In 2018, I decided to walk away from a part-time PhD in creative writing. I was thousands of pounds down, with nothing to show for it but depression. On that day, as I drove home over the Yorkshire Wolds and into the valley in which I was born, I opened the car windows and laughed and cried into the scent of oilseed rape. I felt as if I had removed a horrible, itchy mask and was throwing it to the wind.
I was a published writer, but without the academic backing of a doctorate, I felt that I wouldn’t be taken seriously in the arts world. I was the first person in my rural, working-class family to go to university. All my degrees had been completed part-time: a BSc on day release while I was working as a lab technician, a BA and an MA through the Open University and distance learning with Manchester Metropolitan University.
My family didn’t understand why I would expend so much energy getting degrees that wouldn’t lead to a practical, well-paid job. My dad was a bus driver who came from a long line of tenant farmers and my mum worked as a cleaner, a secretary and in factory canteens. For me, the degrees were proof that I was as good as anyone else in the arts, despite my background. Having left school to start work at 16, I had missed out on the in-person university experience; I was excited about finally getting to enjoy it.
On my first official day at the University of Hull, in 2015, there was a social mixer to meet the other students, but I ended up sitting in my car, crying, because I had such severe impostor syndrome. When I finally made it into the building, I found that, although there had been a push to encourage mature students and those from non‑traditional backgrounds on to the programme, most of the students in my year had come up internally from BAs, MAs or PhDs without ever being outside the university world – a world that I had never really been inside.
One day, I got into a conversation with another student. We talked about how challenging it was, how even on a part-time course the workload could crush you. But when he talked about taking time away from his studies for his mental health and how he would have a “cheap holiday” in Spain to decompress, I realised I lived in a different world. I was on a treadmill of work and study that I couldn’t get off. At the time, I was working as a dog walker and I didn’t earn enough to take leave.
There was an added sense of shame, too. I never felt judged for being working class, but the life experiences of many of the students and staff were very different from mine. They didn’t seem to understand the challenges of working in a full-time minimum-wage job while studying part‑time. The university was about an hour’s drive away and, on some days, I couldn’t make meetings or seminars because it meant cancelling a morning of paid work. I got the impression that some staff at the university thought I wasn’t prioritising my studies when, in fact, I was attempting to manage my finances in order to continue.
I knew doing the PhD would be demanding, but I hadn’t expected to be carrying around my working-class background and my social anxiety. I found it exhausting. By the time I realised that I wasn’t coping financially, it was too late to take the government grant that would have taken pressure off me. I had wanted to avoid getting into debt. I already had a mortgage and bills to pay and it felt dangerous to add to that, but now I was struggling with the amount of work I needed to do to keep my head above water. My default reaction was to consider myself stupid for even trying. Who do you think you are? I thought. This is not for someone like you.
I made it through just over two years of the seven-year degree, but when my doctor signed me off with depression, I realised I had to come clean and tell my supervisors that I wasn’t going to be able to continue. The brief feeling of relief was followed by a crushing sense of failure. I questioned why I had started the PhD in the first place. Part of the problem was that I had internalised a notion about being working class – that to be working class is to need improvement, that you should always want to be climbing away from yourself and your heritage, that the correct model of success is the middle‑class model.
The experience pushed me to examine my beliefs about myself and my working-class heritage, right down to the way I automatically changed my accent to fit in with middle-class conversations. I don’t do that any more. I now check myself when I find I am presenting as anything other than who I am. The arts world is still dominated by the middle classes, but I am my authentic self within it. I wanted to prove to myself that I could get a PhD, despite my background. But I am the person I am because of my background – and that is something I cherish.
The Ghost Lake by Wendy Pratt is published on 15 August (The Borough Press, £16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
