*Content Warning: Anxiety and Depression*
People say love finds you when you least expect it, when you’re not looking for it. For me, realizing I needed help happened the same way—random and impossible to ignore. I remember everything from that moment: where I was sitting in class, the assignment I was pretending to focus on, what I was wearing, the weather, the time and date. But more than anything else, I remember how terrified I was.
The last nine months have been the longest of my life. From restless nights of uncontrollable shaking to taking a quarter off of school and coming back six months later to finding enjoyment in the little things again—I have been on a long journey of healing that is far from over, but I have become okay with that.
Going back to my love analogy, it is really hard to fake that you love someone, but it’s even harder to fake that you are okay when you really need help. I have come to learn that getting help is not a sign of weakness, but rather the opposite. Getting help shows your strength in choosing yourself rather than choosing to suffer in silence and calling it “being strong.”
In that moment in class, I finally realized that I was not okay—but I didn’t do anything about it. I simply sat in my chair suffering for the last hour of class as I was having the worst panic attack I thought possible. I was frozen in fear and thought that if I stood up I would pass out from anxiety. That is when I realized that everything I was dealing with had built up and my body couldn’t physically take it anymore. After that moment I drove back to my apartment and called my mom crying with no breath left to say anything—I couldn’t formulate a single thought to be able to put what I was feeling into words either.
I took a hot bath, forced myself to eat and drink something, got ready for bed, and ignored my homework that was due in an hour. I stayed on the phone with my mom until around 2:00 a.m. because I was terrified to fall asleep; I thought that if I did, that would be it. I had developed a fear that if I fell asleep and had essentially no control over my body while I felt so terrible that I wouldn’t wake up, or if I did that I wouldn’t want to wake up. The feeling that I felt was not what I expected anxiety and depression to be, but in me it manifested physically more than anything else and my body was shutting down from holding everything in for so long.
When I woke up the next day, I got right back on the phone with my mom, but not long after, I got on the phone with Cal Poly Counseling and Psychological Services. I told them how I felt, the night prior, to the best of my ability and I set up a screening phone call for later that day. While this first step seemed minor to me at the time, because I was just going to be seeing a therapist at my school, it was actually more significant than I knew at the time.
I only saw this therapist twice before making the decision to move back home for the Spring quarter. The ultimate deciding factor in this insanely difficult decision was the fact that I became unable to eat, drive myself to school, sit in class, look at my computer, or take care of myself. Day after day, second after second, I felt so terrible all the time to the point where I lived on the phone with my mom crying, shaking, not being able to breathe, thinking I was dying.
My mom drove seven hours to Cal Poly to come pick me up and bring me home for Spring break—because I couldn’t drive myself—and when I got home I thought I would feel better. I was wrong. During Spring break, I went to the ER because I felt like I was having a stroke and a heart attack, all at the same time. It was that moment that I was medically diagnosed with anxiety and depression. Night after night, when I was home, it was breakdown after breakdown and I never thought it would end. My body was stuck in fight or flight.
The day that my dad was supposed to drive me back to Cal Poly was the worst day I have ever had. I woke up early for a hair appointment and my stomach physically hurt and I was shaking, but I couldn’t cancel, so I went and when I came back, I laid in my bed and sobbed for hours. My mom got home from the gym and she found me at my absolute lowest—unable to move, speak, or do anything but cry. I told her that I did not want to go back to school, that it was making me miserable and that I couldn’t be on my own. She disagreed.
I arrived back at Cal Poly about ten hours later with my dad, after the worst car ride of my life. It was silent and I had never dreaded anything more. When we got back my dad asked, “How does it feel to be back?”
I remember saying, “I just really don’t want to be here,” as I was holding back tears. I called my mom as soon as we got to my apartment and told her that I couldn’t be here anymore, but she still didn’t listen. She said that if I stayed, she would come every other weekend to stay with me and help me get through the quarter, so I agreed.
My dad left the next afternoon and I was feeling okay about staying. But then it hit me. Around 6:00 p.m. the night my dad left, I was freaking out about being on my own. I called my mom, unable to breathe or speak or do anything but cry once again, I pleaded to make her listen to me and let me move home for the quarter. After a few hours she finally listened and I filled out the leave of absence form for Spring quarter of 2025.
The next day, my parents were back at Cal Poly and I packed up my entire apartment. I drove to my friends’ apartment and broke the news that I would be leaving and they were devastated, as was I, but I needed to get out of here.
When I got home I pretty much lived out of my suitcases for the first month, as I was navigating being back home and away from my friends; however, I knew I needed help and that nothing would change unless I wanted it to. I started therapy within the month, I started practicing yoga with my best friend from home, I started working again, I made it a priority to eat, and I was staying off my phone.
For a while though, nothing was working. I was still having breakdown after breakdown and I didn’t know what to do anymore. I was at my wits end. Four ER trips and no answers later, I got a primary care doctor and got on medication for my anxiety and depression, which I was officially clinically diagnosed with. My healing process had officially begun.
I am not saying that if you are struggling you need to be on medication. I am saying that you need to try absolutely everything under the sun, everything in your power to try and heal, until you find what works for you. For me, that was doing all those things but also taking medication, because everything else wasn’t enough. Starting the medication was rough and it took a while for me to feel the effects, but I feel like I am myself again. I have rediscovered that girl who was once just happy to be anywhere she was, the girl who I thought was lost forever.
Six months later, I am back at Cal Poly in a new apartment with my best friends and am having the time of my life again. I still have hard days, more frequently than I would like to admit, but healing is possible. The journey is long, but it is possible. I was in the absolute darkest, deepest hole, but look at me now! You can heal too, you just need to take that first step—which, sometimes, is the hardest part of the entire process.