It’s that time of the semester again. Waking up early enough to snag a good seat in the campus cafe (with an outlet!), continuously buying coffee as if your meal plan isn’t already almost out of money, juggling three subjects at once because all of your finals are on consecutive days, and getting the most inconvenient writer’s block when you have your term paper due tomorrow. We all know that Finals Week promises crushing stress and sleepless nights. So imagine having depression and anxiety on top of all of that.
I’m not here to discount the amount of stress people without depression and anxiety have, because I know for a fact that those people don’t have it easy, either. I just want to offer another point of view that is often not discussed, and so readily stigmatized.
Having both depression and anxiety causes a huge amount of conflict to arise in one’s head.
The depression is telling you to stay in bed and sleep a little longer, because you feel like you’re going to fail anyway so there’s no point in wasting your time studying.
But then anxiety comes in and kicks you for thinking that, because anxiety is telling you that you can’t afford a bad grade, because then you won’t get into grad school, and you won’t have a good job, and then you’ll become a complete failure in life. Anxiety wants to keep reminding you of all the bad things that could happen. And even though people with anxiety realize that their thoughts are irrational, they can't stop those thoughts.
So you get out of bed (later than you originally intended). Now you have to get dressed, and find the motivation to begin studying.
But depression doesn’t want you to find that motivation. And then anxiety reminds you that you need to study, or else.
You start studying. But you can’t retain information, and you need to really try to stay focused. It’s been found that anxiety and depression both affect students’ ability to concentrate and remember things, as well as hinder their ability to organize and plan. This makes studying for you increasingly difficult and draining, as well as adds on to the possibility of you procrastinating and having to do all your work last-minute since you’re bad at planning things out.
You’ve been studying, but then your friend texts you and asks if you want to study together. So you show up, but then you see that your friend failed to mention that there would be other people studying with you two. Depression and anxiety will tell you to keep your distance from these people; stay quiet, only talk when people ask you something, but even then, you’re afraid that you’ll have the wrong answer and everyone will think you’re dumb. You avoid eye contact, and your heart starts beating faster when someone addresses you. The thought of someone reading your essay while you write it makes you tilt your laptop slightly sideways, so the person next to you can’t see the screen.
These might sound like things that everyone goes through. And that’s precisely the reason people with anxiety and depression don’t talk about how they feel. You have no idea how often you hear “everybody feels like that, get over it” or “stop making such a big deal out of it.”
When you have depression and/or anxiety, things that seem normal to others are a big deal. Everything is scarier, or harder, or takes longer. People don’t realize how big a deal it is for you to wake up before noon, or to actually leave your room, or to even find the motivation to brush your hair. Everything is harder.
Especially Finals Week.
So, to all of my depressed and/or anxious friends out there, be kind to yourself this finals season. I know how much of a hard task that is in itself, but you got this.
