It’s okay if you’re struggling with mental health.
Trigger warning: This article has references to depression, anxiety and suicide.
In my high school English class, the short story we read ended with a man jumping in front of a train. One of my classmates raised her hand.
“I don’t like that ending,” she said. “I just don’t understand how someone could be that selfish, how things could possibly be so bad that you want to kill yourself.”
Little did she know that I was suicidal myself. One night during the same year, I tried overdosing on pain pills.
I came out of class that day feeling hurt, angry, guilty and resentful. At that time in my life, those feelings were never in short supply.
After some reflection, I came to a conclusion: She couldn’t know. That feeling of darkness and desperation is difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t gone through it.
I wracked my brain, trying to find a way to describe depression and anxiety to someone who has never experienced it. For anxiety, you know that feeling where you worry something bad is going to happen? You can’t focus on anything because you’re too preoccupied and your mind is going 100 mph. Anxiety is that, all the time.
As for depression, one common misconception is that it’s a constant sadness. It’s more of an emptiness, an absence of feeling. Depression numbs you and strips you of happiness, hope and enjoyment. Think of the Dementors from “Harry Potter.”
I personally have struggled with mental health for almost half of my life. There has been a lot shooting up at 3 a.m. because my anxiety wakes me up in the middle of the night. There have been a lot of mornings where even getting out of bed was an accomplishment.
Throughout my life, I’ve felt guilt about my mental illnesses. I’ve wanted to be “like everyone else.” It took a long time to stop shaming myself for these mental health struggles, which I didn’t ever ask for and only have a certain degree of control over. I also realized, through years of observation, that more people have been affected by mental health than those who haven’t. This includes not only the people struggling themselves, but those with loved ones who struggle too.
There isn’t a finish line that I will cross one day and think, ‘I have completely beaten this. I will never have to worry about this again.’ For me, a lot of my healing has come from learning to live and enjoy life in spite of these struggles. Some days are harder than others. However, thanks to therapy and finding people who support me in life, it’s easier than it has ever been.
If you are currently going through this, there is no shame in how you’re feeling or what you’re going through. You are deserving of compassion and love, even from yourself.
— Whitney Howard is an English major and, because of her personal experiences with mental health, a psychology minor. Tina Belcher is her spirit animal. Contact her at whitney.howard@aggiemail.usu.edu or on Twitter @omgwhitshutup.