Born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa, I never dreamed that I’d be living and studying halfway across the world before I turned 20. I was in my last year of high school when my divorced dad, hoping to give his children more opportunities and expand his business, started planning our big move to the United States. A very long, hard-won year later, we packed up our lives and landed in North Carolina. We hit the ground running: new house, college applications, transportation, food on the table and so on ad infinitum. I was 19, and I had just left my mom, my home and the friends I’ve known since the fourth grade. Even with my dad and siblings by my side, at the time it felt like the only thing that crossed the Atlantic Ocean with me was guilt and crippling social anxiety.
Life had chucked me into the veritable deep end of an Olympic swimming pool, but who could have guessed that this was the best opportunity I’ve ever had to grow (spoiler, it’s in the title)? I’ve been staying afloat in the U.S. for almost five years now; I’m 23, I like to think I’m moderately okay at adulting (only at the best of times) and I want to talk about how confronting my mental health allowed me to flourish during my time here.
Growing up used to be, and, let’s be honest, still is one the biggest sources of my anxiety. Performing simple tasks and responsibilities that were quickly becoming expected of me could feel so overwhelming sometimes that I didn’t follow up on job interviews, missed school and struggled with my physical health. The gap year between high school and my immigration to the U.S. saw me retreat further into my shell, and I became isolated from family, friends and hobbies before I even set foot on a different continent. This was a point in my life that I, as the totally reliabale narrator of this story, can confidently declare as rock bottom.
The good thing about rock bottom, though, is that I had no choice but to pull myself back up once I hit it. I couldn’t run away from my mental health by putting oceans between myself and my anxieties (anxiety is annoying like that), but, moving my entire life to a new country gave me some much needed perspective. The sudden disconnect between my life in South Africa and the new life I had to build in the U.S. left me in a kind of limbo, if only for a brief while, and it was as freeing as it was terrifying. This newfound perspective and a lot of time helped me to acknowledge unhealthy relationships with family and personal insecurities that affected my emotional and mental well-being. These acknowledgments were some of the first steps that helped me find the motivation and courage to put new roots down, to get into a university that allowed me to thrive and to begin healing with my family. My mental health is something I continue to work on as I navigate the ups and downs of student life, but I am endlessly grateful for being where I am today.
I learned a lot about what it means to grow up over the past five years. Sometimes, growing up means newfound compassion for loved ones and meeting them halfway, even across great distances. Sometimes, growing up means realizing it’s okay to ask for help. And, sometimes, growing up means surprising yourself when you turn out to be capable of more than you thought. No one is more surprised than me when I say that maybe this adulthood thing isn’t half bad.