Chapter 68

To be honest, there was a very strong urge for me to skip this chapter in the retelling of my life. It’s not my proudest moment. In fact, this next chapter would be some of the most shameful life events I’ve ever lived through. Honestly, this next chapter will tell a story of my most embarrassing moments in life. There’s a lot of vulnerability in the contents of this part of my life and honestly, if I had asked myself a few years ago about this incident, I would’ve taken a bullet to my head before I told it. 

Do you ever recall an instance in your life when you felt the world was ending? If you never have, I really hope you never do. I never understood despair until I experienced it. It’s not fun. It’s hell on earth. You often wish death upon yourself multiple times over. To be honest, even with the hindsight of knowing I will be going through many iterations of world ending events, it’s still incredibly difficult to talk about it. These events are usually a matter of shame. And by that I mean it’s hard to talk about because they are usually things I’m ashamed about. 

I had experienced a world ending event in the past. The last one I had? It was when I was young. You read about it too. I was standing in my grandma’s place in China, holding the phone in my hand and listening to my mom tell me all the reasons why she had to go to Canada first and leave me behind in China. That was a while ago. I actually had put the thing out of my head and forgot that my consciousness was capable of experiencing despair. But oh boy was I about to be reminded. 

I was about to have my first mental meltdown. All those spirals I’ve experienced were leading into this. I mean, to be honest, I knew it was coming. I could only perform so well in school when I had this constant battle with my own psyche about whether or not I should study. The motivation was always running dry and I was always in a haze. It was inevitable that this would carry over into my academic life at some point. 

So picture this. I was done with Optometry year 2. I had finished all my exams and went back to Toronto to spend it with the girlfriend. However the year went, it was now over. Or so I thought. I was just thinking that, having survived year 2 of optometry, hopefully things should get better from here. I was too depressed to be optimistic but regardless, being back in Toronto with the girlfriend felt good. 

There was only one source of anxiety. My grades. You see, the grades for our courses get released usually weeks after our final exam. I was no stranger to this. This happens every term. I also knew that the passing marks in Optometry was 60% and I have never gotten any mark lower than a 70% before. Despite all my struggles in Optometry, I usually didn’t struggle hard enough that it showed on my GPA. 

As the days went on, I would come to realize that there was 1 last mark that was not updating on my online transcript. I got nervous. I realized it was pharmacology, a memory-heavy examination that I felt really bad about. I was not thrilled. My anxiety compounded further when I came to realize that the deadline for all marks to be released got closer and closer and my mark was still blank. 

I kept looking over my phone again and again, trying desperately to get the mark to show up and present a number higher than 60% on it. Unfortunately, the mark just seemed to never update. While waiting, the dark voices in my head would start to get louder and louder. My heart sank with every day that passed by. Before I knew it, the deadline for mark submission had passed. I knew it then. I knew something was wrong. I knew that I had failed that 1 course. Sure enough, a few days later, I would get an email. It told me that I had not met the requirements of one of my courses. 

With that one email, all the colors I saw went away and I was enveloped into darkness. 

It is often said that you can define a person by how they act when dealing with world ending events. I really hope that’s not true because I’m not proud of how I react whenever I am met with a world ending event. The first thing I always feel is shame. Not a light amount of shame either. An earth shattering amount of it. 

Later on in life I would come to understand that my upbringing had instilled upon me one undeniable character trait. It was the feeling of being ashamed. I felt this emotion stronger than any other and honesty, if we trace it back enough, it can even be argued that all the things I’ve done in the past to meet my mom’s expectations to avoid being shamed. 

I mean, it kind of makes sense. I did well in school because I didn’t want to be shamed for being a bad student. I did well in cello because I didn’t want to be shamed for being inadequate at my skills. I think my upbringing instilled upon me a feeling of self doubt and self loathing whenever I failed at anything. I often hated myself for it. This time was no different. 

I wanted to throw up. I couldn’t even read the rest of the email. My mind went back and forth between complete darkness and a symphony of demonic voices telling me how much of a disappointment I was and how I should be ashamed of underperforming. 

Back and forth. Again and again. Going on repeat with no stops. Just a loop of my worst inner thoughts on full blast. It seemed like there was no end in sight. I think I must have stayed that way for a good hour before a familiar voice broke the cycles. It was my girlfriend. 

She was staying with me and had been there when I opened the email. She was quietly just staying nearby just watching me as I delved into this mental spiral of endless self deprecating thoughts. She seemed like she didn’t know what to do. It’s not fair to expect her to save me because how does someone really save someone else from themselves? I think all things considered she probably chose the best thing to do. She simply stayed by my side and asked if she could help in any way. For me, that was enough. 

She was my bedrock. 

I explained the situation to her. As I talked more and more about it, I felt the voices at least calm down a bit. In truth, this wasn’t as big a deal on paper as you may expect. Whenever you failed a class in optometry school, they would make you take a supplementary examination the next term over (meaning in the summer). If you pass that exam, you simply keep moving on with the program without any issues. 

When I told the girlfriend about this she was very optimistic about what I was about to go through. But at the same time, she knew that this was horrible for me mentally. I’m not used to failing a course. It’s just not who I am. 

Seeing as how I was unable to do so, she took my phone and then looked at the rest of the email. She read it to me since I was unable to do it myself. It was just some fluff telling me about the date and time of my supplementary test. That’s pretty much it. The secretary of our school, who sent the email to me, had a tone to her wording that sounded almost like she did this all the time. A fact that was actually true though I wouldn’t find out about this until later. 

After a few hours of being on the bed and feeling horrible. I decided to get up and do something about the situation I found myself in. Then, and I have no idea why I decided to do this, I started to compose a post for my class’s facebook group. This group had been formed since the beginning of my time at the Optometry program and was usually overflowing with posts by my classmates pertaining to parties, exams scheduling and sometimes other school related events. 

I think, looking back, I felt that if I told my class that I had failed a class that I would be less ashamed of it. Maybe outing myself would make it so the problem felt more tangible and therefore, easier to deal with. Another part of me was wondering if maybe there was someone else in the same boat as me. I thought that if I posted, maybe I could find some company with this nasty feeling and that might make it better. The saying “Misery Loves Company” came to mind. 

The post started off as something simple. It was something along the lines of “Welp sh*t, looks like I’m gonna be studying for a supplementary test for pharm. Anyone else in the same boat?”. It was simple and would invite those who were in the same boat as me to reach out. I thought nothing too much of it but then, something strange happened. Just like how I couldn’t really explain why I started to compose this post, I couldn’t explain why I really decided to do what I did next. Instead of posting, I started to write more. 

The first revision added on something along the lines of “I knew I should have used this or that as a study resource” but then I started to add even more. I started to actually rant a bit. The course for pharmacology had this and that which could be improved. The exam had an unfair share of this topic which wasn’t covered or that topic which was very poorly taught in class. After I started ranting about the topics, I just didn’t stop. The post kept getting longer and longer. Then, I got angry and just kept adding things that weren’t even related to the topic anymore. There were negative feedback comments about the school, about the professors and even about the program in general. A few hours would go by before I realized that there was no way in hell I could post this draft anymore. It was now way too toxic for anyone in my class to see. 

I clicked delete. 

Well. Not quite. I clicked delete after I copied the passage and pasted it on to a google doc. I felt like I had gone through all the 5 stages of grief in that one draft and felt that maybe if I kept a record of all the negativity I was thinking, that it may help me reach acceptance faster in the future should I experience another episode of manic ranting. 

After making sure that I never posted anything a few more times. I decided to close my laptop and take a break. It was now hours after I had gotten the email. I was exhausted. Sure enough, all the voices in my head had also stopped and I was also not feeling the darkness I felt when the words from the email first entered my psyche. 

I figured a nap was in order. However, as I was about to take the nap, I realized I still had more to write. So, instead of napping, I took out my laptop again and this time, renamed the google doc with my rant in it as “Misc Rants”. Then I got to it again. This time, with a different tone of voice. I was through with the anger, I was now just a bit anxious if anything. If you’re wondering how that played out, you’re in luck. I kept that google doc and have the exact passage here.

Excerpt taken “misc rants”

Title: Post Pharmacology Exam Email (you know what I’m talking about)

This feeling I’m currently feeling. You know,. The bad one? The one that accompanies the voices? It’s way stronger than anything I’ve felt before. The closest I got to it was when I thought I failed my chemistry final way back in undergrad year 1. This failure so far has completely washed over me. It’s caused me to have a week’s worth of sleepless nights. If there’s a definitive definition of anxiety, it’s probably this. I am experiencing a recurrent wave made from a mix of feeling guilty, feeling like shit, and feeling like I need to die. All because of what? 1 failed course? I suppose it’s more than that, it’s the only course I’ve failed in 6 years of university.

First things first. That 1 course of failing? With all things considered, even after failing, I would still be in Optometry School. They weren’t kicking me out. All I had to do was a supplementary test to make up for the 1 course I failed. Should I fail that test, I would simply repeat the course I failed the next time it was offered, which was a year later. Yup, the worst case scenario was that I gotta wait around on my butt for a year and then go to school to take 1 course next year. I wouldn’t need to repeat any of the other courses. It would just be one course. I wasn’t too scared of this. If anything, I think the scariest part of this is the full year of doing absolutely nothing except being kept in limbo while my classmates advanced further towards graduation. A year of self-reflection and hanging out with my reflection. I’m not sure I like that person. He feels like bad company. 

Why is he bad company though? Why? All things considered, I was still gonna go ahead with my career, I was still gonna succeed and pass eventually. I was going to become an Optometrist. It was just a time delay and even then, that’s assuming I would fail the supplementary test which hasn’t even happened yet. So why is this hitting me so hard? 

[…gibberish…]

I wonder if I’ll still be friends with my class if I repeat a course next year. I mean, I can’t see how I wouldn’t be. Afterall, I would be left in the dust. This is a terrifying thing to imagine. I would lose what little network I had with them. That wouldn’t be pleasant. 

[…more gibberish…]

Should I tell my friends in the class? What would they think of me? I mean, the dropout rate of the program is zero and that means no one has ever failed out. I’m not sure if this means that no one has ever failed a course but I really wouldn’t be surprised. Maybe I’m an anomaly of failure. 

I mean…Just think…No one has repeated a year in decades. Our professors and lab assistants all told us this fact. When you were selected, it was expected of you to be the best. You were entrusted to pass all courses with at least a 60%. So maybe that was the main issue. I’m scared that I was going to be the first to fail a course where the passing grade was a 60%. A very low bar. 

I mean, what even was my mark anyway? Oh right, 58%. That’s hilarious. Just 2% off from passing. What a joke. 

I suppose it’s not so bad. I suppose I should also get to work and start studying for the exam I’ve already studied for. 

[…more gibberish…]

End of passage

Writing this all down made me feel better. In fact, I’m surprised it took as long as it did for me to finally write down in a journal all the things I went through. It’s therapeutic. I did mention that at some point in the future someone would give me the idea of venting out my frustrations by writing but in truth, I had been doing it before they told me. I just never compiled them all together into a cohesive narrative. They were always just small excerpts like the one I just showed you. As I mentioned, I felt better after dealing with all of the thoughts after writing them down on a page. 

While the actual work wouldn’t be any easier from all the writing, my motivation and mental state did improve slightly. In the end, that would prove to be useful when coping. Regardless, I knew it was time to get to work. It was time to cram for an exam I had already studied for.