I recently wrote the most frightening essay of my life- a personal statement meant to be sent off to a number of graduate schools. I spent weeks thinking about what I should write, how I should connect the dots. I concluded that I wanted to write about Fear.
Everyone knows Fear. It sits in the corner of our bedrooms when we are children, basking in our lack of light. It wanders the halls behind us throughout school, whispering doubt into young minds. It stares at us through job and graduate school applications, stroking insecurities and dangling the possibility of failure before our very eyes.
My parents always told me that bravery was never about defeating Fear in hand to hand combat, but rather pushing on in spite of its constant presence. They told me that one day, I would grow strong enough- not in physical strength, but in endurance of the mind- that the old fears would dissolve.
Certainly, I grew to understand that new fears would take the place of the old. When I was eight, my greatest fear was the dark. I grew to sleep well without lights on, but Fear manifested in middle and high school through bullies and failing grades. It wedged itself between my family members and friends. When I was about to graduate high school, my greatest fear became a horrible reality- my baby sister was mentally ill, hospitalized, and she left us. I was diagnosed with a trauma disorder. This was not the kind of Fear anybody prepared me for.
It took a great deal of time to ever even acknowledge the damage done and how it haunted me day and night. I forgot that I couldn’t simply slam a door shut and isolate myself from feelings of anxiety and pain. For a few years, I truly believed I’d defeated all of my fears and was in a good place. But I overestimated my ability to not feel human feelings. I went abroad to Guangzhou, China and I was afraid for the whole semester. I was afraid of being alone, of being forgotten, of being trapped. There was no shutting the door this time, no locking myself away. My fear demanded to be felt and feel it I did.
These graduate school applications are frightening to fill out. I keep overthinking, providing myself with what-ifs and doses of imposter syndrome. My parents have this saying- don’t climb the mountain before you climb the mountain. For years, I’ve been learning that it is okay to be afraid. The important thing is to push through and run after the things I want in spite of the fear. It is because of these experiences that I learned to appreciate that the fear means that I am challenging myself, that I am allowing myself to grow. I am getting ready to graduate college at the top of my class. I’ve traveled the world and taken so many opportunities head on, developing skills and confidence that I never imagined I could possess.
My mission now is to abnormal psychopathology. Mental illness is one of the most frightening of ordeals anyone can experience. I want to help develop treatments that give people faith to tackle these ordeals head on, to acknowledge their fears and know that there is reason to believe that this fear, too, will be powerless in the face of perseverance and growth.