Halle W.
Photography by Alexandra Pentel
If you’re reading this, don’t be afraid to open up to people.
If you’re reading this, you may know what it’s like to be so afraid that you don’t know how to form the words to accurately express how you’re feeling. Or what it’s like to be so introverted that despite wanting to tell someone you need help, you simply can’t get your mouth to open. Or maybe you don’t know these feelings, but you want to understand what they’re like.
16 personalities tells me that I’m 89% introverted, and after the past 21 years I believe it. It took struggling with friendships, feeling constantly left out and alone, moving 6 hours from home, a lot of rejections, and a brain surgery for me to tell someone that I didn’t see the point of living, and that I hadn’t in 6 or so years. Despite feeling this way everyday and being asked how I’m doing, my mouth always formed the words “I’m okay” or “I’ve been fine,” when I was really anything but.
Google defines an introvert as someone that tends to turn inward mentally, someone that only opens up to someone close to them. But for me, being an introvert made it so hard to connect with people that I didn’t feel as though I had anyone close enough to me to share with. I was caught in this endless cycle of fear until I hit such a low point that I had to break it. And so I did. Like the true GenZ I am, I texted my mom because I couldn’t bring myself to actually talk about it aloud, and I told her the surface level of what I was feeling.
The past year has been full of emotions, tears, and honest conversations about who I am and how I can actively work at making myself feel better. Even though it was so hard for me to open up and start the conversation, my depression needed to be talked about. Mental health needs to be talked about and cared about as much as physical health, and that’s a message to everyone, but most importantly a message to myself.
Everyday I try to put myself out there a little more, talk to new people, take on more leadership roles, talk about things like going to therapy, and even write/submit this letter. This is incredibly uncharacteristic of me and completely out of my comfort zone, but it feels good to get it out there and to know that maybe this can help someone not wait 6 years to share how they’re actually feeling.
Halle W., University of Virginia
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