When I was in high school, I got good grades. I would complain about not “doing as well” as I wanted, but I was happy and got into college. I was at ease with the way my life was going, but when I entered college, everything changed. It was so fast-paced and I found myself failing my exams for the first time ever in my life. I could not keep up, I was away from my family and I felt so alone. I didn’t realize it then, but I started to develop a lot of mental health problems. I started to feel like my friends–the friends I’ve known for years–were out to get me. I started to feel like they were looking down on me and I couldn’t deal with the fact that I was not doing well in school and I was so embarrassed that I started to push them away. I saw my peers excel in classes, while I struggled and didn’t do as well, so I pushed them away also. I fell so far away from the person I used to be. I went from that girl who would always smile and make jokes to the girl who locked herself in her room all day. I would lay awake at night and stare into the darkness and be consumed with anxiety at the thought of my future. Would I even get into medical school? Is being a science major worth it? Why aren’t I as smart as my friends? I would cry between the gaps between my classes, as I was driving home from school, in my room, and I really hated myself. I hated that I couldn’t do well on my exams. I hated that my parents and family had such high expectations for me that I could not reach. I hated that I was not good enough, but it got worse. I like to think it was school that was the main reason for my problems but it became a bunch of other things. My mental health started to get worse. I would beat myself up because I wasn’t a good friend. I would get called out by my friends for not wanting to hang out which made me feel horrible about not being a better friend. I started to get really bad at replying to text messages which caused my friends to call me out so I started to have anxiety every time I would get a text. I hated the fact that I was not a good daughter. I could not get the grades I used to get in high school and it scared me because how was I supposed to fulfill my parents dreams of going to medical school if I could not do well in school. I hated how I was not the perfect daughter, the one who makes her parents so proud that they would always want to brag about her. I hated that I could not be happy. I wanted to be happy, I want so bad to be carefree, but I couldn’t. I found myself constantly drowning in depression and the thing about me is that I always smile, and that made it hard for people to see how much my depression was consuming me. I tried to tell my parents about my depression, but they brushed it off and told me I was too young to have depression or it’s normal and probably just stress. It made me feel embarrassed to talk about it because I felt like I was just being dramatic. But don’t view them as the bad guys. They are the most supportive people you will ever meet, I just did not realize it back then but even so, I don’t blame them for not seeing how depressed I was. How could their always smiling, happy daughter turn into one who constantly cried herself to sleep, shut out all her friends, and locked herself in her room all day doing nothing but think about how insignificant she was? It was truly the darkest part of my life. Never in my life had I hated myself so much or felt so worthless. The thing about mental health is that it’s really hard to talk about it because there is so much stigma against it. People brush you off or think you’re dramatic. There was a point in my life where I had the worst mindset. I felt like I was just dragging everyone down and I felt so alone with all my problems but the thing is, I was not alone. There are so many people out there with the same problems and it’s so important to talk about it. Even in the darkest moments of your life, you are never alone. Don’t forget that.
