Once upon a time I was a young girl. hahaha A very, VERY long time ago… X-D
Oh, man. I remember being in high school and feeling like I had NOTHING in common with a single solitary soul in that place. I walked home at lunch (I was a bus student hahaha) to avoid the drama. I even graduated a semester early just to get the heck out of there.
Somewhere along the line, though, I decided I had a goal. I wanted to go to BYU in Provo, Utah.
Why?
Well, duh. Because that’s what all the smartest, most ambitious, most spectacular Mormon kids do! And I wanted to prove once and for all that I was that kid!
I kept my marks high, I only selected the most impressive-looking academic courses to study – reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic, with a splash of American History to score with the admissions department. I kept up phys-ed which turned into Kinesiology, and music, because I loved both, but otherwise, my secondary school schedule was pretty boring stuff.
Then I took the ACT. And I got a REALLY high mark.
I applied to BYU and I got in. I actually even got a scholarship if I wanted to attend the campus in Idaho, which was newly added to BYU’s roster. But I was a purist, an uber snob, and only wanted the best of the best. So I turned that offer down and accepted my place at the REAL BYU.
Off to school I went.
3,055 kilometres away from home.
1,898.289 miles.
When I GOT to BYU, apparently I was early. A family friend picked me up at the airport and dropped me off at my dorm. The Resident Assistant wasn’t around; I don’t remember how I got to my room. But once I was there…I stayed in there for a couple of days. I had no idea how to get food, or where to go for classes… Going to school that far away from home was suddenly the WORST idea EVER.
Don’t worry – I survived. Eventually I even knew my way around the place.
But in my 2.5 years down there I definitely didn’t…FLOURISH.
One time I got off the plane to come home and I had gotten so fat with the Freshman “fifteen” my mother didn’t even recognize me until my dad told her I was the strange young woman standing with him with luggage.
I don’t remember what the catalyst was. It must have been nearing the end of my time there, but something happened that resulted in my having an appointment with a counsellor at the school. And I took my roommate with me, I was so uncomfortable with the thought of talking to someone.
Gosh, I honestly can’t even remember what I needed to talk about.
I dragged my roommate into the room with me, though, and I’m pretty sure the counsellor asked me stuff and I more or less just glared at the room, and my poor roommate just opened up and SHE talked about me the whole time! hahaha She did a good job illustrating that I was unwell because the counsellor DID take an interest and I ended up going back on my own.
I was crashing. Burning. I wasn’t going to my classes. I just wasn’t doing well. I had some friends but wasn’t “part” of things. I remember in my first year I was head over heels for this boy who FINALLY asked me out, but then I found out he’d just done it out of pity because it was my birthday and the girls had put him up to it… I was the girl who came home from studying at the library on homecoming night to take everyone’s cameras and snap photos of them all in their formal attire before heading off for, well, whatever it was they were doing. By the time I was out of the dorms and into a house with three other girls I would hole up in my room, blast music, and stay up all night chatting online with friends from Canada. I got a job. I stopped going after two or three shifts. I finally went out with a new boy I had a crush on from that job. But he brought his roommate and they had a bet not allowing both of them to come home for the evening until both of them had made out with the duped Canadian girl. I don’t remember ever being so humiliated as when the roommate and I were left to get down to it. (Thankfully he wasn’t as giant a douche as the event orchestrator. Nothing happened). I was assigned to teach classes in church on Sunday, but nobody participated and I floundered in front a room full of people I increasingly believed were better than me.
I got mono. Something happened with my visa. I was pretty sick, so it’s an incredibly blurred memory, but I packed up my life, stuffed it in a car, and drove home with my brother who had come to visit for his March Break. I brought a letter from my counsellor to give to whomever I saw in Canada, as he recommended I continue therapy when I got home.
I remember being shocked when I read the letter: what was he saying, he’s been seeing me for depression and an eating disorder. What? No. I’m not crazy, this can’t be right!
I was angry. I was embarrassed. At this point I had a boyfriend and his MOM was the administrative assistant at the office I ended up at for counselling. She encouragingly said it was okay that I was there – most people need counselling and only the strong ones get it, and was emphatic about the confidentiality in the office, trying to help me feel safe.
Yeah, okay, lady. You can say that because you’re not the one assigned a spot in the nut house.
My family doctor sent me to get counselling. I remember being hot with anger as my mom drove me to my appointments. I’m CRAZY? What the HELL.
And then, somehow, behind those closed doors, with my new counsellor, with my new medication, I got better. I don’t even remember it happening.
Depression is a weird illness. Honestly. Talking it out with my doctor and counsellor we figured at that point I had probably been operating in a depressed state for at least 2-3 years. But it’s not like I was SAD all the time. It’s not like I had had a major life trauma, personally, that I had reason to be depressed about. It’s not like I had even FELT that I was depressed!
But that’s how it works for some of us. It’s slow. It’s long. It’s insidious. It encircles you, envelops you, and then swallows you whole. It takes over every aspect of who you are and you don’t even notice.
So coming out of it can be the same. You don’t even notice a difference, necessarily. Until you look back at the blackness and the new embarrassment is about what you put your friends through.
The real ones are still your friends on the other side. There aren’t many.
Some people’s stories start and end like this. They have an end. Some people get better and carry on with their lives.
Some people are more like me. Some of us get better, get worse, get better, get worse… some of us will never be ‘normal’ on our own. My story keeps going. Some days are good. Some days are agony.
My journey is just getting started.