My alternate universe is the one outside of the dingy student accommodations where I hold my breath and question my self worthJessica Leer for Varsity

I spent my first year at Cambridge doing what Olivia Gatwood’s mother would call “being very fazed.” Nothing had prepared me for the events of my first Michaelmas, so I spent my first Lent oscillating between passive despair and all-encompassing rage.

In pubs across the city I met girls who heard my college and asked: “Do you know this guy?” I responded to this by retelling the event like a funny story, dropping in little jokes along the way. In hindsight, appearing unfazed required more effort than it would have taken to just run away and hide. However, my tough girl act, inspired by the first section of Gatwood’s Alternate Universe in Which I Am Unfazed by the Men Who Do Not Love Me, struck me as the only way out. I am 19, “and have never cried.” I have, alas, tried to heal the wounds caused by people I once called “the worst men on earth” by turning to even worse men.

“Instead of responding like Gatwood’s protagonist, I simply allowed it”

Gatwood writes: “The boy says I am not marriage material and I put gravel in his pepper grinder.” My boy agrees that I am not marriage material, going as far as to call me a whore in our college dining room. But the villain in my story doesn’t have a pepper grinder, as his accommodation has the small kitchenettes that riddle central Cambridge accommodation. This is a poor justification for the fact that instead of responding like Gatwood’s protagonist, I simply allowed it.

Other lines cut even deeper: “The boy doesn’t ask if he can choke me so I pretend to die while he is doing it.” In Easter, the boy forgets his strength and briefly cuts off my airways. I live, make excuses for his behaviour and move on.

Taking Alternate Universe line by line, it strikes me that my experiences and reactions are far from unique. This makes me angrier, and when Gatwood threatens to “slaughter a goat in his living room,” I want to call her and tell her that this isn’t dramatic enough. Despite my best efforts, I am very fazed. And the richness of Gatwood’s writing and performance is such that even now I hear that line and briefly think of elaborate plots I could carry out.

My alternate universe is the one outside of the dingy student accommodations where I hold my breath and question my self-worth. I visit charity shops with my friends, buy overpriced coffees and cycle along the river. I sit on a bench in Jesus Green and show my best friend a performance of Alternate Universe. This moment, forever etched into my mind, is when I stepped into my truly “unfazed” arc. My life, I think, could be full of hours spent with my friends, laughing and working through things in a cathartic way.

“It became safe to admit that acting strong doesn’t necessarily make things bearable”

In the summer vacation, my GP suggested I have PTSD. And with that realisation, it became safe to admit that acting strong doesn’t necessarily make things bearable. Acts of rebellion perpetuated the issues I was seeking to resolve; healing from a friend who threatened violence because I didn’t want a relationship was unlikely to be lurking in short-lived relationships or messy hookups. When Gatwood says, “The man tells me he does not love me and he does not love me”, I should’ve perhaps considered that a man who degrades and insults me also does not love me. Devaluing the body that I guarded so ferociously in my first incident didn’t resolve that trauma – it gave rise to further incidents.

It took months of pain, but eventually I took Gatwood’s advice: “The man tells me who he is and I listen.”


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Being fazed is part one. Part two, the ‘unfazing’ process, takes much more effort. But, as I reflect upon the poem in Michaelmas of second year, a full year since the first traumatic incident, my focus has shifted. Yes, there were moments of deep sadness, and my interactions and relationships with many people I knew in the first term have fundamentally changed as a result. But these are balanced out with hours and hours of crying and laughing with my friends as I got better. I’ve built a support network who would, if it were possible, leave hours of time upon my doorstep. When things get tough, I don’t want to slice tires or burn photos – I want to surround myself with the people I know who care for me. Even if I don’t know when things will seem normal again, it helps to remember: “I have so much beautiful time.”

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