Abby N.
If you’re reading this, give yourself a reason.
I’ve struggled with my identity since I was young. But the real questions and doubts appeared during my sophomore year of high school. I was always an upbeat person, someone who wanted to be friends with everyone and make sure everybody’s day was amazing. Yet, for about two years, it took everything I had to want to get out of bed and be the person I claimed to be.
Thoughts constantly filled my mind about my friends not liking me, that I’m unattractive and unlikable. But the one that kept resurfacing every single day, louder than the rest, was that I didn’t deserve to be alive. It felt almost ironic; how could someone who appeared to be so happy be dealing with something so dire? Although I didn’t realize it at the time, my constant craving for people to be around me all the time, to have something always happening, was not because I liked it. It was because I needed it. I needed the noise to drown out these thoughts in my head. When the world went quiet, my mind became an overwhelming space of dangerous what-ifs. But it was a power struggle; I didn’t have the motivation to do anything except lie in my bed and not talk to anyone. So the cycle continued to the point where I convinced myself that I wouldn’t make it to my first day of college.
Because of this happy-go-lucky persona I’ve curated my entire life, opening up felt, and still feels, nearly impossible. The hardest part of depression and anxiety is sometimes not even the sadness itself, but the fear of how my friends and family may perceive me if they knew. If they knew I wasn’t okay. It was like a secret language that no one understood except me, and I refused to teach anyone. I suffered in silence, living with this disease bubbling up inside me with no way out. So I practiced to appear as fine as ‘normal’, perfecting a version of myself that asked for nothing, even when every single day was a battle to stay upright. This mentality slowly deteriorated my mind over those years.
Everything shifted in the spring of my senior year as my mom tied me into a prom dress. I realized that this would be the last time she’d tie me into a dress of this grandeur until my wedding day. It was this moment that I knew I needed to change, and that gave me a reason. A reason to live. From then on, I reshaped my entire outlook on life, and I realized there is so much I have to live for and so much to love, even in the smallest aspects of life. Living in a hole I dug for myself became exhausting, but the little parts of my life that make me, me, shone down on that hole like rays of sunshine. Whether it was driving around at night, screaming Adele with your hometown friends, or graduating high school, every single event in life is what I learned to cling to.
Just celebrate everything! Celebrate your little sibling losing their first tooth. Celebrate your first college ‘A’. Celebrate making your first home-cooked meal in your new apartment. Celebrate your hair lasting another day without looking greasy. Look forward to your favorite artist dropping their new album. Look forward to what you’re eating for dinner. Look forward to surprising your long-distance partner or friend. Look forward to life.
I made it to my first day of college over a year ago, and I am forever grateful for my newfound perspective. I would’ve missed making the Dean’s list, falling in love, and learning that I can bake a mean banana bread. I still have my bad days, but to put it very simply, I also have my really, really good ones. I love what life has to offer. And no reason to live has to be grand; it just has to be mine.
So, if you’re reading this, appreciate every little thing that life allows you to hold onto. Understand that your life holds value beyond what you can see right now, and believe that you being here matters, even on the days it doesn’t feel clear. Appreciate every single thing, big or small, that life offers you and treat that as your motivation, because you deserve to give yourself a reason.
Abby N., Syracuse University
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