When you hear the term, “mental illness”, what do you imagine? Do you imagine those movies like One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”? Do you imagine someone who’s super sad all the time and really just no fun to be around? Whatever you imagine, I’m sure you probably don’t imagine your star football player, Valedictorian, or even just the regular classmates you see every day. Those imagined people you see when you hear the term “mental illness” are just, as previously put, imagined. The reality is people with mental illnesses, people like me, are perfectly capable of doing everything people without mental illnesses are capable of doing. I know this to be true, and despite severe depression and anxiety, I hopped aboard a plane and travelled to Ireland.
Naturally, I was terrified to be away from home, away from my family, away from my cat, etc. I had voluntarily thrown myself into a void of the unknown. My biggest fear, the unknown, was now unavoidable. I wouldn’t have my mom to ask for directions, I wouldn’t have my friends to assist me, anything and everything I did, I would have to do myself. While liberating, horribly terrifying would also perfectly describe how I felt. Nonetheless, I forced myself on a plane and into Ireland!
At first, things went smoothly, and then it hit me… I’m literally in another country alone. Thoughts began racing through my head What if I get lost? What if I can’t make friends? What if I totally fail at this whole thing? After that came a bit of depression. I didn’t have my mom, my cat, my nieces, or my boyfriend. The most personal I could get with everyone back home was over a blurry skype call that usually ended prematurely because technology decided not to cooperate. I would spend nights scrolling through Facebook photos and crying a little at all the things I was missing at home. There had to be at least a hundred times that I honestly thought I had made a mistake.
I didn’t make a mistake at all. Yes, I miss home terribly, but even though I have depression and anxiety, I’m in Ireland! A once in a lifetime opportunity, and I got here despite my own head telling me I would fail. In fact, I’m writing this from Ireland now!
If you’re wondering what the moral of this is, it’s quite cliché honestly. Believe in yourself. If you want to do something you can, mental illness or not. Many times, those of us in the mental illness community are branded with a label that we can’t succeed as well as others, and that is just a lie. It’s not about what you can’t do, it’s about what you can do! After years of insecurity, I know the feeling of defeat, as if you aren’t capable of anything. It’s not true. That feeling is not truly who you are or a measurement of your ability.
Maybe hopping on a plane to another country for two months to study abroad isn’t your version of liberation. Maybe liberation for you is just being able to talk in class. Do it. Don’t allow your mind to be a prison. Ireland, while terrifying, liberated me. Studying abroad has begun to teach me that I can do things I never believed possible. I believe, now more than ever before, that I am truly capable. I have another month and a half to go before going back home to America, but I’ve already been changed overseas.
I have begun to look forward to the unknown instead of fearing it, I feel freer, and I feel liberated from the burden of my mental illnesses. Find your liberation this summer! Conquer your fears and you will come out of your experience changed.
