Ellison F.
If you’re reading this, the sun will raise again tomorrow.
Each year, my family vacations to Captiva Island, Florida, where we spend most of our days on Sunset Beach. I float out in the water, through the waves, as the sun sinks down into the ocean. For that split moment, my brain is still. My thoughts are vacant. I know that I am where I am intended to be at this time. I can be sure that when I look outside the next morning, the sun that just sank will greet me once more.
My name is Ellison Fleming. I am a junior biochemistry major. I’ve struggled with anxiety for as long as I can remember. More than just the nerves you get before a test, my days were filled with feelings of ceaseless distress. I denied, for years, the toll it was taking on my life, insisting that I could find ways to control it on my own, without help from those around me. They watched as it slowly consumed my life. When I was seventeen, after suffering in silence for far too long, I was finally diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder, and when I turned twenty, I was re-diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. For a while, I was never able to turn how my mind sounded into words. I’ve spent years sitting inexplicably on edge when there was no real danger present. My thoughts race, never slowing for a moment of peace. I worry about my plans for the day and how people view me and the weather and if my friends are mad at me and how many calories I’m eating today and if I’m making my parents proud and if I’ll get into medical school and if everything ever really will just feel alright. My brain is a constant stream of consciousness; I am unable to halt. “If my mind worked the way yours did, Ellie, I’d be exhausted every day,” my best friend tells me. On the really dark days, it could be easy to wonder if the world would be better off without my thoughts and if those around me would have an easier time without having to hear them.
Coming to Clemson challenged me in many ways, as I moved fifteen hours away from home without knowing a single soul, joined organizations I had never heard of before, and took on more than I could handle in the midst of trying to find a workload I could balance while staying steady on my feet. It also, however, showed me how truly capable I am. Like the sun on even the rainiest days, I am capable of rising, and I learned to thrive in new environments. I am able to find calm within the chaos my anxiety creates.
I’ve come to learn that I am more than my anxiety and that it does not define me as a person. Those who love me will love both me and my worries. You are not a burden for being honest with yourself and others about how much you may be struggling. You don’t have to do it all on your own. It is not your fault you feel this way, and you don’t have to feel this way forever. Nothing is permanent. It is incredibly easy to get caught up in where you feel like you should be at this point or all that you feel you should be doing. I have cost myself countless memories by focusing on what will come next rather than being present in what is here now. The world has so much more to offer than what is weighing on you. You deserve to stay around to see it.
When the worry feels heavy and the uncertainty seems overwhelming, you can always be certain that, regardless of how bad today may feel, the sun will rise again tomorrow.
Ellison F., Clemson University
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