Elizabeth D.
Photography by Jessica Pentel
If you’re reading this, you deserve to be seen. I hope you know it’s okay to feel lost sometimes. It’s okay to feel like the world is moving too fast and everything is too loud. College is a lot, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed.
In the age of covid, isolation is hard to escape. I’ve struggled with depression for years, but I was too afraid to get help because I never felt like I deserved it. I am incredibly blessed in life, and I felt like I was just being ungrateful, dramatic and lazy. I thought I was just being weak. But, as time went on, I started to lose more and more of myself. I could barely get out of bed, brush my teeth, shower, answer texts. I was a shell of a person.
My first year at UVA, I reached the lowest point of my life. I relapsed into my eating disorder, I closed myself off from everyone in my life, my anxiety was spiking, and I just wanted everything to stop. I decided to stay home for the second semester and work on myself.
I started therapy for the first time and I went on medication for my anxiety and depression. I struggled with this decision at first because I felt like it was adding another failure to the list. Scrolling through social media, I started to feel like maybe there was something wrong with me. Millions of people go to college every year, why was it so hard for me to figure out? But, inside I knew that if I didn’t take this step, there might not be any coming back.
Everyone deserves to get help, no matter what their situation is or what their circumstances are.
You know yourself better than anyone, your feelings are real. Asking for help is not a weakness–it doesn’t mean you’re not strong enough. It means you’re human. It means you’re growing. It means you’re alive.
Elizabeth D., University of Virginia ‘24
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