Her Story aims to capture the lives of college women. Through breakups and successes, these articles are more personal and give an outlet to the raw voices and emotions of our writers.
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“Hey, are you crying?…Everyone look that girl is crying!!”
A teenage boy screamed this as he pointed me out to a crowd of strangers while trying to get into the Temple Penn State football game.
To answer your question: yes, I was crying and I cry a lot. I cry during class, at sporting events, eating dinner, and I have zero control over it. Why do I do this, why am I like this? It started with sadness and I knew something was off, but people get sad so I stayed quiet.
As the months went on, I got sadder and sadder. I couldn’t leave my room. I barely was able to get myself up in the morning to go to class. I dreaded having to hang out with my friends and I did everything I possibly could to avoid seeing them. Pretending to be happy is so hard, and trying to have a good time when all you want to do is drop dead sucks.
I lost almost 15 pounds, how is that possible when you never leave your bed? The sadness got worse, it began to hurt. I would lay in bed and cry because I just hurt and I didn’t know why. Every night I would fall asleep and hope I would never wake up. I would drive and envision my car crashing into the side of a building. These were things I actually hoped for. When these thoughts popped in my head of all the ways I could do to take my life I just thought to myself, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Each day the sadness got worse, the pain grew and grew and I had to stop it. So, I picked up a box cutter and just like that with one swift movement all the pain could go away. I would try anything I could possibly find and use that against me, to relieve the pain. If I’m feeling better this can’t possibly be bad right? Wrong. Fortunately for me I’m surrounded by friends who noticed and saw and they did something about it. They brought me to campus counseling, got in contact with my parents and my parents found me outside help as well.
I’m writing this to say do not disregard your feelings. Depression is different for everyone, mine’s mixed with a lot of anxiety issues which made a huge impact on how I felt and lived my life. Regardless of what it is, if it’s impacting your ability to live your life then do something about it. Reach out to and available resources and call any hotline, they are there to help. There are people out there waiting to help you and they will and you can get better. You’re life is worth living and you shouldn’t be living it in sadness.