If this is growing up, I'm getting off the bus.

About 10 months ago I was receiving counselling from the most caring, friendly and warm woman I've ever met. Apart from filling my then cynical heart with the idea that, maybe, just maybe, it's okay to have feelings for people other than distrust, she also transferred to me the idea that we are all travelling.

And when I say travelling, I mean 'on a journey'. Though, honestly, she didn't let a scrap of 'new age' float anywhere near our sessions. She was down-to-earth. Earthy. Huge rack.

She described the journeys we're all on with less onus on the specific path but, rather, the vehicle we are travelling on. Or even if we're on foot. For me, right now, it feels like I'm on a bus. However you want to interpret it, that's fine. But the thing is, I'm starting to feel like I want to get off.

I'll be honest here. I'm not all peaches and cream. In fact, the smiles, laughs and jokes -- as much as I truly wish this wasn't true -- are all a bit of a face. A face I can't help putting on, true, but a face nonetheless. I described it with my previous counsellor as being a bit like an actor. It's still me, but I'm just editing 'me' into a different version of 'me'.

I'm not being fake, though. I've always been the type of person to change who I am according to the person I'm around. To some degree, I think we all do this.

But, anyway, I feel like I want to get off the bus. I'm starting to have enough. If this is growing up, which is what it seems to be, then I'm not sure I want to.

You wanna know what all of this is about? Okay. Let's cut the crap.

Yesterday, I want to an 'open day' for Cambridge University. And, after being wow-ed by its plethora of attractions -- academic, aesthetic and appealing as they were -- I decided that I was/am going to apply. Now here comes the part which makes me want to jump off the bus. Quickly.

Something felt wrong. Out of place. And as today has progressed, after telling my Mum, Dad, Brother and, eventually, Grandma, that feeling deepened in all the wrong ways. It started to make my insides hurt, and I couldn't understand why. Real, physical pain from mysterious, emotional turbulence? Curious.

And so I went down to my local park. More specifically, to the swings. For no real, apparent reason, park swings always help me think. Especially with no shoes on.

And so there I was, swinging away. I slowed down and stopped. Then, like some horrible chemical-weapon, it descended upon me. The truth struck. The truth? I do not think I'm good enough to go to Cambridge.

I'd be happy to go to any of my other choices. But, the thing is, Oxbridge -- or how it has been presented to me -- is like University+1. I'm not trying to be elitist or anything like that. Oxbridge is a work-extreme environment with questionable student mental-health and even more concerning rates of student depression. But, honestly, a little part of me was left behind there.

And so here I am, being on the precipice of one of the biggest decisions of my life, and I consider myself so worthless that my own body is making me experience pain because of it.

If this is growing up, I'm getting off the bus.