Rebekah B.

Photography by Nia E. Jones

If you’re reading this, it’s okay to ask for help.

I like to think that I have it all together. I am the type of person to plan ahead - I have an outline of all of the classes I want to take each semester, I have an ideal timeline of when I would like to get married, and I have quite a few thoughts about grad school, etc. Lately, I have been learning that this is emotionally draining. I’ve actually learned that a bunch of times, but it has never stuck until recently.

I was diagnosed with depression during my junior year of high school. I had been overwhelmed with trying to maintain a rigorous academic schedule and hours upon hours of extracurricular activities. The schools I was applying to accepted only the best, and I was exhausted from trying to be just that. I lost all motivation to do anything, and I was getting migraines at least three mornings a week, which caused me to miss a good amount of school. I felt worthless because my grades were dropping, but I literally could not muster the energy to care enough to act on that feeling. It felt like I was just getting run over and over again by a school bus.

At the time, I did not know that what I was experiencing was not normal. Obviously, I knew that the migraines were abnormal, but I just thought all other juniors were experiencing the same thing that I was. I thought that I was just facing the junior year burnout of trying to impress everyone around me and build my application. After talking to my mom and some other trusted friends, I asked my parents to take me to the doctor to get a professional opinion. It turns out I actually was struggling with depression. I was placed in therapy and put on antidepressants.

During the spring semester of my freshman year of college, I was struggling with a lot. I had just moved back home because all of my classes were online, and it just didn’t make sense for me to be paying the money to live on campus when everything that I needed to do could be done virtually. Don’t get me wrong. I love my family with my whole heart. They did absolutely nothing wrong.

I was constantly feeling overwhelmingly sad. Nothing that anyone said or did could help cheer me up. I would constantly fake a smile and pretend that I was doing okay so that I would not have the conversation about how “it’s okay to not be okay.” Those just seemed like cliche words at that point, and I was tired of hearing them. It seemed like everyone around me had their lives together, and I was trying so hard to have mine together too. However, as I said earlier, having my life planned out and bundled up in nice packaging, or rather pretending to have everything this was, was emotionally draining.

After much deliberation, I asked my mom if I could go back into therapy. (I had taken some time away because I thought that I was doing much better mentally.) As expected, she was more than willing to say yes and was thrilled that I was able to ask for help before my mental health was completely down the drain.

Asking for help used to be so incredibly scary for me to do. But now, I realize that it is the first and most important step to getting better. Had I not asked for help, I would be stuck in my bed, unable to get myself up and dressed for the day. I would not be as good of a friend and sister as I want to be. Simply put, I would not be the Rebekah that I am right now. While it may be scary at first, asking for help changed my life.

Rebekah B., Virginia Commonwealth University

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