I suffer from social anxiety disorder and so the thought of walking into a room full of strangers always fills me with irrational dread for weeks before it even takes place. What if nobody likes me? What if I can't be myself? Is my opinion valid? What if I signal my arrival by slipping over going through the door and flying head first into a table full of new mentors?! These are just a few of the questions going through my head as I make the 10 minute walk to campus. But at the same time, I love people and was sick of holding myself back from being able to make meaningful connections more often. Over the last month or so I had developed a new sense of determination not to let my issues stop me from achieving what I want to achieve and being who I want to be. Afterall, the need to push myself past this problem was one of the reasons that I applied in the first place. With this in mind, a bit of dread had to be expected and even welcomed.
As I entered the room, I immediately understood how irrational some of my anxiety was and that we were all largely in the same boat. I was greeted by a room full of friendly but nervous faces and it was amazing how calm I suddenly felt (in comparison with the usual uncontrollable sweat and being on edge). I should probably point out at this stage that although I claimed to be a 'Mother Bear' when asked at the interview what animal I would be (now is not the time to explain reasons!), I am most definitely more like a nervous Guinea Pig!
This calmness continued all day to some degree. There is still a looooong way to go but I was able to be more myself than I had been in any group for a long time, let alone one that consisted purely of strangers... or new friends as I will now call them! I think that comes down to the way that the whole day was set up. Everything revolved around either sharing something with the group as a whole or working something out as part of a small group before sharing with everyone. The small groups were changed every time so by the end of the day it felt like we had played musical chairs and had met everybody properly. We started off by catching a ball and introducing ourselves and sharing something 'exciting' about yourself. I got the ball rolling with 'Hi, my name is Scott, I am a Documentary Photography student. Errrrm...one exciting thing... erm... I have ran a marathon?!' Had a mini choke struggling to think of anything but the group seemed to accept it as exciting... either that or they were being polite. Im gonna go with the latter! Still, could have been worse and I felt a little bit of a boost already. Listening to everybody else, there was such a variety of different people from all different courses and all different backgrounds, which I thought was great.
For the rest of the morning, we discussed what questions we wanted answered, why we applied, what we think the role of a mentor is, what a mentor should and shouldn't do, and gave definitions to key 'mentory' words such as 'open minded'. Increasingly, I felt more and more happy and excited about the coming year. This was such a fantastic and diverse group of people. It quickly became clear that everyone was here for very similar reasons; to help fellow students whilst also developing themselves. I could tell that there wasn't a single person there that wouldn't make a good mentor. I would never have thought it at 8.30am but I felt that my new colleagues thought the same of me and I felt completely honoured and humbled. I understood the responsibility that I had been entrusted with as part of this team and I felt determined to live up to that trust.
Over lunch, the whole group sat together and chatted about anything and everything. All of the nervousness in the group at the start of the morning and gone and there was an incredibly positive vibe.
After getting our fill of coffee and conversation, we headed off together to a computer suite where we learnt how to avoid being a berk on facebook - a work in progress for me! We also learnt that we were to do this reflective blog. And so here I am, uh, reflecting. All in all a day that completely blew away even my most optimistic expectations. I met some lovely, caring and somewhat loopy people, completely built up my excitement about being a mentor and made a big step in overcoming my anxiety issues. A day that went from almost unbearable anxiety to almost overwhelming contentedness (thats a word, right?).
Cannot wait to don the infamous blue hoody and throw myself into 'Smurfhood'!
(P.S apologies for the length. Actually had to reign myself in a little. Could have written a short novel!)
