Hiya,
First of all, thanks for the reply. Just being able to open up and talk things through helps a lot more than I thought I did.
TinyDisciple:

Ah, to be 18 again 😀 Honestly though, you seem to have a good head on your shoulders, more so than I when I was your age.
It seems as if we had a similar mental state in our younger days; my father was never around, my family was extremely distant emotionally and I was bullied pretty severely and so, like you, I have never been at piece, I was always angry with someone, at something and the fact that I didn’t see myself as being o.k alll of the time really got to me. In terms of this, if there is one piece of advice that I can give is that sometimes it’s okay not to be okay, that only through darkness can we see light.I’m glad that my post managed to clear something up for you, or at least help in some way. We can never move forward while chained to the past so I’m glad that you realized this now. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lot easier to say than to put in to practice, hell, I’m still trying to live it completely but it’s important, especially if you’ve had a troubled past.

Deep down, I completely agree with you about not blaming anxiety, but again, so much easier said than done. It becomes almost a crutch, something to fall back on as a reassurance that allows me to direct blame from myself and a convenient excuse for not doing the things that I want, or need, to do. I have a feeling that anxiety wont go away, at least not without me working on it. So, as you say, I need to live along side it and stop letting it be such a huge part of my life.

My grades wont come in to play for a while, at least not in terms of my main career that I wanted to undertake; my plan since day one of university was to be to get my degree, get a graduate job until I’m 30, to allow myself to enjoy the rest of the 30s(travelling, spending time with friends/family and getting some great job experience) and then when I’m 30’s take my masters. So I have time to work out a plan for what I am doing in the future but when you work for something, when you life essentially has one purpose for three years and you don’t come out with the best possible outcome then man, it hurts. I think you make a great point though; I need to quit feeling sorry for myself and start doing things, I’ve spend the last few months thinking that finishing education is a clean slate for my life and what you said reminded me of that. I’m kind of showing my nerdy side here but to quote the Terminator movie “The future is no set. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves”

Peter:
It’s weird to me, I’ve always believe in non-attachment and the fluidity of life but when it actually come down to living it with a serious situation, it’s really hard for me. There a lot of things jobs I’ve always wanted to do: joining the police, web design, being butcher, a mechanic, an electrician, a writer, to name a few. So the shock of the situation may have made me forget that there are always other paths I can take, as I said I wasn’t planning to do my Master’s until I’m 30, so the silver lining here might be that I get to experiment with some of the things that I’ve always wanted to try. I’m sure there are other options and other pathways in to the type of career I want, and some Master’s programs that will accept me but not getting the grades I want really knocked my confidence with it all.
I really want to get in to meditation, so I’m going to work on that and for the near future, just enjoy life and try to find myself

Thank you both, I’ve got a long road ahead of me(as do we all) but talking this through has helped me remember my path. Thanks again for taking the time to reply, it really does mean a lot to me 🙂

– Liam