Justin B.
Photo provided by Justin B.
If you’re reading this, don’t blame yourself for how you feel.
At Georgia Tech, we’re in a competition to see who can be the most sleep deprived. Students will brag to each other about how long they stayed up last night studying for a midterm, or how many dozens of internships they’ve applied to in the past day. It’s a relatable joke students tell each other, and it can even feel comforting to hear that everyone else is also stressed. However, despite being cloaked in self-deprecating humor, it comes across as an implicit message; “I am working harder than you”. Especially around finals when our peers are cooped up in their rooms or huddled on the quiet floors of Crosland, I feel that everyone but me has it all under control. Some students seem able to study for hours on end, and some people are part of half a dozen clubs and never once mention struggling in class. I ask myself, “why can they do it, but I can’t?”. Everyone else seems to have their life together and can accomplish everything they set out to do.
The truth is, though, no one can do it all. What we see around us are the faces people put up for the outside world, but no one is free from their own internal struggles. On social media, no one posts a picture of themselves they don’t think is perfect, and very few people tell others in their day-to-day life about their experience with depression, losing a family member, or failing a class, but this is just a snapshot. When I compare myself to others and start blaming myself for not being as productive as them, I remember that the image I have is not of the actual person, but an idealized version of them. We blame ourselves for not being perfect, but perfect doesn’t exist. At a school like Georgia Tech, there is a real pressure being placed on us. We are being pressured to keep our families happy, to keep a high GPA, and to graduate on time. We feel stress in response to this pressure, and it’s tempting to say that we’re overreacting and if we just power through we’ll find the stress was all for nothing. Our feelings don’t reflect a misguided reaction, though, but are instead understandable responses to the situations we find ourselves in. You are not imagining the stress from the college environment, it’s a real thing, and blaming yourself won’t get rid of it.
Mental health is not something that our minds conjure up from thin air. It’s our reaction to the world around us, or sometimes it’s our bodies performing processes with unintended consequences. It is not your fault for feeling jealous, anxious, or depressed, and these feelings are not some flaw in your existence. What we can do is work on how we respond to these feelings, how we view them, and when and where they come up, but the emotions themselves are part of us. Sometimes what we need is support to change how we process them. If you’re reading this, you’re not alone, and what you’re feeling does not come from nowhere. We can become better people, but blaming ourselves for how we feel will not get us there. Give yourself grace, and by sharing your struggles you will find that others are not perfect either. Help can be found in other people, please reach out.
Justin B., Georgia Tech
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