Sometimes I miss my childhood self, but then I also remember she was a bit of a judgmental bitch (big apologies to anyone who knew me in middle school). However, if nothing else, that girl had her shit together. Me now? I guess I’m making it.
I grew up in a small town. I had glasses and did well in school. Because of this, I was automatically pigeon-holed into the nerdy "teacher’s pet" category. I fit into it well; succeeding was always my strong suit. Ultimately, that drive for success has led to constant crippling anxiety. So here’s what I have to struggle with now: the overwhelming fear of disappointing everyone.
When I visit my hometown, I can feel the weight of everyone’s expectations for me. All of my childhood teachers and peers ask what I’m doing. The truth is, I have no idea. After I graduate I’m probably going to work a variety of part-time jobs to make rent until I can figure out what my real path should be. I was supposed to be a doctor or a lawyer or solve world hunger, right?
I gave up on my dreams and that’s okay because they weren’t my dreams anymore. They were the dreams I thought I needed to have because of the way I felt people saw me. I thought I was going to medical school, but when my dedication to that started feeling more like sticking out a bad relationship than going after what I truly wanted, I realized it was time to re-evaluate that choice.
High-functioning mental illness is one of the hardest things for others to understand. When I confided in my college advisor that I struggle a lot with anxiety and depression, she seemed dumbfounded. “But you do so well and you always seem upbeat!” People see my transcripts, my résumé, my plastered-on happy face when I feel like I’m imploding and am just doing my best to hold myself together. They do not see the dishes piling up in my sink, my mountains of laundry, my emails that go unanswered because even those small tasks feel like too much. They do not see the frantic messages to loved ones, the constant thoughts of being a burden, the piled-up pizza boxes because I’m unable to get the motivation to cook myself dinner.
This is not a cry for help or a way to fish for pity. This is me trying to talk about a very real issue that I think a lot of people hide because they’re ashamed. We all want to seem like we have it all and we envy those who seem to be breezing through without stumbling, but the thing is maybe they’re stumbling in private. I’m not saying you should take comfort in the fact other people struggle, but that we should all be kinder to each other and to ourselves. Especially as a college senior who just realized nearly all of her friends have diagnosed mental illnesses, it seems important to me to talk about the fact that it’s okay if all you do some days is survive. It’s okay if you don’t know what you want to be when you grow up. More and more people are taking gap years after high school. I think it’s smart to take time to figure yourself out instead of jumping into a career, especially if you feel pressured to pick something. Life is hard, dudes. Celebrate your small victories because they matter and so do you.
