The Reality of College

I remember the first time I had an anxiety attack. It was the summer before fifth grade and I was living in St Louis with my mom, my sisters, and my grandparents while our house in Springfield was built. I was still young enough to be in the stage where you could just play for hours on end. I'd go outside with my cousins and the neighborhood kids and play in the sticky Missouri heat. A delicious homecooked dinner would be a welcome intermission between sweaty, breathless afternoons and cooler, country evenings. At nine or ten or so our parents would round us up, distributing the kids between their respective houses, where baths and bed would follow. I'd sleep in a room with one or both of my sisters, and we'd fall asleep talking after momma had tucked us in and given goodnight kisses. We repeated this almost every day for a whole summer. Until one day my mom told me she was going to Springfield for the weekend to look at our new house. I didn't want to leave; she told me in the middle of the day while I was busy playing with my friends. I told her I'd stay in St. Louis with my grandma, while she and my sisters stayed at a hotel in Springfield. I was too caught up in playing to even notice her leaving.

That night, everything went as usual. Grandma knew the routine and everything went regularly. And then I was laying in bed, all alone. I couldn't fall asleep. Minutes ticked by. I got out of bed. Grandma told me to get back in bed. It was 11. It was 12. And the later it got, the more worried I got that I could never fall asleep. My anxiety of not falling asleep was keeping me from falling asleep. I cried. I kept my grandma up. It wasn't a lot of fun. I just attributed it to missing my mom and feeling lonely. And that's probably what it was. For the next two nights, the same thing happened. I was a mess. I couldn't sleep, I cried, I just...hurt inside. I couldn't explain what I now know was a panic attack. I loved playing with my friends during the day, but when night time came I felt so...alone. I wasn't close to my grandma at all; I might as well have been staying with a stranger. What started as a little insomnia morphed into a panic attack because I had no one to turn to when I was feeling vulnerable.

And in a lot of ways, that's how I feel about college. A difficult situation without someone to rely on for emotional support quickly spirals into something much worse. I can enjoy myself immensely during the day here, and like the people I'm surrounded by, but at the end of the day I feel really isolated. The little problems like homesickness and boy problems turn into anxiety and depression when I have no one to help me.

But, maybe that's just life. Life isn't always being as socially successful as someone else, or making lifelong, deep connections as soon as you meet someone. Life isn't always perfect, and it's not always going to work out the way I want it to. Life is working through the difficult times. Life is getting my sad ass out of bed and going to hang out with people, even though I feel like it won't help. Life is pursuing the reward, while realizing it doesn't happen as frequently as the struggle.

So what do I do? Do I just write off my problems at Pepperdine as part of life, and try to persevere through them? Or do I take the opportunity I have to transfer home to family and friends who already love me?

I do have so many things at Pepperdine to be thankful for, and I don't give those enough credit. I DO have amazing people in my lives. I just feel like I can't appreciate them fully because I'm so caught up in feeling like I don't belong.