I’ve heard a lot of slurs about greek life. Each house has their own reputations, but sorority and fraternity life as a whole, I find, is looked down upon by those not involved. I try not to get offended when someone says, “you’re buying your friends,” or “all you guys do is party,” because I know that they’re wrong, and that’s enough for me. This time, though…this time I was bothered. No, I was pissed.

I was in line at my favorite little coffee shop in the backwoods of Boulder that I never tell anyone about because it is my sacred spot. Yeah, I’m telling you now, but good luck finding it. Anyway, I was wearing my letters that day, sending a Snapchat, and this guy (most likely a student) taps me on the shoulder to say, “I bet you won’t be smiling after you guys kill someone.”

"I bet you won’t be smiling after you guys kill someone."

I was speechless. My jaw hit the floor. I’m usually pretty good at responding to dick comments with one of my own, but I honestly was so furious; I had no words. If I was smarter, I would have told him exactly what I’m about to tell you. Maybe this will show up on his feed one day and he’ll know he was wrong. Either way, this isn’t about him. This is in case there is anyone, any single one person out there, is thinking the same thing as that guy.

To be extremely clear, I am not advocating for the specific chapters that violated policy in such an extreme way that people lost their lives. That is not something I support and that is not something that any national fraternity supports. However, the entirety of Greek life should ~not~ be blamed for the actions of few.

Being a member of a sorority is—I’m not exaggerating—the reason I am still alive [I’m praying my mom isn’t reading this, but sorry mom]. I came to Boulder from halfway across the country, wanting to distance myself from my family and my city. I was already the dark and brooding type in high school, and I had a feeling that if I stayed in Chicago, it would have escalated from there. Anyway, I didn’t have any friends, I didn’t know anyone in the area, and I was so excited about it. I stayed that way, for about a few months.

Then the anxiety that had plagued me my entire life decided to come back in full-force. I stopped leaving my dorm room, I stopped talking to my friends, and in turn, I lost all of them. I became the girl that people avoided in the hallways. I became the girl that watched her group of friends eat lunch without her through the bathroom window after they’d all canceled on her. Yeah, that sucked. But I’d been through worse and I hadn’t died yet, so I didn’t think I would then, either.

As you can probably expect, something snapped. Spring semester my freshman year of college was about to be my last. If I were to think about it now, if my best friend—my only friend, in reality—hadn’t called me at the exact right moment and begged me to go to rush with her, I never would have spoken to her again. I’d put so much thought into it, I had everything planned, but she called me crying and saying she couldn’t go into the house by herself. I went to her, and changed my plans. It didn’t matter when, as long as it was that night. It had to be that night.

I entered the sorority house in sweatpants and a drug rug, clearly not giving a single shit that I was there. I was there for my friend, and then I was done. I’d been waiting for so long, what was a couple more hours?

I don’t remember much of the rushing process. What I do remember is that after talking to those girls for over an hour, I didn’t really want to stop. They didn’t ask me about my parents' jobs, or parties, or boys. They told me about impromptu trips to iHop at 2 a.m., unsolicited closet raids, and Oreo milkshake Mariokart competitions. I mean, that sounded a hell of a lot better than smoking weed, by myself, in my dorm.

My friend and I left the house that night chatting about how we both wanted to be invited back the next day. Then, I realized I was talking like I was going to be alive the next day. I got quiet, she noticed, and when she asked me what was wrong I brushed it off. I knew that if I told her what I had been planning to do that night, she’d have me stay with her or have me committed or something.

Not my plan.

I decided that I would wait. I knew that by putting it off I was taking a big risk—this was something I had decided in my heart was right. I had decided that I didn’t want to live anymore, and by putting it off I was seriously throwing a notch in that plan.

If I hadn’t, though, I would have missed out on so much. I would have missed meeting the girls who have changed my life. I joined that sorority and I committed to it. By the end of the semester, I didn’t even remember why I was so determined to quit in the first place. I had found girls that I could turn to for anything; girls that have held me so tight while I cried that I didn’t think they’d let me breathe again; girls that have sat with me in a movie theatre for five hours just because I was waiting to see if the cute cashier would be back; girls that have kicked down my door to make sure I was okay after not answering their texts for 24 hours. I found the girls that saved my life.

So, to the guy in my favorite coffee shop in the backwoods of Boulder, you cannot lump the tragedies of other chapters in with us all. Yes, those chapters that violated their laws so severely that freshmen ended up dead should be condemned for their actions. They have ruined the reputations of thousands of other chapters that do so much good.

My chapter did not kill me—my chapter saved me. Greek life has changed the lives of so many people on this planet that we can’t ignore. No matter how many assholes tell us that it’s a scam, that it’s an embarrassment, or that you’re going to kill someone someday, remember what it has done for you. Even if your situation wasn’t as dire as mine, remember that your chapter saved you, too.