Jobs, Failure and Fight.

This blog has been brewing for a while but was inspired today by Twitter friend Tracey Sinclar  and her blog 'Shame Fear and the Freelance Hustle' which I actually read twice because it resonated too much. I won’t step on her toes by rehashing it, but Tracey deals eloquently with the idea of imposter syndrome, shame and generally feeling like you are not where you ought to be (even if you’re doing great).

And it's something I've thought a lot about lately. The Idea of never being quite enough. A hangover from Academia? certainly. A symptom of Millenial life? for sure. A personal trait of perfectionism? of ambition? sure. But there is this endless sense of failure to be enough no matter how hard I work. And the sense that somehow I'm not working enough. And I'm not entirely sure how to do anymore. 

What I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is both the exhaustive cycle of job hunting and that in trying to break that feeling that you’re both a failure and not good enough all at once. And feeling like you’ve been left behind for your age. For where you should be in life.

I feel like I constantly have to prove that I’m working hard enough. And that I’m not someone who has no experience and has done nothing expecting miracles. That I’m not just ‘messing about’ and that what I do is work. And that I work hard at it. And it’s exhausting. Because still I feel like I’m banging on doors that remain firmly closed. And when do you stop? Concede defeat and take whatever fate offers and try and live something resembling a normal life?

On world mental health week I wrote some tweets about the impact of long term job hunting. I can’t say long term unemployment because I’ve always managed to scrape by on temping, Christmas retail and other bits- so the longest I’ve been out of work was 2.5 months, which was ironically a forced mental health break after Murder Admin job.

But it is exhausting. I haven’t ever had a contract longer than a year, aside from my PhD teaching. And even that was renewed year on year and wasn’t a given in terms of hours and income. I have lived with continually uncertainty and near continuous job hunting for most of the last decade. I have lived with a constant state of job hunting for two years. And it is exhausting.

And it is soul destroying.

The obvious element is the perpetual failure. The putting yourself out there, only to get knocked back. The ‘feedback’ that becomes a catalogue of your failures. Most often that you cannot do anything about. If I get told one more time that I need ‘more experience of x’ when x is the job I’m applying for in order to get more experience.

And let’s park for a moment the decade of experience in everything from Admin to Project Management, to Teaching to all the shitty customer service jobs and ‘paying my dues’ that I did to get this far. I am a capable, experienced, and yes a highly qualified person. And I shouldn’t have to justify the former or apologise for the latter.

But job hunting is exhausting in its relentlessness. And so is the life of fixed-term contracts. No sooner is one begun than you’re looking for the next. And it leaves you in a perpetual state of flux.

The constant feeling of life being on hold. Waiting for the ‘next’. It’s the ‘well I better not plan to…’ just in case a job comes through. It’s the ‘what if I have to move’ that holds you back from life. From planning things. From doing things. Hand on heart I can say part of my reluctance to get involved in relationships includes (but is not limited to) the perpetual sense of ‘well what if I have to move away to get a job, it’s too complicated, it’s not worth it’

And you feel like you never progress. In life as well as career. Because the question of ‘what next’ hangs over us.

And it’s a fight. And it feels personal. I failed as an academic, and I cannot for love bribery or sheer bloody determination yet persuade the theatre world I’m worthy of their time of day. Do I want a ‘proper job’…possibly not. What is one anyway? But I feel the pressure nonetheless. To not fail. Whatever that it also.

Yes, I took a leap 2 years ago. On losing my last full time (but fixed term) job. Or moreover, I made a vow- not to take another long-term time full-time job for the sake of having a full-time long term job. I wanted to break the cycle of one shitty job that wasn’t leading anywhere to another. But also, on trying to carve something out of what I really want in life.

And every time you feel like you've made a friend in solidarity, one who understands where you are in life...they leap frog over you to something super awesome instead. And you're sat left behind again. And I never resent another person's success. But it doesn't mean it can't break your heart sometimes. 

And then there’s the judgment. I didn’t realise until recently it was a thing, but some people do in fact see it as a failing to accept or do so many fixed-term jobs- as if it’s a choice. ‘Well I couldn’t live my life like that’ well bully for you that you don’t have to. I'm in a cyle of two steps forward, ten back. Two years ago I was teaching at the National Theatre...now I'm, well I'm doing nothing much. And it's how it goes maybe. Maybe something is just around the corner. But right now that corner feels pretty bleak and dark and scary. 

And it's lonely. 

I’ve had friends drop me from their lives because they have ‘a proper job now’

And I get it. I’m being left behind because I’m not ‘where I’m supposed to be’

I’m not buying property. Not getting engaged. Not having fancy holidays and dinner parties and whatever the real grown-ups do.

You know why not? Because I’m working. Constantly. Because to try and dig myself out of whatever hole I've ended up in. To try and haul myself over the next hurdle, to even have a shot of...something...it takes work. And yes part of it is passion, and drive and need. But it's also necessity. None of it happens by magic. 

I lost my shit slightly with someone on Sunday night because I couldn’t get an answer on next day plans. Not only does it drive me completely insane when people don’t respond to messages about plans (erm yeah it is rude, ok?) but also because I don’t have set working hours, because I don’t get weekends and Bank Holidays, I need to plan my day. And I’m sick to death of people not valuing my work- and my work time, just because I don’t go to a set place to do it. My work I do for myself, is work. My writing is work. All of my freelancing is work. And the juggle is hard work. But I mostly feel invisible. Like my lack of lanyard and office place makes it ‘not real’…or the lack of visible progress makes it a joke, something I’m playing at that I can drop at will…I feel like my entire work is treated as a hobby sometimes. Something I’m filling unemployment with while I wait for the ‘real job’.

And I see the judgement the ‘you’re 34 just get a real job, just settle for goodness sake’

And there are days when I want to so badly. To have been in this cycle of job rejection, alongside chasing all those things I want for so long. I am truly broken.

And there are days when I feel so badly I’ve failed that I sit sobbing on the floor- that’s not hyperbole, I literally sit sobbing on my floor because I feel so very defeated by it all, and such a failure. 

And there are days when sheer exhaustion means I've got no fight left. And so you sit crying on the floor once again. 

I was also reminded yesterday of a description of dear Jonathan Larson. Who would leave parties at 9pm to go home and write. Who did the bare minimum ‘day job’ hours so he could have all the time he could, literally afford, to do his ‘real job’. And that’s what I’ve been doing. Hour after hour, day after day, trying and trying to inch closer to ….something. And maybe it’s delusional, maybe I’ve no right to. But also this is how I’ve lived for almost a decade now- first with the PhD then with everything after. I don’t know how to not do it, how not to fight.

Even if the fight is exhausting. Even if I feel like an imposter. Even if I feel like it’s a losing battle.

To paraphrase and co-opt a more eloquent writer than I;

I don’t know if it’s braver to give up. But I recognise the habit, the addiction to keeping trying.

I just wish more people understood what it takes some days to do that. And how frightening the idea of stopping is. Because what do you do when you stop fighting? 

Clumsy Girl Running (quite far it seems)

My life is filled with potentially stupid decisions. And today was no exception.

Somehow between getting up and my second cup of coffee, I'd signed up for the Cardiff Half Marathon.

I'm not entirely sure how this happened.

Actually, I am. My friend Matryn said he was and someone got me from 'Hmm I'd like to do that one day' to 'You're doing it in October.' And I may just chase him the whole way for revenge.

Really I have thought for many years about doing it. But never quite got there. So if not now when right?

I'm not a natural athlete. I was the fat uncoordinated accident prone kid at school who hated PE with a burning passion. But one thing that always shocked my classmates, and my teachers is that I wasn't terrible at Cross Country. Not 'be invited onto the team' good (I don't think my shitty comp had a team) but that I made it back far from last, seemed to shock them.

Because shock horror running in a straight (ish) line slowly but consistently, wasn't...actually that difficult? And that actually the fat uncoordinated kid, wasn't totally unfit because she also did a lot of swimming and spent every weekend messing about with horses. But I'm so, so accident prone so distance running always seemed a recipe for disaster.

As a grown up I've never had any tolerance for group sporting activity. I can fall over thin air. I can't catch kick or hit a ball. Gym classes give me flashbacks to PE and sports where balls fly at my nose are best avoided. But I've always enjoyed a run. And the gym.

Again people seem shocked. The bookish nerdy chubby one likes to exercise. But it's been my saviour mental health wise. And general sanity-wise.

Through my teacher training, through my PhD and every shitty job in between, I've always gone to the gym and run.

And now more than ever I feel I need something that is not my career, and work to focus on. So for the next 20 weeks or so I've got something. Something where I have to take time out of my day to do something, otherwise I'll never get around. Something where I have a goal to work towards that's not linked to career. And that feels like something I really do need.

This last year, this last 6 months more so has been so consumed, day and night by work. Lack of work. Career. Lack of career. I don't do anything really (other than collapsing into a heap AND going to the gym) that isn't career-adjacent. And that's fine, it's a choice. I have downtime, it's not totally unhealthy. But I need a goal, something for me, something that's only marker of success is 'doing it'. And I'm really looking forward to just doing something for the sake of doing the thing. And for hopefully doing some good at the same time.

I'm running for Big Moose. A small charity based in Cardiff.

I chose them firstly because Matryn, who got me into this mess, is running for them. But also because they are a small local charity. I also really admire what they stand for; leaving the world a better place. Their coffee shop (and I do love coffee) which employs and more importantly trains homeless people, so that they can go out into the world and work, and get back on their feet. This and so many of their other projects directly help people in the local community, and it seems like the perfect company to support by dragging my sorry arse around a half marathon. More about them here here

Also, I'm an honourary Canadian, so let's face it ya had me at 'Moose'

So yes I'll become a running bore. Yes, I will bitch and moan like nobody's business about it. But it'll be worth it.

As a side note the Half Marathon is the day after my play closes in Cardiff, so that's quite a week. And also feels like a bit of a bookend for 'whatever is next' and if nothing else, if you hate the play, feel free to chuck something at me as I run by your house....

Academia- breaking you, consuming you.

So for Mental Health Awareness week I've decided to do a few 'mini blogs' across the week, about things that have affected my mental health, things that have and haven't helped...all in the interests of talking more honestly.

None of this is designed as professional advice, I'm not a professional. None of this is a universal experience. But it's my experience, and I think the more we all talk about it, the better we'll understand each other.

Starting at the start, A is for academia. (these aren't really alphabetical but it seemed as good a place as any to start).

Mental health and academia. Where to start?

Probably the second biggest thing to impact my mental health in my life. And certainly the most long-lasting of effects. Why is academia so damaging?


Firstly, it's a toxic environment. It's a place that pits people against each other in a way that's almost Gladatorial. Since I started my PhD in 2010, I've seen things go from 'competitive industry' (nothing wrong with a bit of healthy competition') to 'fight of endurance' to 'fight to the death'

I WISH I was exaggerating. But the competition for jobs, funding and an all-around sense the sector is imploding faster than the Death Star, means, things are rough. And instead of collegiate, people get vicious. It's just the nature of the beast and humanity I guess.

More than this circumstantial shift however, it's bred into academia to be damaging.

Take the whole PhD structure. Done right it's an exercise in academic rigor, stretching and pushing yourself in a healthy way to achieve rewards. Done right it should build you up, both academic and personally to move on to the next stage of your career.

More often it's done badly, with breaking down of PhD students seems to have become the default setting by institutions. It's supposed to be hard, it's not supposed to break you.


For me personally, I had the shit time to end all shit times in my PhD. And I got spat out the other end at the point where the sector and jobs were at an all-time low. Here's a quick list of things that broke down my mental health during the process:

• Self-funding, the stress of supporting myself combined with the judgment from others for doing so (there is no hierarchy, whether you fund it yourself or get the funding it still says Dr in front of my name)
• See also being a working-class academic, with no family 'support' in the sense nobody has been through this stuff. 
• Conferences, as an introvert, dyslexic working-class woman. Not being able to afford things at conferences. Not being able to afford to go to conferences. 
• Working 3-4 jobs. Pulling pints alongside students I also taught. 
• My only supportive supervisor leaving (I don't resent or blame them for one second, but it ended my support system). 
• Two supervisors who hated, and I'd go as far to say bullied me at times. 
• Questions over my sexuality from a supervisor (the lesbian hatred of bisexuals is real y'all). Questions of sexuality and my 'right' to work on 'gay male' material. 
• Dyslexia and the judgment/lack of support around that. I was accused of lying about proofreading. 
• Dyslexia making me struggle, and having no support in the actual process of studying. 

These are all things that were VERY specific to my bad experience. But a list of other things academia does that breaks down mental health include:

• The attitude of 'break them down to build them up' on PhD students...except without building them up. 
• The 'pay your dues' and 'in my day we had to' attitude that doesn't take into account the additional challenges for today's PhD students. 
• Three years or more of constant criticism of your work, which does feel personal, no matter what. 
• Sacrificing everything for the PhD. From fitness to health, to friendships and relationships everything is put on hold for it.

The sense of self-worth you get it tied to your work and nothing else. I know I, and plenty of others sacrificed most of our 20s to it as well. That's a significant decade to lose- we lost the time you're supposed to have fun with friends and 'find your tribe'. We lost gaining that foothold on adulthood, the learning to live our lives. It sounds silly but putting yourself in this bubble means you miss out. 

A lot of us sacrificed any kind of relationships. Because it's just too hard. So either we missed out on long-term relationships, that would have seen us through. But we also missed out on just dating, learning how to do that stuff in your 20s. And now we're on the other side, in our 30s and all that is much harder. 

We lost friendships. Plain and simple, we weren't there we were doing a PhD. 

We got left behind in life. In careers, if we now have to look elsewhere, as many of us do. 

And we just got spat out a bit broken. With depression, anxiety, low self-esteem. Even I know PTSD for some. Because it's a system that tries to break you while you're in it, by consuming you. And that isn't healthy, but everyone else around you is doing it because they need to in order to get ahead. So you do too. 

And suddenly you're spat out the other side, wondering what happened. 

So today's PhD students, breathe, put your head above water. Don't let it eat you up. Don't let it take everything from you. 

To those of us who got out the other side, we're more than that. We can repair the damage. But it's going to take us time. But we can still sure as hell make up for lost time.


For mental health resources, and support a good first port of call is Time To Change who can be found here

Anxious post on Anxiety

I’m writing this early for Mental Health Awareness week. But then I thought, frankly fuck it. My mental health doesn’t wait for an awareness week to be a dick does it? So, I thought I’d inflict this blog on the world now, just like my mental health inflicts itself on me.

Because the truth is this week has been bad. My anxiety has flared up and I feel like there’s a weight pressing on my chest, that I’m failing at everything and that everyone hates me. I know rationally that it’s not (all) true. But it doesn’t make it any less real.

For me it’s also tied to physical health. My chronic illness (Ulcerative Colitis) which I’ve talked about here. And it’s a chicken and egg scenario of which one got worse first? So, this week my body has been in what we call a ‘flare’ which sounds more fabulous than it actually is, and my anxiety has felt left out and followed suit.

The trouble is though, I never feel QUITE ‘ill enough’ to complain about either of them. My UC isn’t debilitating (at the moment, touch wood etc.) so I don’t feel chronically ill enough. But also, I’m not exactly well and healthy either. But when your baseline for ‘well’ shift with chronic illness, I guess that’s all relative. I’m always reluctant to share both on the front of not wanting to be judged for my illness, but also being judged as ‘well you don’t seem ill’

Which of course is a nice parallel with mental health as well. I don’t SEEM like there’s anything wrong with me there either.

Because not unlike my Chronic Illness it’s relatively easy to hide. If I’m having a bad week with my UC, I can cancel a few plans, and hide away a bit. And on the whole,  it’s something that happens behind closed doors (well I should bloody well hope so, puns intended for those who do a bit of googling on that one) Similarly with anxiety, it happens mostly behind closed doors because it’s ‘all in my mind’. You can be having a full-blown anxiety attack and look like you’re just sitting in Pret right? Right. It’s not always full-blown panic attacks and crying. Sometimes it’s being frozen to a spot, stuck in your car or having over-thought so much you’ve watched an entire episode of Line of Duty and you've no idea what's going on, because you’re checking your phone compulsively because you’re convinced someone hates you, or you said something stupid on twitter…or, or….or it’s waking up feeling like you can’t breathe and just sort of living with it all day because there’s nothing much you can do. Ok that's a lie. I haven't watched Line of Duty, I'm not cool. But I've seen bits on Googlebox ok? The rest is true though. 

And the things it directly affects wouldn’t necessarily be noticed by other people. And it's so isolating. You feel like you can text a mate and whinge about flu or being sick. Not 'my mind is playing tricks on me again'

So instead, I freak out and cancel things. Sometimes little things. Flaking on a coffee or a gig or something. And/or I've been so wound up in everything I actually don't on purpose I just get it wrong and miss things. Here dyslexia and anxiety collide in one big old ticket-mix-up-wrong-train-mess.

But also I miss big things, like trips away and job interviews. Those are two big ones and the only things that have ever really been affected directly. Big life decisions cause anxiety (naturally) in everyone. But I at times find them utterly paralysing. And I have several times (and recently) panicked and not been able to make a job interview. Or travel somewhere. And I didn’t realise until someone else who has the same thing that this was a part of anxiety. But again it feels so silly to say out loud, because what grown ass adult behaves that way, and why can’t I slap some sense into myself and fix it?

And I find myself judging myself for it. Today I didn’t want to ring HMRC. Well, nobody wants to phone HMRC do they? But at that moment it was utter debilitating paralysis for it. It wasn’t I didn’t WANT to I couldn’t, I just couldn’t even contemplate picking up the phone.

And it’s so variable. Some people might say ‘well if your anxiety is bad how come you’re going out tonight to a huge comedy gig?’ And yes, for some people with anxiety going to the arena, full of crowds, is a worst nightmare. And yes, sometimes in different circumstances crowds get to me- equally though for me a night at the local pub theatre could be more anxiety-inducing in terms of ‘crowds’ and ‘people’ for me tonight, I know I only have to talk to one person, I know exactly what to expect from the gig, so it’s fine.

The point being anxiety looks and feels different to everyone. And I need to remind myself of that sometimes, that it’s not someone else’s. much like my chronic illness, which I will spare everyone the details about (today at least, that’s not what you came here for) but mine is different to the next person in the waiting room when I go for my annual check-up. But the physical symptoms are still valid. Even if they don’t match someone else’s experience.

But also, my mental health is physical. I can’t help but think the three-day-migraine I had last weekend (where I nearly threw up in the aforementioned pub theatre, sorry about that lads), was tied to a downturn in my mental health I hadn’t twigged on yet. The pounding headache I have today is not just HMRC induced (though an hour on the phone to them didn’t help) but tied to my general state of mind.

So, what even does having anxiety even mean?

First and foremost, feelings of failure. I find myself saying this over and over. How much of a failure I am. And the lines blur there between where life has landed me (hello perpetual millennial unemployment) the industries I’ve put myself in (Hello Academia my old friend) and what my mind is telling me.

This also comes from, so I’ve learned, people with anxiety commonly having extremely high standards for themselves. It doesn’t help of course that I’m embedded within an industry, hell even a generation that seems to be doing everything and then some. Everyone has a book, a podcast, writes for a cool publication, has a super cool job- oh and don’t forget a relationship and all that jazz too. And if you’re not ticking off all that at once you’re ‘failing’. And having had a run of fairly rubbish years in all those respects, job and life, I’m already feeling that way as it is most of the time, add on anxiety brain and well….

I feel like the ‘feeling the worst’ and ‘thinking over/overthinking a situation’ are fairly self-explanatory. I over analyse anything as a character trait. But when my anxiety is bad, I over analyse to catastrophe, and at the drop of a hat. My manager saying ‘let’s have a chat’ equals I will be fired within minutes….when in fact he wanted me to move the stuffed Moose to another wall or something equally ridiculous. And anxiety in work becomes self-fulfilling, I’ve had terrible employment experiences, that cause me anxiety associated with work…which makes me have extreme anxiety about work…and so on…

I’ve been paralysed in terms of writing my book, because I’m over thinking it. I’m thinking it into failure before it’s even finished. I’m thinking it into being rejected, mocked even, without actually committing the words to the page. And of course, that stops me committing the words to the page. Well, I say that I have 107, 000 words on some Angels if anyone wants to edit them for me….

Anger is an interesting one. And I didn’t realise it was a symptom of anxiety until fairly recently. It’s also the one I’m most deeply ashamed of. Thinking back, I can now see as far back as being a child how anxiety and anger went hand in hand. Under stressful and difficult situations- and yes sometimes threatening ones- anger is how I reacted. Under bullying, some occasionally violent or physically threatening situations in childhood, I know I responded with extreme anger or violence of my own. And I can now see how that transposes into my own anxiety. It’s rare, it’s usually now confined to some pretty extreme swearing (think the Godmother in Fleabag when the Hot Priest cancels) but it’s there and it’s a part of me I’m deeply ashamed of. I was once described, in a leadership role I have as ‘extremely calm’ and I would generally describe myself as that, so it really disturbs, even scares me that I have that part deep within me that isn’t that way, because of the way my brain sometimes (mal) functions.

Worrying People are upset with you: this along with anger is the big one for me. My deep dark secret. I can live with the worrying and feelings of failure. What eats me up inside is feeling like someone is upset with me, feeling I’ve done something to fuck up something…and going over and over it in my mind.  And its simple things, like a friend not replying to a message, or my manager saying, ‘we need to talk’. Either one of those spin out into extremes of ‘Oh god this means they think x and y and z and our whole relationship/job/whatever is ruined’ And then I seek reassurance and annoy people further…and so on and so in the cycle.

I assume the worst about what people think about me. I always think of Matthew Broderick when I think of this, when recording The Producers, he said ‘I just assume I’m wrong because that’s my personality’ and I just kind of assume people don’t like me until proven otherwise. Sometimes even then. And it’s probably the hardest thing about this, feeling unwelcome, disliked…unloved. It’s isolating and I often make the problem worse because of it.

But the trouble is, as the Matthew Broderick quote above suggests, some of this is just my personality. But it’s when it dips into, spills over into something more that it’s a problem.

Being an introvert doesn’t help, neither does being naturally empathetic. Yes, it’s become common to mock the introvert memes. But some of us are genuine introverts. And that means that yes, I don’t function well in crowds or large social gatherings. That yes parties and big groups leave me drained and more open to anxiety. Also, when you have social batteries that run down faster than others, that doesn’t help the anxiety lurking underneath the surface.

And empathy is a good thing, too right? Being an empathetic person is useful right? Well yes, but also those who have greater empathy seem to be more inclined towards anxiety. So basically, I’ll listen to your problems but probably take some of them on as well?

I have noticed this in recent months, my tendency to take on board other people’s issues, both in terms of trying to help ‘fix’ them, but also internalising some of it myself. In some cases, that’s ok, friends need that. In others that’s an unhealthy balance and get some distance from that toxic relationship.

I’m also ‘creative’ (read very dramatic) and yes, tend to feel things really deeply. Extremes of happiness (I think, it’s been a while) and sadness, anger, love (pass the sick bucket), lust (erm I guess, it’s been a while too) and everything in between. The unkind term is ‘over sensitive’ and as much as it impacts my anxiety, I actually wouldn’t have this any other way. My ability to feel things deeply, and to empathise makes me who I am. It also lets me do what I do as a writer. So, I’ll live with it thanks.

Because that’s the thing, while anxiety is a mental health condition, a lot of it, I think at least is personality related, and related to and makes me who I am. Empathy, introvert even a tendency to worry. In moderation, all these are ok, good even, healthy. It’s when the balance tips that there’s an issue.

So, what does help? How do I figure out what’s just my personality and what’s my brain being a bit broken? And how do you live with that? And what causes it?

I don’t have any real answers. Exercise does. Regular gym trips keep me generally balanced. Time alone. I need to recharge. Talking about it. Not talking about it. Cake. Wine. None of these are answers. But sometimes there are no answers, it’s just learning to adjust, lean into it and figure it out. For my friends, to understand, I’m not trying to be a dick, that I’m sometimes really really insecure and need some reassurance. But also to tell me when I’m being a dick too. To understand when I sometimes retreat, but also to drag my sorry ass out too. And to be that rational voice when I need it. And just to listen when I need it. And sometimes I just need someone to pick up up off the floor (metaphoric, sometimes literal, I fall down a lot) and give me a hug (the times this week I've just wished for a hug!) And tell me it'll be ok. Because I might listen to someone who isn't me. 

Why have I written this? I don’t know. It’s long, it’s probably nothing you haven’t heard before. But I think we need to keep adding our voices. To say this is what happens to me. To feel a little less alone maybe.