For most people, college is measured in keg-stands and all-nighters. It is measured in house parties, and study groups, and how many Red Bull 24 packs they went through. In ways, these things measured my college experience; but it was also measured in doctors and prescriptions and numbness. For me, college was measured by surveys given to me by unqualified physicians who thought my depression could be measured on a 1-10 scale. They expected me to recall times of pressure and anxiety and assign it a number; as if I had any sort of barometer before this.
I entered college in an emotional crisis. I had never been away from home for longer than a few days and was by all definitions of the word, “a creature of habit.” On move in day my parents and sister helped decorate my room, hang up all my clothes, and put up posters to hide the grey brick walls I was expected to call home. I repaid their kindness by having a breakdown in a Jimmy Johns a few hours later as I ate my tuna sandwich. I told them they were stressing me out. I told them they needed to leave three hours earlier than they had planned.
Sophomore year of college I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and spent a subsequent three months on steroids to shock my body into fighting back. The steroids made me bloated and puffy and my face looked like a cabbage patch kid; I measure those months through how many episodes of Gossip Girl I could watch in my apartment alone, and how many unanswered prayers I shouted to no one.
After I began to get better physically, my mental state deteriorated. Each month began a new diagnosis by my college’s psychologists. Each month marked a new treatment plan. There was the week I had depression. There was the month I had body dysmorphic disorder. There was the month I had OCD. There was the month I had ADD. They wrote me every prescription anti-depressant in the book. I took them all without asking questions until I felt nothing at all. I remember the day I sat with my friends watching P.S. I Love You as they all sobbed into their pillows. I felt absolutely numb to the pain around me. I went home that night and flushed all the pills down the toilet.
I began seeing a woman outside of my school’s facilities once a week. Her office smelled like burnt coffee and orange incense. I began to just speak about what has on my mind. How banal I thought my major was; how tired I was of feeling tired. Through seeing her I began to see myself more clearly. How a lot of my anxiety didn’t stem from a disorder, but from a deep-rooted habit of self-indulgence. I started learning how to cope with anger, with sadness, with pressure. I stopped seeing her after I got up the nerve to ask her what the most fucked up thing a patient had ever said to her was. I expected some silly answer that would make me feel better about my situation (again, self-indulgence) yet I was shocked by her frank honesty. Her answer still haunts me to this day.
For me, college could be measured by how many hours I spent in waiting rooms. How many little pills I took before I forgot what it was like to ever feel happy. It can be measured in medical bills, and stress relieving squeeze balls, and screams into a pillow. However, my life in college can also be measured in the moments of clarity. In the moments I laughed so hard I shot milk out of my nose in the dining hall. In the times I dressed up with friends and went to ridiculous line-dancing clubs just for the hell of it. I recall all the beautifully happy moments I acquired despite all the times I wondered if I was only going to be a shell of a human for the rest of my life. My experience in college can be measured in the fact that I had a breakdown in a Jimmy Johns over stress caused by people who love me trying to make my life easier; it can be measured by the fact that my last day of college I woke up covered in Jimmy John’s crumbs, remembering the previous night out with friends, before packing up my car on my own and leaving town.
