Olivia D.
Photography by Jessica Pentel.
If you’re reading this, your mental illness is not who you are. It’s okay to let go. You’ll probably like what you find.
Due to an unlucky combination of genetics and circumstance, I’ve always carried mental illness with me. I’ve always let it define me too. I used to joke about my short temper, my nerves, my inability to make decisions, and my biweekly freakouts. For a long time, I ignored the constant dark cloud looming over me and refused to name it. Naming it made it real and unavoidable so I made jokes instead.
For a while the jokes worked. I let myself pretend like everything was normal and fine, until it wasn't.
My first semester at UVA was far from perfect. Truthfully, my mental health had been teetering on the edge all summer, but two weeks into classes and I hit rock bottom. Everything made me nervous; new classes, new people, new situations. I couldn’t sleep at night. I stayed up picturing the fifty different ways I would be guaranteed to mess up the next day. As time went on I found the few friends I had slipping through my fingers as I spiraled more deeply into my own head. Later that semester, I continued to stay awake at night, only now I was confronting suicidal thoughts.
I was directed to CAPS after I hysterically sobbed to a fourth year at the writing center. It was only after I got help that I learned something priceless: I am not “tightly wound,” or “really type A.” In reality, I suffer from anxiety and depression.
The girl who broke down when faced with making basic choices? The girl who started arguments based not on reality, but her own paranoia? The girl who was paralyzed with fear the moment she was not in her comfort zone? The girl who shut herself off from friends, scared they would decide she was too messed up to be worth it?
That wasn’t me. It was my mental illness.
For a long time I had held onto my anxiety and depression too tightly. I was scared that if I let go of who I thought I was I would be confronted with someone I didn’t like. I disguised my worsening mental health and suicidal thoughts within my personality. The truth is that once I shed this idea I got to know the real me for the first time and she's pretty great.
If that fourth year in the writing center hadn’t pushed me to get help, I might’ve lived my whole life under that dark cloud, too scared to let go of the girl I thought I was. So, if you're reading this, I hope you let this be your push---find your real self too.
Olivia D., University of Virginia
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