How I started my journey in psychology

I dropped out of University after I found psychology. But it wasn’t because I hated it. In fact, it was completely the opposite.

Six weeks of the silent treatment

It was the worst falling-out I’ve had with my parents. Looking back, they were bewildered. But in those weeks and the days leading up, the realisation that I did not want to go to university to study medicine shattered them.

I didn’t want to do pharmacy either. Or law.

In fact, I rejected every one of the professional pathways that a good Indian boy should take through University.

And this led to silence.

To a large extent, I can’t remember that time. It was deeply horrible. I can’t even really remember what I wanted to do instead. I have a vague recollection of geology, but it got lost in the haze of that absence of any dialogue, including my own internal voice.

There was only silence.

The roots of this went back to when I was 13 and we had to choose options for examination subjects when we turned 16. I am old enough to have sat what people may recall as ‘O’ Levels. I wanted to do technical drawing. My parents did not approve of my actions. In those days, you kind of needed a language at ‘O’ Level to get into a decent University. Polytechnics didn’t care so much.

I can see why they pushed me down this path, though I wasn’t happy about it.

Of course, as a State comprehensive school - and a pretty rough one at that - we didn’t have access to anything like Latin. It was French or Spanish. Even German wasn’t an option by then. So I chose French. And it has actually proved pretty handy - especially as I originally started it in primary school and had carried on through til when I was 13.

Later, at 16, they pushed me to do sciences and maths at ‘A’ level. I say they, because it wasn’t just my parents. It was the entire system. Universities, school teachers and careers advisers, as well as my parents. Sciences and maths were going to put me on the path to take one of these professional pathways: medicine, pharmacy, law.

Like a good Indian boy.

But this wasn’t me. In taking Physics, Chemistry and Maths, I had been forced to give up my humanities. I would have loved to have continued with English and Geography. Even carrying on with French was something I considered doing. I’d have kept Chemistry and dropped Physics and Maths.

But no. It wasn’t to be.

Silently, I pushed back

I refused to sit the Oxbridge entrance exams. My schoolteachers were distraught. I had broken school records with my ‘O’ level results. I had a superb chance of getting into Oxbridge.

Why was I not taking it?

I refused to submit.

I refused to explain why.

Only silence.

My parents were mystified.

My grades started slipping.

I was losing motivation.

I knew I need to grasp the nettle, but I didn’t like the look of the consequences.

I delayed some more.

I tried to find something else I could do.

After much searching, and seeking a compromise with the system, I landed on a compromise.

Business Economics and Accounting.

I know.

What was I thinking?

Like I say, I don’t think I was. I was in a very cut-off and reactive place, just trying to figure out how to get through the next year without falling out with my parents forever. Business Economics and Accounting represented a safe landing. I enjoyed economics when I studied Government, Economics and Commerce at ‘O’ level, and it might just help me out of this tight spot.

I bit the bullet and had the talk with my parents.

Then, the silence.

I prepared for my exams as best I could

I didn’t do so well. I got into my secondary choice University: Southampton. Another compromise. A place with a reputation of being full of Oxbridge rejects from public school. Their reputation was well-earned.

As the time came for me to leave for Southampton, I left home on a coach. I was too ashamed for my parents to drop me off in person. I didn’t realise that then, but only know as I type this.

If I’m honest, I shed a tear for my 18-year-old self as I wrote this post. More than once.

I tried my best, but people going out at night drinking and then peppering road signs on country roads with shotguns wasn’t my idea of a good time. As I tried to fit in, a convoy of friends who knew I was having a bad time came to see me in Southampton one evening. Four carloads.

I was out. They waited for me for an hour. This was the days before mobile phones. There was just a payphone at the end of the hall corridor. And no-one really knew me enough to say where I was. Or to fetch me from some useless icebreaker drinking party.

When I returned to my room, I found a card that they had rustled up. All had written messages to me saying they had come and were thinking of me.

The number of messages, all these people that came to support me.

It was overwhelming.

I sobbed

A mixture of happiness that they loved me, and the sorrow of just how miserable I was surged through me.

It courses through me now.

I haven’t thought about this in years.

It wasn’t the work that caused me to be so sad. But it was boring. It was very clear that the next three years was going to be an exercise of working through textbooks and being tested on them at the end of three years, and then being given a piece of paper, leading to more exams and textbooks.

This is not what University was for. And I felt like I had made a catastrophic choice and I needed to find a way to make it right.

The only thing keeping me afloat was the minor subject I selected to study. I buried myself in my first textbook, fascinated with tales of experiments and writings spanning neuroscience to philosophy.

I didn’t leave my room to do anything but eat and wash for days on end.

I just read.

My psychology textbook had become my lifebelt

I booked a coach back home to see my parents. I told my parents how unhappy I was. I told them I wanted to do psychology instead.

Again, they were mystified. But they were amazing. We discussed what psychology was. It was confronting to explain this, only having studied it for a few weeks - I was still in the middle of the first term. I still think I struggle with this - probably more so after 35 years in the profession.

They wanted to know if there was a job at the end. I said I didn’t know, but if there was, it would probably need more study, but that it enthused me enough that I would probably do this. Little did my 18-year-old self know that I would not only successfully complete my degree, but obtain two doctoral degrees in psychology on top of that.

We agreed I would go back until the new year and change halls of residence to see if I would be happier elsewhere.

We agreed to give it until January.

It was November 1987.

I changed halls.

I gave it ‘til January.

It didn’t work.

I dropped out, and I came home

My parents worried, but they welcomed me home. They backed me the hilt.

Everyone stepped up to the plate.

I still had a great relationship with teachers at my old school. They were happy to support my application for University entrance for the coming year.

My friends told me I was brave. Some confided to me they too were miserable but couldn’t contemplate broaching this with their parents for fear of complete ostracisation.

I traveled the country scoping out where I may be happy doing psychology. i wanted something far away from the “loadamoney” vibe of the 1980s in the south of England.

I wanted to move north.

I suspected it was another country.

I almost went to Sheffield, but I settled on Hull.

I already had a good friend there, and I had visited and was fascinated by life there.

I wanted more.

It was good to feel alive again.

Motivated again.

Talking again.

No more silence any more.

So, in 1988, I started again

A degree in psychology at the University of Hull.

How I filled in my time between January and October that year are stories for other posts. Be sure to come back for more.