Goes Without Saying - university (& graduation) anxiety: "REAL WORLD" jumpscare

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

podmothers sephy & wing enter the chat: spiralling on making friends in adulthood, social anxiety, class struggles, insecurity, the pressure of success, and the birth of Sephy & Wing. ✷shop ✷ www.sephyandwing.co.ukhear more ✷ www.instagram.com/sephyandwingwatch more ✷ www.tiktok.com/@sephyandwing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Goes Without Saying. You're listening to Goes Without Saying with Sefi and Wing. I'm Wing. And I'm Sefi. This episode we are, to be honest, finally. God. This is long overdue. Yeah. Talking about uni. and I'm Sefi this episode we are to be honest finally god this is long overdue

yeah talking about uni we're talking about pre-uni post-uni the whatever the mess that goes on in the middle

the innards we're pulling the guts out we're filling you in on our kind of experiences and the things that to be honest they would have gone in one ear and out

the other for me but I've enjoyed the conversation and regardless even if uni means nothing to you this is an episode here to keep you company thanks for letting us into your day hope you're well enjoy it you're well maybe about always always is that saying okay gorgeous right right so should we yeah okay right what we're talking about uni uni um we met at uni we did meet at uni the possibilities are endless with what could happen it's almost like yeah what are we talking about during uni or we're talking post uni or pre should we just do it all beginning

middle end all right that would be easy the uni experience the uni experience yeah experience yes bonanza if you will it bloody well is a bonanza and it's also um it's hard work it's like and well i think emotionally hard work right look the academic work you can all handle i know you can yeah emotionally i think it's exhausting it is let's undercut the crux of this whole conversation is what a privilege it is to get to go to university and also particularly in the uk um where it's to be honest a fucking joke how much they charge you it's a lot of money imagine okay you you're in a society where we need educated people because look at the state of what is going on here we need to educate people let's charge them nine grand a year and make it so that pretty much that's just for the course and then let's go into massive massive debt but that's the best thing we could do to

our 18 year olds let's make them get into like 40 grand of debt 40 yeah try 56 it's quite mental is that what it is 56 i think that might be the top it's pretty bad it's a lot well done a lot of money well done who ever did that David Cameron who seemed to have did everything did everything bad it's going well it's going well over here we get a lot of questions about uni yeah and I don't really know my main thing to say about uni is like you have to do this on your own there's only so much that we can say because you know why it's going to go in one ear and out the other and also the things that we're going to say are not necessarily the things that you would need to hear no not at all and also

it's such a vast experience the things that would have helped me it just and that never would have come to me like and if I if I did receive advice now that I would give I wouldn't know what to make of it I wouldn't it wouldn't be helpful also it was almost the things that I didn't if I was just about to go to uni and I was listening to a podcast I wouldn't have known the issues that I was going to have like my huge issue at uni my biggest emotional struggle was social anxiety I had never been socially anxious before and I was not expecting it it fucking hit me out of nowhere um and seminars being like a huge fear for me was not something I could have predicted but that was my biggest thing that had me like so fucking stressed

at uni and I I would have listened to this before and be like I would never that's not that's not me and that's what my whole issue was there and you were very upfront about it yeah you weren't ashamed I think you should be I honestly don't think there was any hiding it right I was I would be like crying before like like the night before um a seminar or something I would literally I remember my flatmates would all be watching like they'd be it was one they'd always watch the great pottery throwdown really fun that was like a thing on in the evening it must be like tuesday evenings yeah be like oh let's put on the great pottery throwdown exactly my kind of fun well it wasn't mine because i never saw an episode of it because i would be like oh i'm going to my room and they'd

be like why every tuesday night do you fucking like go and hide away but it's because it was like a probably a 9am horrible seminar and yeah there was no hiding it because I would literally shut down and I was like it was horrific I couldn't eat I'd be like throwing up in the morning out of nerves and obviously my friends were like what the fuck but you owned it you didn't make up an excuse no I said I'm literally shitting myself for my seminar today good for you also in the seminars people must have thought I was completely mental because I would be like this. And I would say one word,

what's your name? Stephanie. And there was one bit where I literally had to say, they said, what do you think of the book? And I remember it was literally like my vision went and I was, it was like everyone looking at me

and I was just, I was like, oh my God, everything's gone. And I was like, I think I said like, it's not my cup of tea. I don't know what I said. I said something I think I said like it's not my cup of tea I don't know I said something like I personally thought it was oh not really that good or something like that and I was like don't ask me any follow-up because I'll have to they got the

hint I can't see and I literally I'm gonna run out of the room it was crazy I've never experienced good for you for doing that now look at you and also yeah look at you then look at me now yeah but look at you now and also look at you then yeah but look at you now and also look at you then it's like that was a huge challenge and it was huge also that was why I you survived it totally survived it and that and I think that's why presentations were a huge thing you have two presentations at uni a thing you sometimes have to do most likely it's just a thing you do that would that would kind of scare me yeah that was what I was so nervous for presentations and by the end I remember being like I'm doing presentations with not many nerves just kind of you know talking but it was yeah my it was so bad that I was like I'd never been to therapy

or anything before and then after first year I did my whole first year and I was like I cannot go back and do that again without like someone helping me and I remember my therapist when I like had been with her for a year or something Karis she's like my first ever therapist she's so nice can't afford her anymore though good for her yeah I love that iconic helped me so much and she was like helped me vicariously exactly economics totally honestly the butterfly effect in a way yeah um I always thought it was cool because she said her dog was called deacon which is my surname and i was like deacon cool name a weird name for a dog yeah but it made me really like it i was like yeah deacon yeah i'd like that if someone said my dog's called emerald

yeah sorry i'm meant to be carrots yeah if you don't mind me moving in next week deacon i'm gonna be sleeping in your bed yeah that's crazy um and she was like i remember when we first met you just sat in this chair and you said i'm never going to a seminar again like i can't do it i'm not going to one again and now i mean she never saw this but we spoke at cambridge uni we spoke at manchester uni that's a great center all of this like we seminars now i was doing um piece of piss writing courses where I was in that environment absolutely zero nerves reading my piece out blah blah blah different situation now but that was something I was not at all prepared for I hate to bring up the thing that I was

literally just saying two minutes ago but is it not the classic thing of it's kind of exposure therapy it's like well if you just get used to something it is you'll get bored of it quite quick yeah and the more you do it and nothing goes wrong it's literally um cbt that cbt therapy dumb thing to say the t is therapy cbt am in the morning yeah it's really am in the morning cbt therapy yeah um is just basically being like okay so say you go and you embarrass yourself what is the fucking worst that happens it's like yeah the more that you go and you make a little mistake there and you make a little mistake there you realize these mistakes are kind of nothing but I would have homework of like you have to speak to you have to stay for one pack up your

things slowly and stay for one minute after the seminar ends because I would usually be like in out and run away and literally leg it out of the door horrible what do you feel now when you think about that living that life what does that make you think like that girl she's like 22 she's so young and also I wish that I actually think this is one of my biggest takeaways from like the academic side of uni people come in there with so much confidence I think people that have been in like schools and stuff that like nurture confidence and like your ability to speak up and like feel that you've got something important to say I think I speak for many people when it's like yeah you're not encouraged to speak in your school and like you're not necessarily and the discussion is not encouraged you kind of went to the same school my whole life well I went to

my primary school and then everyone from that school and a load of other schools went to the same so you'd never so that was kind of I guess your first time like being gonna meet new people yeah but I also think it which is the same for most of everyone not everyone but most most people yeah and then I think it's but like most other people there totally totally but it almost felt like everyone knew each other it was just weird but then I think my biggest takeaway is that you go in thinking I don't know I think I was I'll play it small I won't say anything like I don't know the right answer I think I assumed everyone else was a genius they're not and then you see some of the things to be clear they're definitely

definitely not they're definitely not and then some of the people that would I often would be sitting there having a really I think good thing to say I did English so there's no wrong answers famously but turns out there were some people were saying crazy things and I would be there with like I've got a great point everyone else and there would be a lot of people that would put their hands up and say something that was honestly ridiculous but it was like okay you have the confidence because that's been nurtured in you to be the person sort of sitting forward debating and all of this stuff and it's like god actually even though I don't think I would want to be that person it's like there's they're not more smart than you it's a perspective issue it's not an

intelligence issue yeah it's a confidence issue 100% like the I just think it's like yeah you totally totally your points are as valid but for some reason I just felt like god I can't say a thing in here also I think there's a the issue on one hand is the social anxiety but then also the kind of um there's an identity issue of like oh I didn't know this was me and readjusting to your awareness of yourself of like, oh, I'm feeling something that I hadn't felt before. Scared of talking. What the hell is that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Non-stop. Scared of talking. Can't shut this one up. I've never, I never anticipated it. Scared of people's judgment as well. And I think that also. That's an oxymoron.

It is. Persephone Deacon. Scared of people's judgment. Sorry, what? And I think that's that's an oxymoron it is persephone deacon scared of people's judgment sorry what and i think that's usually where an anxiety kind of lies where it's actually at odds with your identity in that my identity is someone that i don't give a shit i genuinely guys she couldn't be more genuine she doesn't i like i do care what you think i do care what you think. No, I do care what you think. I do care what you think. But not kind of you. The general public, I think I just think... They're Brexiteers.

They vote for Brexit, therefore you don't care. Have you looked at the public recently? Like, yeah, no thank you. So I just think I... Or like, I don't... I don't even know how to put it. You don't... You actually don't give a random stranger

the benefit of the doubt with their opinion over you. No. Or I just assume they know nothing. Which is a nice way to be, to be honest. So I think then it was... That's why I keep this one around, really. Thank you. Genuinely.

But then I think it was jarring because it's like, fuck, I'm so scared of these people's judgement that I can't talk. And that goes against everything about myself. So that was like, I'm fully fucked and lost and what the hell is going on? That's why I think it's really important that you were open about it. Because I remember in third year, you were so open about whatever was going on with you really yeah I just wouldn't shut up about it in fact yeah I just remember thinking was I overly not overly but you had confidence in saying it so even if you weren't confident you were confident

in saying I'm not very confident right now which I thought was really really like actually not to be cringe but really powerful thank you so much but it is really powerful it's not so powerful when you're crying in your academic advisor's room it doesn't feel powerful but it's powerful to then come home to a house of your friends and say fucking hell that was absolutely mortifying I just cried in my academic advisor's room haven't heard that phrase in a while academic advisor yeah academic advisor in the office hours terrible terrible place to be if you buy yourself an office they're not good um it's it is powerful I think yeah because you're really owning the experience it it requires though that awareness of oh what I'm experiencing is for example social anxiety because I think a lot of people I didn't

know what it was yeah for the first year don't identify it it's kind of like oh why am I why am I really stressed every Tuesday night my vision went oh maybe I've got a heart condition sort of thing yeah like it could it could be loads of things but I think having the awareness of I'm experiencing a mental health issue rather than listening to the symptoms of what the mental health issue is telling you so like if you're anxious it's like yeah you're not good enough for example for for a while that can like take a hold and be the forefront of the issue and you try and deal with that yeah before you're being able like having the ability to zoom out and be like oh i'm just a human experiencing anxiety social anxiety but that's when it's good to now i'm dealing with a different issue

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Because I remember saying to my friend before, I was like, well, everyone gets nervous for seminars. Like, everyone feels like this. And she was like, they don't. Not like that. They don't. And I remember that feeling like I was like well everyone gets nervous for seminars like everyone feels like this and she was like they don't not like that they don't I remember that feeling like I was mind-blowing I was so gutted by it actually but then it was almost like an empowering thing as well but I was so like fuck there's something actually like wrong here yeah like I thought everyone felt like that fuck that's so bad but then it's like okay but now we can actually deal with it it's so liberating I said a hundred times over like I thought this is not

about uni but I just thought everyone was really depressed and wanting to die all the time yeah and they were just really good at getting on with it yeah and i was really bad at it and it's like no no they just don't that's not how they feel yeah you're dealing with which is like oh that's a shame but like no but then you can deal with that for other people it's a shame that i'm experiencing something that isn't great but like great now I know you have a label yeah and I can work on that also it's like I know how people with depression cope they have therapy they get medication they have all of these things rather than I'm just fucking depressed in this world and can't handle it and everyone else is yeah not good at being here I'm not as good at

it as everyone else which isn't what it is a horrible feeling actually I do yeah it's nice I do think it's like in that especially especially that first year you do face a lot of like it's the first time usually that you're kind of on living on your own in that sort of environment with like young people things do come up in quite a big way I think one of the biggest things for me personally we speak about this probably every freaking day of our lives yeah going to university in the uk i can imagine in some way you're going to be confronted with class i mean literally when you walk through the door regardless of where you're coming from yeah i can imagine that say you're there for three years I would put my money on it coming up in some way somewhere yeah for me it was every single freaking day and it might not be for

you because your uni might be different or where you live might be different or the people around you might be different or you're just your relationship to your own class might be different but I think that can be a big adjustment for people well it's the first time really that a lot of people are like probably really where you're meeting people and living with people that have different um from the top of the bottleneck yeah totally it's shocking like say the UK um kind of your cohort your uni is start your year is starting out like the bottom kind of the wide brim of like a wine bottle girth master that guy's dick if anyone remembers that for a few episodes ago don't worry if you didn't hear that don't worry about it just let that go you can't let

whatever you do don't type in girth master not my stuff um and kind of your gcses your a levels whatever anyone anyone going through that kind of education route is you're funneling out bit by bit and you're left with kind of the prime minister's kids and you and it's mental and you're made to feel like I think the main thing is that it feels I don't know on that first day it felt like everyone already knew each other I think that was kind of the crazy thing of being like okay so there seems to be I don't know I didn't really realize that there was sort of a network within London of private schools that they all sort of knew of each other they're in each other's bed and it was like oh I didn't really realize this was all connected in this way i think there are kind of two truths happening i think it's in on one hand why is that my phrase today on one hand on one hand you've got this

kind of yeah we have some options options on one side it's very true that like yeah there's kind of a group of elite kids shout out you congratulations to you if you're hearing yourself in that harry i now speak directly to you i'm so happy for you yeah hope you're making the most of it and you know i hope your parents love you and stuff on one side your parents love you and stuff i do i hope and i hope you've been well fed etc and i hope you um give back a little bit just a little nice but a little bit so there's a there's a reality that yeah a lot of that like private school London kind of elite group already know each other but then I also think on the other hand there's the kind of anxious thought that is telling you I'm the outsider and everyone here already knows each other and yeah there

are connections that have already been made but I think keep in mind that that first few terms even that's literally the whole thing three years is also a playing field yeah we only met at the beginning well we only really became friends at the beginning of third year that's the end and look at the state of what we've done together in this time made a baby we did in the nick of time fruitful yeah anything can happen if you can hear sort of slurping it's this coffee by the way i haven't it's the dregs of a coffee it's the you've been holding on to that yeah i know i'm not i'm not like i'm not letting you go no i get it um should we talk all right let's talk about post uni then

yeah kind of coming to the club i open up the clothes why does he kiss it you get given a stitch from double everybody you get given a stitch by double and you think he's lying in a bed and he goes he's thinking of ginny she's got nice skin oh god um yeah I remember even the the anticipation of leaving uni was worse even than what leaving uni actually was and leaving is pretty hard do you think it was worse no it wasn't I think it was way worse than I thought it was gonna be and I thought it would be bad really I didn't think I genuinely went into it like this would be nice we'll all be all night no so I just thought the end of uni is is going to be tough because I'm the kind of person that like I find it hard to make a decision I didn't really

know what I wanted to do I wasn't in a luxurious position of like having a family member that could get me a job somewhere or um really anyone in any kind of industry that I would be in like I'm not surrounded by anyone in any kind of creative industry at all I don't really know anyone I mean like my parents aren't like professional collar working people like that there's no one really my boyfriend's got a great job that he really got through the skin of his own teeth the best of the best the skin of his own teeth he did and a private education wouldn't give you that kind of vocab look at the word the skin of his own teeth shakespearean and that's what you get yeah it's all of our languages from harry potter that's how dumb we

are so we watched one we watched seven films i have many eight films yeah i'm done and we thought that's that's all i need to know the deathly hallows i'm perfect now my teeth on edge never better never better i don't need to learn anything else truly um but yeah i there was nothing there was no one i could lean on etc etc i'm also like i'm hardly um the bottom of the pile like obviously i was able to go to uni for example but it wasn't a natural I wasn't coming out on a luxury so you had no idea I remember we us talking about it before which is hilarious that we then did this but I remember being like right what are we going to do and yours was so hard to place do you remember it was like you're

in some kind of creative thing but it was like it wasn't like oh I want to be a podcaster it's never been me because I've always had my hopes for something like this would happen yeah exactly exactly that's a problem I could never bear to say I'm gonna go and do something that I don't want to do like I couldn't bear that but I knew it would be the reality yeah but it's like no one in my family went to uni like it's it's me that was it like yeah there was no way I wasn't going into something there was no there's not a family business that you can just jump into so I was anxious about leaving uni I was stressed about it I didn't know what I was gonna do and I still kind of don't yeah no literally yeah we know we're

not the wise by the way is anyone here happy with what we've done I'm happy with it I'm happy with it um sorry I just suddenly realized there was like a bow in my face like that who knows what that looks like but I was definitely really I was nervous about the end the end the end yeah just because you are so bummed by that student title yeah and then when the questioning start amping up of like so what are you going to do what are you going to do and you've done something like anthropology and history it's a bit like oh god you're going to be an anthropologist you're going to be a historian you're going to be a teacher that's you're going to be unemployed basically the reality is the real answer we all know where i'm going other thing a weirdo something else unemployed yeah basically um and confused yeah 20s girl

totally and I think if that is you like if you're listening to this thinking I don't know where I'm going take the pressure off and just give yourself a bit of a pat on the back for almost completing what you've done it's a real like it's a cool it's a sorry that was real that was a real, like, it's a cool, it's a. Sorry, that was real. That was real. Potion. Slurp. It's a real. I am going to say that's a good one. Yeah, let that go.

I'm moving on to this water. Yeah, nice, nice. It's a really, it's a huge, like, achievement. It is, it is. It's a nice thing that you've done. I hope you've enjoyed it. Yeah. And I think give yourself a bit of time to um people are so i always say this but people

are so quick to like move on from the good things that you've done that was the jarring thing i think yeah that was almost the it's like you graduate and then next week it's like why are you still here you can have we've said this loads you can have a month that's what sort of what society allows oh god maps i think you can have a month if you're traveling in that month that's what people allow they allow okay you can be gone for the summer after graduation if you're traveling or there's a label on it people do not like gray areas they don't want to know you don't know what you're doing because they yeah it stresses them out you can feel the anxiety but i think it's also that they have always felt the pressure to define because that is just what we do as humans like it's narrative narrative narrative everyone

is like okay so she is traveling she is a student whatever the fuck people want they've always felt okay well I'm I don't know I feel like this often that people feel that they were sort of I don't know scraping that maybe you weren't happy you weren't happy but you at least you were something an unhappy colleague somewhere a yeah I am a um accountant I am a wife I am a mother people love the the title label which is totally fair enough because it brings like a feeling of like stability and clarity yeah but that feeling when you have just left your lovely comfortable um label of student which before you were even better a teenager nothing you don't do anything child teenager nothing student perfect gap year perfect what the fuck is next i think that's the scary bit if you've done that kind of uk um route of

like you've gone in at even 18 for example and you've you've honestly you've been chewed up and spat back out like and you're 40 000 pounds um less that's not it's quite stinging when you say that it's not a nice feeling yeah um but yeah you're really chewed up and spat back out and i think it's quite a difficult adjustment for young people generally especially if you've moved away or your whole identity has shifted it would have anyway three years have passed of kind of one of the most formative times of your life if you've gone kind of in your early 20s you've taken in so much information and you're going to need like a second to process and that's okay and. You really don't have to be the perfect graduate. You can just be you right now.

Do you know what I mean? Well, you don't need an internship lined up or like whatever the next thing is. It's amazing if you've got that really, I'm actually so happy for you. It was amazing. Yeah. But it's not needed. I think there's, take that pressure off. You'll figure it out.

Yeah. It's just, it's just more pressure. It's like, I've literally just graduated can I maybe just like try some things you know or not try anything just literally just relax for a moment please the worst thing you can do is come out of uni and start comparing yourself to other people who have also just done the same thing yeah um or even come back home and compare yourself to the people who stayed at home like your kind of friends from home or whatever that sort of thing that you have. Like whatever you're, wherever you are, if you're listening to this and you've never been to uni,

you're never going to go to uni, whatever. And you're just listening to this, hey, I announced it directly to you. Just for whatever reason, if you ever hear this, you're doing fine, by the way. 100%. Just where you're at right now, we don't need to do anything crazy you're great yeah let's just keep it like this you're fine just for today everything else that's put on hold just for today wouldn't that be nice honestly for the rest of the day yeah oh my god that's my favorite thing to do airplane mode airplane just that is oh God. And now we're playing sailing. Do not disturb.

Even that is like you just- Sign on the door. Occupied. Yeah. Like just for the rest of the day, wouldn't it be nice if you could just- Relax. Relax and take the pressure off of that voice. Go yap, yap, yap.

Non-stop telling you all these horrific things and poor Seppi and Wing are fucking fencing against it. We've got in the way of them and we're here to say we've bombarded we've barricaded the door out man we're just here to relax you know we'll take it from here we'll handle this oh god trust us who have they who have they sent sephian wing oh no capital letters no that's a niche one but all right yeah if you don't hear from us assume the worst We'll see you next time.