On Reflection, That Wasn't Okay

I was bullied when I was at school. Not really for anything, and not particularly seriously. I also like to think that it wasn't in a way which has severely affected me later on; that I'm still successful and confident and that actually if anything it was people who I considered friends that let me down and hurt me more than people who used to call me a 'loser' when I was 14. In that I suppose I was lucky, because that's all they did, no one beat me up, no one picked out a physical attribute to make me insecure about, they just laughed at me and thought I was a bit weird. At the time I thought it was the worst thing in the world and I cried a lot, in retrospect it's made me very sensitive to other people's feelings and given me the ability to laugh at myself. Other people still laugh at me too, and now I practically encourage it. 

My point is that even after I left school I didn't really know what it was like to have someone pick on something really specific and make me feel uncomfortable about it. Not until I went to a very small university in the South West with my incredibly soft northern accent did I have that experience. I'd love to say that more than anything it was just boring, that four years after arriving at Bath I just rolled my eyes when someone paused to imitate my accent back at me. But it wasn't just boring, it was frustrating and at some points very isolating. 

I appreciate that it doesn't sound like a big deal, and I don't bring it up often just because of that. That being said this is my space on the internet and if I want to get angry about something then I can. So here it is: when people make fun of my accent it really pisses me off. Mostly because even four years down the line no one seemed to have guessed that maybe I might be a little bored of hearing about it, and whilst it might have been meant in friendly jest 90% of the time it sometimes struggled to come across like that around 50% of the time. That's mostly because by and large it was just aimed at me. There are, sadly unsurprisingly, very few people from the north of England at the University of Bath. That's fine, I didn't move there to be surrounded by northern people, that wasn't what I expected to need to have to feel comfortable or to make friends. I made friends and mostly I felt increasingly at home. Until someone commented on my voice, and then I felt very far from home and anything but comfortable. 

The thing about my voice is that there's very little I can do about it. It was formed through years of social interaction and at age 22 I'd say it was probably here to stay. In that sense it's much like my appearance in that it's an integral part of who I am but I have basically no control over it. So when someone makes fun of it, or suggests that I pronounce stuff wrong, I tend to feel much as I imagine you would if someone made fun of your physical appearance. I feel pretty rubbish but also pretty personally aggrieved because it doesn't really feel like a fair game. It's not fair because those people were surrounded by other people who sounded just like them, hence noticing I sounded different. But I spent 18 years surrounded by people who spoke just like me and I still managed to keep it together when I moved somewhere else. I was more than aware that there were people with accents other than mine and that they had just as much a right to be okay with their speech as I did with mine. 

The only difference was I was out on my own, I very rarely heard anyone speak back to me in a voice that held any familiarity, and that probably wouldn't have been so bad if it didn't also come coupled with the suggestion that there was something fundamentally 'not as good' about my accent.

It never really let up and looking back I never really suggested that it annoyed me. It took coming home and realising how much of a toll the experience had taken on me to realise how much I never ever want to deal with that again. I have no interest in being told that I pronounce things 'wrong', I also have no interest in being told the 'correct' word for something which I happen to have a different word for because of where I learnt to speak. I also have no interest in being told I'd be 'attractive if it wasn't for your voice', which is insulting and demeaning in a number of different ways that I can't even be bothered to go into here. 

I do however, have every interest in continuing to express myself in my own voice and trying to reverse the audible 'softening' of my accent that has taken place. My accent doesn't get stronger when I'm angry or tired, I just stop sub-consciously trying to hide it. The fact that, instead of expressing my discomfort, I just slowly adapted my voice, just because it was easier, has to be the saddest part of this whole thing. I let people make me feel like the way I express myself, that the way I am wasn't good enough and that I should change it; that is absolutely the worst thing I've ever heard. 

xx

Tiny Victories of the Week.

I'm usually pretty hard on myself when it comes to feeling down, I've seen one too many inspirational Instagram posts and it's left me feeling like every day should be seized with the most positive energy possible and I should end it feeling like I'd conquered Rome. 

Recently though, I've decided to give myself a break. I think I could quite legitimately choose to be incredibly grumpy at the moment and not have to take joy in anything. I certainly don't feel like I'm conquering any days so much as I'm enduring them and still standing at the end.

Hence the title of 'tiny victories'; they are tiny, and fairly mundane successes throughout what has been a very difficult week.

• Everyone I came into contact with when I was travelling on my own was more than happy to help me. People are really nice if you just ask.
• My make up lasted all of my 12 hour journey to Maastricht, making me feel a lot less like a stressed mess. At least on the outside.
• I had a bit of a disaster on Wednesday but it's nothing that can't be fixed and it had the added bonus of acting as a massive wake-up call that I need to return to my super-organised and super-alert self and not let everything that's happening around me make me absent-minded.
• At a time when I feel like I churn out bad news like there's no tomorrow, everyone who cared for me has continued to do so and not once made me feel uncomfortable about it.
• Whenever I admitted that I would need some help and that I wasn't coping, I wasn't once made to feel like that wasn't completely fine.
• One of my dissertation tutees said I helped her feel less stressed about her dissertation.
• I absolutely love my subject and I can't wait to spend the rest of my life doing it.
• I've started writing again after a break so long I couldn't call it a hiatus so much as an abandonment.

xx

On Hilarious Women, And Being Surrounded By Them

Until about three months ago, when people used to say that women weren't funny I would feel first angry, then disappointed, then an incredible desire to make a list of women I knew for a fact were funny. Now, if presented with a similar problem, I would just feel sorry for them.

I'd feel sorry for them because that means that when they went through the hardest times in their life, they weren't surrounded by hilarious female comrades to remind them that they could do (and handle) anything they damn well wanted. 

So this post is dedicated to those women, to the friend who helped me use theatre analogies to assess my now 'one-woman show' of a life after my relationship came apart. To the friend who asked me actual questions and allowed me to make actual (all be it pretty bleak) jokes about an illness in the family. And to all the women in my life who told me stories and laughed at mine just minutes after I'd told them something life-changing and often horrible.

Women who didn't only make me laugh but also made me feel strong. Women who inspired me to keep going as they did when they went through a hard time; with a smile on their face and always committed to making other people laugh. Women who never once tried to change my mind once I'd made a decision, women who always supported me, never spoke badly of me and believed in my worth even when I felt like I was trying to walk against a brick wall.

Women who can make me laugh out-loud in public with one perfectly worded text. Women who's timing is impeccable and phrasing is perfect. Women who will listen to me rant about anything and everything; from EU membership, Shakespeare in the national curriculum and that stupid guy that makes me want to hit something. Women who will rant in return and be a million times more hilarious than I was whilst they do it.

So women are funny, They are hilarious. They're hilarious every day and they're hilarious especially when absolutely nothing else could even raise a smile from me. Which if anything is the real test, because if you can be funny when no one wants to laugh that's pretty damn good. So if you're going to tell me that women can't be funny, then that's sad for you, I hope you find one soon and apologise to them for being such an arsehole in a past life.

xx