Me, Myself and I
TW: mental health and physical health struggles
It took me 23 years to find the courage in myself to find help. It took me 8,400 days of convincing myself that the sadness I felt within me was real. It was a sadness that would accompany times that I always envisioned being my happiest. Prom, graduation, getting my first job, receiving an acceptance letter for my dream college program…everything was falling into place but my emotions didn’t seem to get the memo.
After many seasons of depression, eating disorders, failed relationships and just trying to figure out why I felt so out of place in a world where people just seemed to have it together, I finally asked for help. It was the most courageous, yet scariest thing I could have done.
On second thought, the scariest thing was having to tell my parents that I was going to therapy. It’s not that they didn’t want to see me happy and healthy, but mental health in a Latino household is unheard of. Depression translates to laziness, ADHD is just an excuse and everything else is just a lie you made up in your head. How could I tell my parents that their daughter needed help? My world was spiraling out of control and yet that was my biggest concern.
As much as my parents love me, I knew that it would be hard for them to wrap their minds around the fact that I was dealing with mental illness. As far as they knew, I was their problematic, rebellious kid who wanted to stand out, when in reality I just wanted to fit in.
Making it to 23 was a surprise and if I expected to make it to 30 I needed to seek help immediately. I found an amazing psychiatrist who made it a point to understand my backgrounds and concerns; it was during those tear filled Zoom calls that I found out I had severe Depression and ADHD.
Those tears weren’t out of sadness, it was out of relief. Hearing it straight from my psychiatrist was a form of validation for me. I finally understood why I functioned differently than my peers, family and friends. I admired my friends for tasks that would seem simple to others. Being able to focus in class, study, somehow not daydreaming 24/7, keeping an organized space, etc. It wasn’t like I hated school. I really loved delving into books about astronomy, ancient civilizations, environmental science and so on. Yet somehow, I was still failing all of my classes.
I graduated High School with a 2.0 (so like barely graduated), failed Algebra 3 times in college, was placed on Academic Dismissal and avoided science classes because they almost always contained math and my brain just could not compute. Subjects that I would spend endless nights studying just didn’t seem to click. I felt alone like it was just me, myself and I.
If you’ve made it this far, you’ll be happy to know that there is a happy chapter in this novel of life. In May of 2021, I graduated with my degree in Journalism and it felt so unreal I thought I was dreaming the entire time I was at graduation. Some part of me couldn’t help but to wonder if it was a cruel joke the world was playing on me. With my luck, my college would reach out to me just to let me know that I still had credits to complete.
I didn’t believe it until one sunny day in June, I was grabbing my mail and saw a degree shaped envelope. I opened it, took out the piece of paper and on it was my name. It was safe to say I started to cry out of happiness on my porch. I didn’t care what my neighbors could possibly be thinking about me. No one else knew about how much it took for me to get here. I finally had a degree in mind which was equivalent to having the world at my feet - everything felt possible.
I spent years denying the fact that I deserved a place in the world. Always felt like I took too much space or as if I wouldn’t make it anywhere my desires wanted to take me. It’s safe to say that I feel empowered, my never ending sadness finally has an ending, my ADHD feels like a superpower and I feel unstoppable.
I need you to promise me something, please love yourself enough to trust yourself. Don’t ever feel as if you are making up your sadness and feelings of defeat. It is not all in your head. I sometimes get upset with myself that I could have been feeling full of life years ago but the important thing is that I am on that course now. Seek help, find support and know that you deserve to feel like the amazing badass of a human that you naturally are.