, I don't yet know and to be honest, I'm not in a rush to know. I just know that I love it and that I want to do more of it and I'm willing to give it my best shot. Having various disorders and mental health issues may make it more of a battle or rather more difficult for me to enter the field, partly due to the system, partly due to stigma and partly due to the very real nature of my unique way of living, but pen in hand, I'm ready to rise to the challenge. There's that cliché saying, "when you know, you know" and I think it definitely applies here. I know that my degree choice is absolutely right for me and I know that the university I've chosen as my first choice is as right as my choice of college was. I don't know what the future will bring but no one really does, and I think it's okay not to know. 

So yes, I aspire to become a sixth form teacher but I'm also planning on keeping my options open, finishing this chapter of my studies, enjoying my summer as well as degree. Yes, I'm scared as hell about leaving college and living by myself for the first time, but fear (in this case) shows how much these things matter to me. I plan on working with my fear, giving it a hug and then showing it an alternative. I plan on living my life to the full, aspiring to explore all of my options, taking opportunities as they come, becoming friends with my confusion and my curiosity. Now I'm going to spend some time enjoying being a human who is ready, in spite of fear, to embrace the next chapter of whatever comes next. Whatever happens, I intend to live my best life. 

                                                                                    - Amello

I'm coming out- My relationship with "The Rainbow Curtain"

In November 2020 an economist writer, under the name of Charlemagne, coined the phrase "The Rainbow curtain" in order to show the divide between the rights that some LGBTQ+ people get and the rights that some don't have access to. The fact that the divide exists is beyond utterly outrageous and especially soul crushing when you consider how many other social groups it can be applied to. That being said, I think that the term can also be used to show the divide between what we are taught and what we learn or rather, what we think we know and what we discover, especially in regards to gender and sexuality. 

When I was younger I didn't know about the gender and sexuality spectrum, because it wasn't talked about or taught or mentioned in any way, shape or form. Whether that was due to where I came from or general social attitudes, I don't know. I suspect that it was mostly due to the fact that at that point in time, which admittedly wasn't all that long ago, the conversation just didn't come up. In spite of the fact I've been fortunate enough to have grown up in a liberal family, films, books and music all taught 5-13 year old me that "straight" was the only orientation in existence and gender had to fit into 1 of 2 boxes. This only really changed when I moved from a sea-side town to a rural, in-land village.

I first heard the word "transgender" in middle school. The first time I was asked about my "sexuality" was in secondary school and I had to ask my friend what it meant. I'm honestly so glad that I did because I ended up googling something along the lines of: "what sexuality are you if you're attracted to personality not gender?" 

I'm not even kidding, I'd never taken gender into account during that weird period as a kid where relationships are a fun game and the moment a boy and a girl hangs out, someone chants "Eva and John sitting in a tree K I S S I N G". Even in middle school when I'd been asked about various crushes, the very real stereotype of girl-talk, I had always responded with "*insert name* has a nice personality" or "I want to get to know so-and-so more".

 Anyway, after a few days of googling I came across the term "Pansexual" and I immediately thought "yeah, that pretty much sums it up", so I told my friend that I was Pan and she came out to me as "Gay" because she'd had lots of experience with "Lesbian" being used as a slur in her previous school. 

In fact, I didn't know that "coming out" was a thing until my friend asked me if my parents were going to be okay with it and I responded by saying "who wouldn't?"... and that's how I learned about "homophobia"... which lead to a strategy called "the traffic light system". Previously used in schools to describe how you thought you were doing in a subject, this strategy was now being used to help you decide if the time is right to come out to your parents or whoever you would like to come out to.

The traffic light system

Red- if you hear homophobic slurs, if they give you an indication that they are totally against it, if you know that they don't agree with it or they are just in a difficult mood, do not proceed!

Amber- if you are unsure, probe/bring up the topic in general terms- this should lead to the detection of a red or green light

Green- if you think that they will be alright with it, if they actively support the community or if they seem to be in a generally chill mood, go for it!

Truth be told, I completely ignored the system and went straight for it without much of a second thought. I told my mother that I was Pansexual, and explained what it meant, whilst she was cooking, she dropped the frying pan and burst out laughing and I did too. I'm not entirely sure if I ever came out to my stepdad, I think there was just an understanding that he knew and was chill with it. In fact, I really do consider myself to be very lucky considering some of the stories I've heard of all sorts of *insert gender or sexual orientation*phobia. Not to brag but I've only ever been to 2 pride parades, one year in Brighton and the year after in London, and both times I was actually in the parades. Yes, to clarify, I've never actually seen a pride parade but I've been in 2, supporting 2 different organisations and both times I participated alongside my parents. If that's not ideal parental support, I honestly don't know what is.

If you couldn't already tell, I've been out and proud to pretty much everyone since I was 14. That being said, in recent years things haven't been so straight forward...

Last February (2020), I went through a bit of an identity crisis or rather I was panicked because I'd never thought to question my gender. This completely ate me up, I am not kidding, I was completely disgusted with my appearance. I wanted to hide my chest and look less curvy and less feminine, to put it lightly. In short, I'd experienced what I understood later as "gender dysphoria"- the feeling of being in the wrong body- and I wanted to get rid of it ASAP. So I messaged a few friends about it and they taught me about "pronouns" and encouraged me to express myself however I wanted to. So that's exactly what I did. At the time I was on a mini-break in Stratford-upon-Avon, which meant that I had to get creative, so I used my allowance to buy one set of men's clothes from a few charity shops. The moment I got back to the hotel, I changed into them and hid my incredibly long hair (the longest I've grown it to date) under a beanie. It made me feel so much better, but something wasn't quite right. My chest was still apparent. Thankfully, the family member I was sharing a room with helped me make a temporary binder out of fabric and shoe laces and I went out to dinner feeling confident as heck. At least until I had to take the binder off and then I felt that horrific sinking, sick feeling all over again. 

A week or two later, one of the friends I had contacted about the whole "I'm questioning my gender" thing invited me to visit them in London to do a clothes swap as they had some clothes they wanted to get rid of and I had a small sack of clothes, which I had been meaning to extract from my wardrobe for quite some time. This meant that I was able to exchange a few of my clothes for a few more masculine bits and pieces that were in my size. I also decided to change my pronouns on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and I asked a close-knit circle of friends to call me by my new pronouns. I even turned up at an open mic night dressed in my more masculine clothes. 

And then after that the whole "masculine" didn't feel comfortable or suit me anymore, so I reverted back to my old style and pronouns, which I still love and embrace to this day. My style wasn't generally considered to be overly feminine in the first place, rather somewhere in between i.e. colour coordinated outfits, t-shirts with slogans and pictures, trousers or shorts and leggings. For practical reasons- worthy of a separate post- I only generally wear skirts and dresses for events/special occasions. Basically, most of my friends describe my style as "indie and geeky", which I think describes it perfectly. In addition, I learned a ton more about feminism and currently consider myself to be a proud "intersectional feminist", I've even had the opportunity to speak at a women's day celebration, which was one of the few highlights of 2020.

So in a nutshell, what I'm trying to say is that even though this particular experience/memory/anecdote/call-it-what-you-like isn't one that I'm overly open about/have talked about much if at all, I'm not ashamed of it in any way whatsoever. I felt beyond uncomfortable, I experimented and then I re-discovered myself. There is absolutely nothing wrong with experimenting or questioning your gender, sexuality or identity and the stigma around this really needs to go. Heck, there's nothing wrong with changing your mind and changing it again and again. Heck, there is no time limit and there is no pressure to change either. Embrace each other, embrace yourself and embrace the beautiful uniqueness of the world.

Now I'd like to talk about Labels. A highly debated topic. It doesn't matter which side you are on, if you're somewhere in between or if this is your first time hearing about this- there really is no excuse to judge someone for their use of Labels or lack-thereof or lack of knowledge. Diversity in society is beyond awesome, let's embrace that or at the very, very least, not be assholes about it. 

Some people don't like labels, don't like to use them for various reasons, such as they don't want to be defined by them or they don't want their identity to be put back into a box. That's totally fine, I'm not judging at all, I honestly do respect that, labels can cause so many problems at times and no one should ever force you to use them! 

I, personally, choose to use them because I tend to find that it makes my life a bit easier. Most of the labels I use for myself are out of necessity or because they generally save lots of time. Basically, I could have had lots of different conversations in the time it takes for me to explain the same thing to multiple people. That being said, I would rather explain something than have someone make assumptions or guesses. As well as this, I tend to see labels as a way of embracing who I am or at the very least understanding myself better. A simple word to explain a concept for everyone (myself included) with the bonus, as previously mentioned, of being able to change them as, when and if any of us so choose. An attempt to make sense of things that, more often than not, don't make sense. 

All of that being said, since writing the original version of this post, things have changed. I decided to revert back to defining my sexuality as purely Pansexual since meeting someone who changed my life for the better.  Additionally, since going to university I've been significantly less open about my sexuality. Don't get me wrong, it's still important to me and I'll forever be talking about acceptance and inclusion, but I've decided to take the time to fully explore how I feel about my sexuality and expression of it. 

So to sum up: LGBTQ+ education is important and needs to be taught widely, things change, things change on your terms, there is no rush, it's okay to take time to explore things for yourself, your self expression and understanding of your sexuality is entirely your own experience and should never be invalidated. Labels are purely down to personal choice. 

I'll see you folks on the flip side.

- Amello