Writing, specifically for the Odyssey, has endowed me with an uncensored platform to broadcast my unfiltered opinions on a multitude of subjects. My posts have ranged in context from the NCAA’s handling of sexual assault cases to the history of the c-word. Most recently, I had the chance to address my concurrent experiences as a dog owner and bearer of a depressive disorder (“Diploma, Depression, And… Dogs”). While writing has always been a definite outlet for me, I never necessarily viewed writing as a means of sharing my personal narrative or translating it into a story of empowerment or encouragement for others. If anything, I treated writing as a pastime activity lacking any tangible value.

However, since publicizing my diagnosis – something which I have never necessarily hidden or kept to myself – I have been buoyed by others’ positive feedback regarding my transparency and trials. In the week following this post, a handful of people have reached out about their own struggles with depressive disorders, abstinence from alcohol, and insurmountable isolation. Because of this, I think it is worth taking a leap of faith, putting myself out into the great unknown (the Internet), and just hoping that someone finds meaning in my story.

Before I take the liberty of sharing excerpts of personal texts documenting my lowest point, I find it meaningful to elaborate upon a sentiment that has resonated with me as I’ve prepared to share these writings. To quote Libby Chamberlain, founder of Pantsuit Suit (to which I will get), “The very act of sharing a story of listening to a story does make a difference.” Storytelling is activism.

Essentially, before baring my psyche to the anonymous viewers whom I hope to encourage with my concluding semester at Tufts University, I am going to expound upon the historic power of the narrative (utilize an academic discourse to convince myself of this decision).

First and foremost, the personal narrative is at the crux of the art that propels humanity forward. Literature is something near and dear to my heart; perhaps this is why writing has proven to be such a sacred craft for me. In a college application essay about my favorite texts, I wrote, “Books are proof that humans can work magic. Books are proof that humans are capable of conjuring the most repressed of emotions, empathizing with the most reproachable of people, and immortalizing the most ephemeral of moments. Books are proof that humans have done the impossible.” Readership of such descriptive and prescriptive works is what binds us together as a society. These texts necessitate a particular honesty about the human condition, though. In “David Foster Wallace Was Right: Irony is Ruining our Culture,” Matt Ashby and Brendan Carroll offer a discourse on the merits of New Sincerity as an argument in favor of transparent works to restore integrity to the societal experience. They write, “Great art must be achieved through the integrity of its own internal principles.” To achieve this, creators – such as myself – must be honest with themselves; a culture steeped in an ironic tradition cannot possibly transcend its flaws. Ashby and Carroll continues, “Artists must take responsibility for finding the form to make out dreams real… The work will tell us if it has arrived or not. We have to listen closely.” Hence, the impetus is not only upon the artist to be honest, but upon viewers and readers to confront them with humility. Storytelling that effectively empowers mankind is then the responsibility of both the storyteller and the listener.

Moreover, the personal narrative bears an innate quality that invokes a collective experience, consequently strengthening interpersonal bonds amongst sharers of a common reality. As sexual assault scandals amongst collegiate athletic programs have permeated newsreels, I have taken an interest in garnering a comprehensive understanding of the issue (“Harvard University’s Administration Takes an Active Role in Penalizing Student-Athletes Perpetuating Sexual Violence”). Knowing my personal investment in the issue, a close friend of mine recently shared Claire Landsbaum’s “The Author Who Wants to Fix Sexual Assault in College Football” with me.

In the article, Landbaum interviews Jessica Luther, a journalist and author who has brought sexual assault issues amongst NCAA teams to the media’s attention. About sexual assault victims’ ability to share their experiences via social media, Luther comments, “I think we are in a time where we have an unmediated way to be in the public space. I’m always very encouraged when there’s a hashtag – when survivors talk to each other and to other people about their experiences and have that collective moment together.” Thanks to the networks facilitated as simply as by a Wi-Fi connection, storytelling has garnered the power to unite people who have suffered from a common injustice. Furthermore, “And in [Luther’s] experience, when one survivor comes forward, it gives another survivor the fortitude to come forward themselves.” When one victim shares his or her story, the courage which it exemplifies goes on to embolden other victims. Many initiatives for other hardships, including mental illness and LGBTQ oppression, encourage survivors to share their stories as a means of encouraging others. This outreach often provides the support for the disenfranchised that they may not receive from family or friends who cannot relate.

Likewise, the personal narrative is a nexus for positive change in society. I reference Bill Moyers’ “How Storytelling Is at the Heart of Making Social Change,” in which he discusses the relevance of the narrative, specifically in the context of social movements’ power to effect meaningful change, with veteran activist and organizer Marshall Ganz. About his Jewish upbringing with the Exodus story, Ganz recalls, “And, but then I came to realize that what it meant was the story really wasn’t the property of one people, time, or place.” Because personal narratives address issues and implications that cannot be confined to a specific context, their applications bear a timeless power to bear meaning under an infinite number of circumstances. Ganz continues, “In my experience in organizing, it was also all within narrative. And so we kind of knew that narrative stories mattered. And they mattered to the heart.” What distinguishes movements from interest groups, he explains, is the narrative: not only does the narrative rearrange economics or politics, but it rearranges meaning; not only does the narrative redistribute the goods, but it discerns what is good. The narrative also provides a moral resource (no different than a faith or cultural tradition) for the hopefulness that risk-taking – challenging convention, standing up against the status quo, making a difference – mandates. Take Barack Obama’s presidential campaign slogan, for instance: “Yes, we can.” The phrase originated from Cesar Chavez and the farm workers’ unofficial slogan, “si, se puede” (which, literally translated, means “yes, we can”). This slogan, too, bears a narrative origin. In 1972, Arizona governor, Jack Williams, passed a law denying farm workers’ rights to organize and boycott. When Ganz and his team of grassroots activists went to Arizona to challenge it, Dolores Huerta reported people saying “no, se puede,” indicated their doubt of their ability to effect change. This discouragement ultimately fueled a successful protest, and, later on, a successful bid for president.

Pantsuit Nation, a secret Facebook group created by Libby Chamberlain as a forum for sharing stories of oppression and encouragement in the midst of the 2016 presidential election, is evidence of this. In “Clinton Fans Find Comfort on Facebook,” BBC reports, “In the safe space of Pantsuit Nation, posts about such experiences generate thousands of Facebook likes, and an outpouring of support and advice in the comments… The group is littered with messages of support and, as time passes, stories about taking action.” Although many of the three-million-plus members of the group (which dubbed itself Hillary Clinton’s “silent majority”) cannot freely express themselves, their fear of a Trump presidency, or their dismay from alienation due to their many identities, the superfluous messages of encouragement and empowerment keep them going. Personally, the page proved to be a refuge for me following Clinton’s defeat in the election, as I could anguish with a community just as fearful as I. Kaitlyn Tiffany, in “What’s Next for Pantsuit Nation, the pro-Clinton Facebook Group with Over 3 Million Members,” writes, “Chamberlain herself says the group will remain primarily a safe space to share stories, and that storytelling ‘can be just as powerful in making a difference in the trajectory of our country’ as more ‘visible or traditional’ forms of activism like protesting and grassroots organizing.” Having found a supportive group of blue voters horrified by the possible disenfranchisement they may face due to Trump’s policies, I have been encouraged to speak out more freely about my own fears.

So, I am left invigorated and incited by power of the personal narrative. Again, storytelling is activism. Following are abridged excerpts from my journal, written in May, 2016, as I prepared to leave Tufts University having been drunk, alone, and suicidal for two years.

Mental Health.

It’s all too easy to assume the victim mentality; as my grievances with my experience at Tufts accumulated, I grew increasingly sensitive to every extrapolating circumstance that challenged me. The more hours I spent cocooned in the safe confines of my room, lamenting every-which-thing that had provoked and continued to exacerbate my feelings of expatriation, the less hopeful I grew that the spring semester’s eighteen weeks could present me with a catalyst for personal growth or fulfillment. I slowly wilted, the prisoner of my own dismay, with every day I spent perusing social media, longing over the energized (or, more likely, drunk) interactions in my hall, and contemplating every dynamic that had led to my alienation. The more I lamented the growing walls of both my dorm room and fragile emotional state, the more remorseful I grew for myself. Every pub Tuesday for which I was not invited to pregame and study session at Club Tisch (as Tufts’ library was so lovingly nicknamed) to which I was not invited to collaborate seemed to dog-pile on to the list of outings from which I was excluded. It was no challenge to take every one of these missed opportunities was an assault on my likeability. After three semesters of so naively comprising myself and my values in pursuit of acceptance and inclusion from, arguably, some of the worldliest people I had ever met, the reasons for which I felt alone and un-advocated for taunted me in my misery. I felt inadequate, unaccepted, and taken advantage of. My circumstantial depression swelled, and effectively aggravated my clinical depression.

The thing about clinical depression is, though, that is seems inescapable. Depression is no easy feat; it conflates your perception of reality and conception of the self, and leaves you suffocated under the weight of an indiscernible tangle of of doubts. I wanted to reach out to someone – anyone – about my estrangement, but feared that my problems were either my own doing or too burdensome to merit someone else’s attention. The web of complexities that left me questioning my own worth warped my responses to reality to the extent that I internalized my emotions and tip-toed on imploding. Depression does that to you: it leaves you drowning in your own dangerous meta-narrative, in waters too deep and dark to realize even a sliver of hope. Of course, it doesn’t help that depression has no explicit cure; you don’t wake up one random morning, pull up your bootstraps, and “get over it.” You don’t talk entirely through it or its complexities, as the ounces of doubt with which it leaves you linger in your conscious and taunt you daily. Anti-depressants are great, but those are only “fuck-it drugs”: medication alleviates the brunt of self-questioning’s incursion, but fails to resolve your deepest-rooted miseries. With no end in sight, it is easy to play victim to the disease.

Naturally, my personal experience, as a dissatisfied college student with pre-existing depressive tendencies, was not aided by the stigmatization I felt due to my mental health. Even in retrospect, I have yet to decipher whether I was actually branded by my mood disorders, or if it was simply my anguish’s interpretation of responses to my episodes. The fall semester of sophomore year, I was reeling from an emotionally abusive boyfriend in a long-distance relationship and my parents’ disappointment in my ongoing substance habits (which I generally justified by saying that there were far worse intoxicants than alcohol and marijuana). Upon losing my debit card and shattering my phone beyond repair consecutive nights, I was a wreck; that weekend culminated in a monumental panic attack in which I laid on my linoleum floor in the fetal position, sobbing hysterically about my transgressions and own worthlessness. A week later, when the girl with whom I shared a bedroom wall had me referred to the Director of Residential Life for noise complaints, I was asked by the Director if I could simply not have a panic attack, or, if at all, not in my room. Essentially, I was threatened with re-location mid-semester if I did not magically cure my own anxiety disorder. An even worse event occurred this semester, when eleven medics were sent to my room in the midst of another panic attack in which I cried, “I want to end it” (regarding the semester/my stint as a cool, Bostonian college girl). The next morning, the Dean of Student Affairs requested an immediate appointment with me, and relayed accusations that I had been drinking alone in my room, which my hall mates had slanderously declared to be the cause of my meltdown. In the days that followed, girls from my dormitory frequently tried to hug me, confirm that I was doing well, and ask that I let them know if I need anything. Not one of these girls followed through on their niceties, and instead walked on eggshells around me in the weeks that followed.

I stress the point, though, that depression and other issues of mental health don’t simply resolve themselves. They don’t just go away, or dry up like a dream deferred – like a raisin in the sun. Mental illness haunts its victims on a daily basis; think about Annabel. Your body just collapses into this indefensible vessel for psychological manipulation and deterioration, and your self-agency slips through your fingers. You do everything in your power to create as much distance between yourself and your mood disorder as possible, but depression has already infiltrated your walls of defense and is regenerating itself in all mechanisms of daily life – just like a cancer. There is no syllogism for survival, or route of escape. The impetus then falls upon you to work through it, to take every procreative measure to ensure your endurance.

Perspective.

Upon my therapist’s [Trisha Cavins – I highly recommend] suggestion – I spent many nights crying to her via phone session – I was challenged to question my perspective as a means of persevering through the semester. Having been raised in an unconditionally loving, Baptist household and prided myself on my ability to fairly assume multiple viewpoints, I doubted that my perspective needed re-focusing. I was a moderate democrat with a vested interest in human rights and cherished the sentiment, “You don’t have to; you get to.” Because of my faith, I knew not to doubt God, but trust that every trial through which I went was both divinely orchestrated and overseen in order to better express His unchanging love and strengthen my testimony. My perspective needed no changing. However, as Trisha explained, I had spiraled so far into a bottomless abyss of alienation and mistrust that I had begun to discredit the things that got me through the day, every day.

I had come to see my desolate weekends as a punishment for other girls’ pettiness. Trisha instead suggested I think of my weekends as opportunities to treat myself. Rather than dreading my “me time” on the weekends, I needed to look forward to such as a time of rejuvenation and reward. Out of my desperation of any source of fulfillment, I took her insight to heart. Because I had never been apprehensive about eating meals or shopping by myself, I easily assumed the role of independent, city girl. Downtown Boston energized me: the anonymity was liberating, and the endless possibilities emancipating. I went on a solo shopping spree in Harvard Square and made myself emotionally available to the thrills of people-watching and playing dress-up. It reads like a primitive impulse, but for me, it was a restorative adventure. Another day, I took advantage of the free film screenings offered on campus - I monopolized on my freedom to wholly insert myself into the Cold War context of a Tom Hanks movie [Bridge of Spies, which I also highly recommend]. Exploration, retail therapy, and cinematography properly appreciated were not the consequences of my emotional disintegration, but my trophies after every laborious week spent working in the solitary confines of my room.

On a daily basis, Trisha advised me to keep a list of as few as two positive things that made me happy every day. Frankly, I thought this was bullshit; I hadn’t been happy in weeks. Nothing brought a smile to my face, a twinkle to my eye, a pep to my step. I was confronted by an intense antagonism to being happy (which, I think, was an effect of my heightened depressive state). Happiness for me at Tufts was an impossibility. However, as listing these daily positives became an integral part of my daily routine, I came to develop an appreciation for even the most trivial of matters. At the time that I commenced working on this list, my causes for celebration were as mundane as having a singular, positive, interpersonal interaction once a day, if not simply leaving my room. By training myself to recognize what made every day worth enduring, I began to look forwards to the following day, eagerly anticipating what uplifting things would propel me through the darkest six months of my life. My progression through the semester, and consequential change in self and soul, came to be a quantifiable entity I measured in “the small things,” as opposed to the devastatingly heavy circumstances of my discontent. My list, with which I still keep up, also became a means by which I charted my endurance and strength; to see where I began, where I could barely muster the purposefulness or degree of self-worth to leave my bed in a 48-hour span, makes me that much more proud to be the girl who is concerned for her personal presentation, schedules lunch dates with strong females by whom she has been inspired, and holds herself accountable.

Spirituality.

My mom had always concluded her college trial-and-error testimony (better that than a sob story) in her return to her faith upon realizing that she could not “do it alone.” I was lucky to have been raised in the church, and to have had an understanding of the power of divine intervention, but the self-motivated desire to attend church on my own merit had never been a concern of mine. After a student ministry focused its attention on the mega-church’s adjoining Christian school and an untruthful rumor led to accusations that I was “living dangerously,” I became hardened against religion’s institutional component, justifying my dissociation with Christianity’s orientation as a relationship between God and me (not fellow believers and me). I definitely neglected God’s template for Biblical love, as I should have instead been cultivating my faith in relationality to the church’s congregants – but I didn’t. When my parents dropped me off in Boston, I never thought twice about sleeping in on a Sunday or using God’s name in vain. Religion was meaningless to me, and I found my identity in my social status, which amounted to a relative quotient of my social status in comparison to my peers’ [lack thereof].

When Tufts knocked me on my ass, the loving arms of my Savior were all that I had in which to find peace. When I went, on my own accord, to Hope Fellowship Church [a saving grace for me] for the first time, I choked back tears as Christians around me declared their loving praise of an unchanging Creator whose love for me did not waver. Even now, I fail to summon the words to explain or wrap my head around the way in which I found God, with His arms still open to me, just where I had left him – in His holy sanctuary. God had never left me, even when I left Him in favor of free drinks and cheap thrills (fleshly pleasures). Even though I had rejected His offer of eternal life and redemption, His offer still stood. A warmth of protection blanketed my cracked soul; I felt restored, relieved, and safe enough to be vulnerable. I was my own prodigal son; but, as a minister who personally outreached to me explained, we’re all prodigal sons. The celebration of the prodigal son was an 'A-ha' moment for me, as nothing rivaled the feeling of not being forsaken by God. He never left me, even when it seemed that everyone had.

Obviously, there is far more to my story – but I am not ready to share that yet. With time, I will be. Perhaps I will be encouraged by someone else’s leap of faith. For now, though, I hope that my narrative might be worth more than just a sad story. If I can encourage just one person with my series of unfortunate events, then it will all have been worth it.