L.M.

I’ve spent my entire life feeling like I wasn’t good enough. I was never pretty enough, I was never smart enough, I was never driven enough, I was never talented enough, I was never tall enough... just never enough. Since early adolescence, I’ve struggled with dark and twisty feelings that overwhelm me. Depression runs in my mother’s family. Anxiety in my father’s. It seems I’ve won the genetic lottery and inherited a tendency to struggle with both. 

When I was in 8th grade, my Mom pushed me to seek help from a counselor. I wish I could transport back in time to tell my younger self to take full advantage of that therapy early on. While my counselor was excellent, I didn’t work hard enough to really improve my mental health. I went to the sessions, but never did the homework. I wasn’t completely honest with the therapist and especially with myself. I had an up and down first two years of high school, but my last two years of high school finally felt like things were falling into place. I had found an incredible group of friends and I was comfortable. I felt anxious but ready to start my new chapter in college. What I ignored, though, was that change is not my strong suit. For many people, me included, change triggers anxiety. Anxiety makes for indecision. I couldn’t decide where to go to college and then once I chose Cal Poly, I wasn’t sure that I had selected the right college. I was riddled with anxiety before I even set foot on the Cal Poly campus.

Transitioning to college was one the hardest things I’ve ever gone through. Without the structure provided by my family, my community and my friends, my anxiety and depression spiraled to new levels that I hadn’t experienced before. My self-doubt was magnified. For so many of my friends, freshman year was this amazing, fun time. For me, feeling alone and unsure if I was in the right place, my new college life led to a very dark place in my mind. I was the most depressed I had ever been. I skipped class to lay in bed and feel sorry for myself. I cried while my roommates thought I was asleep. I didn’t want to wake up in the mornings. I would pick staying in my room over doing something fun with my friends, simply because I couldn’t gather the mental energy to get up. To top it off, my dorm was condemned and I had to move twice during freshman year...each time was a massive reboot for my anxiety. The ground kept shifting and I couldn’t get my balance. I let this negative cycle consume large portions of my first and second years of college. Despite the obvious, I pushed it away, denied the problem, didn’t deal with it, didn’t get the help I needed, and instead felt sorry for myself and wasted a good portion of those first two years.

Now it wasn’t all bad. I’ve had great days at Cal Poly. In the midst of everything, I made good friends, my roommate freshman year was and is the best friend I have ever had and I could not have gotten through my time at Cal Poly without her. I had great teachers, I loved many of my classes and had rewarding internships. The days when I managed to forget everything going on in my head, I made great memories and had wonderful college experiences. But it seemed like I was viewing this all through a dark tinted pair of glasses that made it still never enough. I also had and have the ongoing support of my best friends from home and my family and they are always available when I need to talk. Without a single complaint (although I’m sure I drove them crazy), they would patiently and compassionately listen to me day after day tell them I was so unhappy and I didn’t know what to do. I know I was a burden for them, but they are always there for me. But I didn’t listen to anything they said. I was trapped in my own head and I couldn’t hear anyone’s voice but my own.

Ultimately it was so frustrating to feel so bad but not have any obvious circumstance or reason to feel that way.  What was wrong with me? I finally asked mom for help and together we found a counselor in SLO. Therapy has changed my life. Why is it different this time around? Because I’m ready for help and I’m serious about changing my life. From our very first appointment, my new therapist helped me begin to make changes through the use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. She helped me to notice behaviors such as my tendency to demean myself by verbally stating that my thoughts or feelings were “probably stupid”. She gave me techniques right away to combat anxiety, aid my decision making, and help foster positive thinking - all things that had increased my depression. Am I all better? Definitely not, but I’m a work in progress and I’ll continue to need to work hard to battle my anxiety and depression demons. But I do understand now that they aren’t going to go away, and I can’t fight them without help.

I didn’t share my struggle on social media because I was embarrassed. My friends all seemed to love college. Everyone at Cal Poly seemed to love it right away. I felt like no one was struggling as much as I was. This reinforced my belief that something was wrong with me. Social media seems to be a place where people display how happy and wonderful their lives are. I could never have had the courage to post a photo addressing my anxiety and depression. I wasn’t able to make myself more vulnerable to my peers by telling my gloomy truth on Facebook or Instagram.

Ultimately, I’m learning that when I am struggling it’s more about my own mental health than about Cal Poly.  I’ve come to realize that I probably would have experienced these feelings wherever I chose to go to college. It’s like the old saying, “Wherever you go, there you are.”  So if you too are feeling sad, anxious, not good enough, under pressure to perform, or any other way that makes it hard for you to function, I urge you to talk to someone today. Don’t make the same mistakes I have made. Reach out to a parent, a friend, an RA, a teacher, a doctor, or a Cal Poly counselor. Change is hard, but change can be the best thing that ever happened to you. Don’t waste one more second of your amazing, precious life. It’s scary to get help, but it’s scarier not to.