Katriona O'Sullivan

No, I didn't belong.

Absolutely.

But you stuck with it.

I left.

Well, the reason I stuck with it is...

In some ways, like where I come from is sometimes quite helpful in the brash, aggressive way I can be and could be back then particularly.

Right.

So I don't know if you can be that way, but there's a part of me that would be like, you know, fuck them.

There was a piece of me that was kind of fighting them without actually actively fighting them like mentally.

But there was also a part of me that really knew that.

that I was only there to get educated that was my mantra it's like I'm not here to make friends I can't anyway because I've got a seven-year-old son and I'm on my own and I've got to do 10 hours lectures and I've got to do the assignments and he's got to be minded and I just can't deal with how confident they are and the way they talk about couscous and skiing and inter-railing I was just like that's not for me

so I'm never going to fit in so I'm not going to try I didn't try and sometimes I regret that because some of them actually they were really lovely people a lot of them were really lovely it depends where what course you're in as well so like in psychology they're very high points but like it was a very small class and a lot of them are there because they want to do psychology which means that there's a difference so like if you'd have gone to Bess or

Where the dupes are, you're like, and the O'Neills.

I wouldn't have survived there.

And the other thing is I did find my people.

So I made friends with all the security staff, all the women that worked in the butlery.

I literally spent my life in the butlery smoking and chatting to the women that worked in the canteen.

I knew all of them.

I still do.

But I had this decision.