On the outside, I'm sure my life probably seems pretty perfect. I'm in a sorority I love, I live in a great apartment with my wonderful big, I have a steady job and an internship that I love and I have amazing friends. I'm passionate about school and I go out on the weekends and have fun. For the most part, I'm outgoing, happy-go-lucky and friendly. I've been told that I'm a very positive and upbeat person and that the people who I love admire me for my strength and independence.
But on the flip side of the bright, shiny, always-smiling girl that I show the world, my life is far from perfect. As hard as it is to admit, I've battled anxiety and bouts of depression for what feels like most of my life. It seems crazy right? How, with such a great life, could I be anxious, or even depressed? I've had so many people tell me that I have "nothing to be sad about" or that I "shouldn't worry so much." While these are both lovely sentiments that I wish could cure these struggles, the hard truth is that they just don't. It's simply not that easy. And because truthfully, mental disorders don't discriminate. They don't care if you have a life that should be "perfect," if you should just be happy or if they're interrupting your life and inconveniencing you. They make their way into your brain and they sink their claws into you and then you have to fight like hell to hold onto who you are. And even for the strongest, most confident and headstrong person, when the thing you're fighting like hell against is your own brain, it's the most emotionally grueling fight in the world.
When I was in high school, I went through periods of time when I thought I might have been depressed, and I had panic attacks (which back then I didn't actually know were panic attacks, because I had never learned about them, so I just thought it was normal to hyperventilate and black out when I got upset... Super healthy, right?) fairly often. When I came to college, though, regardless of how happy I was about my fresh start and my amazing new life, I quickly learned just how hard freshman year really is. I got really, really sick (mononucleosis is not fun, folks) and did poorly school-wise. I had always been a great student and I loved learning, so this embarrassed and angered me. I dealt with very poorly timed panic attacks (i.e. in the room of the guy I was dating at the time, in the middle of a psychology final, the morning after my sorority initiation, etc) but I thought those were normal, and I taught myself how to slow them when I felt them coming on. Going into second semester I was confident that things would be different, but I couldn't have been more wrong.
For some reason, even though most of the time I felt like I should have been happy and content with my life, I fell into a state of what I now know was major depression. There were days I didn't get out of bed at all, I lost interest in things that I loved doing, I had little to no energy, I was irritable and emotional. I pushed people away, and even those closest to me had almost no idea of what I was dealing with. They knew I was struggling, but I kept it hidden from them just how badly I was hurting. People I was close to started to criticize me, downright harshly at times, because I started slipping and they noticed. This made things even worse, and I started spiraling even faster. I couldn't be angry at them for their negative criticism because I hadn't even tried to explain what was going on, but that didn't change how much it stung to be told how badly I was doing. I knew something wasn't right, but I'm the type of girl who was often been told that stubborn is her middle name, so asking for help was out of the question, especially after all the negative comments and judgment that I'd been feeling. But still, I was so often praised for my confidence and my positivity and my strength, that I didn't want anyone to know how much of it I was faking in order to cover up the hurt I was feeling. My grades suffered, big time. Relationships with people I cared about suffered even more. And most importantly, how I felt about myself suffered. I just felt lost, and I didn't know what to do.
But I'm not writing this to tell you about my sob story, or because I want you to feel bad for me. I'm writing this because one day I woke up and decided I didn't want to be lost anymore. I sucked it up and admitted that I needed help. To me, in the midst of my struggle, asking for help wasn't even an option. Admitting I couldn't handle my own issues felt like a weakness, a character flaw, something I should be embarrassed about. Owning up to the fact that I'm not actually as perfect as I pretend to be, felt like the end of the world. Regardless of this, I scheduled an appointment to talk to a therapist (something I am not at all ashamed of, nor should anyone be) and on the day of my first appointment, I was surprised to find that the sky didn't fall. What was even more shocking, was that my therapist told me I was completely, totally and utterly normal. She told me that a large percentage of college students struggle with depression and anxiety and that what I was dealing with wasn't out of the ordinary at all. I was shocked. I had felt like I was so screwed up that I was beyond helping, a lost cause of sorts.
After I walked out of that office, everything in the world looked a little bit brighter. Being told by a professional that I'm not nearly as broken and messed up as I thought I was, lifted a huge weight off of my shoulders and for the first time in a long time, I felt something I thought was lost from me forever: hope. Hope that I would get better, that I would learn how to cope and that things really would be OK. So from one high strung, perfection-obsessed, stubborn girl to anyone else who might be dealing with something like this: listen closely.
It's OK to ask for help. I'll say it again. It is OK to ask for help. You don't have to put the weight of the entire world on your shoulders, and your problems are not yours alone to handle. Even if talking to a therapist or a counselor doesn't seem like a good option for you, you have friends and family that love you and want to help you. They won't judge you or think less of you for asking for help, and admitting that you're not OK doesn't make you weak. It makes you brave. Because it's not easy to look in the mirror and tell yourself that you want things to be different, and everyone around you will recognize your strength for wanting to pick the pieces up and change for the better. Reach out to those around you, let their love and support help you see the kind of hope that I felt that day. If you're getting desperate or feeling the pain that I did, please do yourself a favor and let other people in. I promise things will look brighter for you too if you do
