2007.

I knew I wasn’t someone who nobody liked. I had a really cool group of friends in 7th grade, and every day seemed like it was a new adventure being a 13-year-old girl. Girls liked boys, Girls like girly things, Girls constantly chased boys if boys were bugging them. Me? I fell into those categories, but one thing that I had that nobody else in my class had was something I was insecure about. No, it wasn’t my weight that people poke fun of occasionally.

It was the fact that every sixth period, I was pulled out of class for speech therapy.

Since I was a pre-schooler, I was put into speech therapy because I had a hard time speaking properly and I stuttered a lot. Speech therapy, in a sense, forced me to speak and try to formulate sentences that other people were able to understand. In the 5th grade, I remember having to explain something thoroughly in a game of Taboo, which I was surprisingly good at as a 10-year-old. I didn’t know, though, that speech therapy was now something I had to go through in middle school: the years where people poke fun at anything that seemed abnormal to preteens.

I remember my class sucking their teeth in music class everytime I was pulled out of class. I remember the days when I was able to attend music class, my music teacher pointed out that “Elizabeth has been out of class for half the year and she still knows more about her part on flute than the entire class.” It was humiliating. 

Although I was a pretty outspoken pre-teen, I still never felt like I was heard. I wasn’t remembered. I was just the girl who had a bunch of guy friends who seemed to only be friends with my tomboy best friend at the time. No boys liked me or paid attention to me like they did with the skinny girls, despite me having the hugest crushes in middle school. In a group of skinny girls, I felt like the ugly fat friend. It seemed like people only listened to me when I was singing on stage, to which then everyone took the time to notice me as Liz and not just another girl in the super smart class.

I noticed a couple of girls in my class occasionally write and share the poems that they would write, and somehow that interested me. How can these girls that everyone mistaken as “stupid girly-girls” write so sophisticated and… real? I decided to then try writing a poem on my own. It was called “You Found Me”. I shared it with those girls the following day at lunch, and for once, I felt heard.

2012.

I regret not putting sunblock on my body when ditching school for “senior ditch day”. High-school was officially coming to an end in a couple of weeks, and what not better way than to spend it with my friend and her circle of friends at a beach? I came home as red as a tomato. I know that’s so unoriginal for me to compare my skin with, but it’s the honest damn truth. Other than that, I had a good time. In a sense, I needed a day away from the drama that lived inside that school. For a performing arts school, you would’ve thought everyone majored in drama because everyone was in someone else’s drama. I had a lot of it in the recent months in 2012. For once, I felt unsafe at my school; I felt like a ticking time bomb and at any given moment, I was going to explode. I didn’t know who was watching me, talking about me, being fake towards me, but it felt like I heard something new about myself every single day.

Up to this point, my nights have all ended in me crying on my bathroom floor, feeling alone as one does at 3am in the morning. I spoke to God a lot, even though at the time it was very hard to believe in him when he had me in a situation I thought I’d never see myself coming out of. This particular night felt different; I thought for once I’d be able to sleep without any lingering thoughts in my mind.

Of course, that little hope only lasted for a few.

I received a phone call that frightened me. It was one that was intrusive, disrespectful, and manipulative as hell. To this day I still think about it. I hung up the phone afraid, hurt, and in shock. My actions as a dumb and naive 18-year-old got me to the point where it was now affecting those around me. It was my fault everyone around me was now involved. Most importantly, I hung up the phone defeated.

Sometimes I remember that night and think that was the night I didn’t want to live anymore. I think that night or that morning perhaps would’ve been when I’d attempted suicide for the first time. At that point, I didn’t feel like there was any way out of the torment I was living. I didn’t have much fight left in me. I think I remember that night so lividly because deep down I know that it easily could’ve been the night I gave up living.

I did what I did best at that time of my depression: I wrote a poem simply entitled, “Elizabeth”.

I posted that poem on my Facebook page as a note and tagged all of the “poetry people” who enjoyed reading my poems. In a sense, I wanted people to care and pay attention to me for once, I wanted someone to read that shit and read in between the lines and realized the little-hidden messages of me wanting to kill myself, I wanted a human-fuckin-being in this world to care that I fucking exist.

They felt the “hurt” in that poem, but I was nothing more than just an angsty teen who wrote poetry to express their overly-dramatic emotions. Still, it was enough for me to go to sleep that night and wake up the following morning. Knowing that I’ve written my truth and what I’ve feared for months on end was enough for me to see another day. I still remember that night.

2018.

To say it as bluntly as possible: I was fucking nervous. Sitting in the front row of the lecture hall with my name around my neck was nerve-wracking to me. Presenting in front of people was never my thing, especially if it was on something that I actually gave a damn about. This presentation was different than all the others I’ve done in my grad-school career. I was now only weeks away from graduating with my master’s, and here I am, presenting my 40-page Master’s Thesis for the annual graduate research conference. I had 5 minutes to present the work that I’ve done within the last 5 months, and again, it was extremely nerve-wracking.

I was number three, and the first of the English majors to present on the research that I made. This was it, as I stood up in front of the podium, looking at the small audience and my thesis advisor who walked in just in time to see her student present the body of work she helped me on. I was never the greatest academic writer; getting A’s on final papers in college was never an easy task, and they always came when it was about creative writing: my specialty. Taking my first ever graduate-level writing course changed the way that I saw writing and how it is viewed through a scholar’s perspective. Writing my thesis took two years to complete, and submitting it officially a week before the conference was an emotional roller coaster, to say the least. I mean, I cried the night I had it officially printed out for review if that gives you a picture on how much this thesis meant to me. 

It was now time for those who didn’t know me or my studies to know the exact things I was passionate about.

As a student myself, it’s important to be a part of an academic community that allows students to be themselves in their classes. Classrooms aren’t just lectures anymore; they are writing workshops and student-driven discussions. All voices are important, and they need to be recognized and heard more in college classrooms.

The five minutes were now up, and my last presentation as a grad student was officially over. I looked up to the people clapping and felt this immense feeling of accomplishment in me. For something I questioned myself doing in months prior has become one of the days I’ll never forget in my grad school career. People came up to me afterward and congratulate me on my presentation. Some even expressed their interest in one day reading my Master’s Thesis! I thanked my thesis advisor for helping me and encouraging me to be heard on a topic that is important not just in English classrooms, but any type of classroom where professors are authorized more than students. I left my student career doing the one thing I’ve wanted to accomplish in all 6 years of college: to be heard.

 

-Liz. (:

 

April 25th, 2018: Morning.

It was a normal Spring-like day: rainy, gloomy, humid, yet somewhat chilly enough for a jacket. I woke up that morning feeling a lot like the weather in many ways, but I don’t think the weather could feel a sense of anxiousness like I did. I woke up worried more than anything. I had a busy day ahead of me: I had a final draft of my Masters Thesis to be revised and ready for publication, I had to mentally prepare myself for a long night of class the following night, and just in a little over an hour, I had an appointment I was not ready for.

Two weeks prior to this day, I had a regular doctor’s appointment. I felt regular, I was okay at the moment, but something kept bothering me. I felt like I wasn’t being honest with my doctor, and most importantly to myself. When the dreaded question of “have you’ve been depressed within the last two weeks?” finally was asked, I finally put it out into the universe.

“Yes. I’ve been more sad and anxious than ever before, and I would like to seek therapy for it.”

Two weeks later on this exact day was finally the day I’d start. I felt weak that morning. I felt like I gave up on trying to help myself out of this funk. I didn’t feel like myself anymore; it felt like I was handing over my body to some professional in hopes they “cure” me and make me feel happy and bubbly all over again. I had second doubts about going to this first meeting, but I got myself dressed, I put my jacket on, took an umbrella, and left the house with my mother to go to my very first meeting, or the first initial step of feeling better.

The Waiting Room.

The first floor of the building felt like a movie set in the 1970’s. I felt myself closing in on the muted-colored walls and brown, speckled floor. It was crowded with rows and rows of patients and groups waiting for group therapy discussions. I could see the discomfort in my mother’s face and the shock over the fact that our regular doctor’s office was much more modern and bright in terms of lighting. I got handed a clipboard of the usual registration questions you’re asked: name, date of birth, address, family household, allergies, list of medications, and so on. Having to answer these questions made me even more nervous to go forward with this. I wasn’t ready. I felt myself in that waiting room slowly shutting down. I wasn’t ready to bring up things that I’ve repressed in my memory for months, even years on end. What does my family think about the thought of me bringing up family secrets? What does my partner think about me being in a mental health environment? Am I considered weak? After some time passed by, a social worker came up to me and said, “Hi, are you Elizabeth?”, which then I replied, “Yes.” She asked me to go upstairs with her as my mother sat in the waiting room, waiting for me to come back. As the elevator came back down to pick those waiting at the first floor up, I felt my legs getting shaky.

The Office.

I realized I began doing this thing I normally do when I’m painfully shy and nervous when talking to people I’m not comfortable with: I began squeezing my damn fingers together until they turned purple-y red. She introduces herself as Allison, which I was grateful that she was a female social worker because I wasn’t comfortable talking about my problems to a guy. She pulls up a long document of boxes and rows for words and begins to ask me some questions. They start off as being basic and non-triggering: what am I studying in grad school, am I in a relationship, blah blah blah, and so on. I guess they ask you the easy questions first to get you comfortable talking, so after explaining my basics for her to get a better understanding of me, the heavy-hitters begin to come and I find myself taking more time to answer them.

• “Was there any point in your life where you had suicidal tendencies or thoughts?” “Yes.”
• “Did you have a plan?” “If you count thinking about scenarios like getting hit by a car, then I guess yes. But in terms of taking pills or more common methods, then no.”
• “Can you tell me more about this time in your life? What was happening?”

I was brought back to those specific moments, ones that I haven’t verbally spoken about fully in detail in what seemed like years. I kept ending every sentence with “but I don’t think about that time anymore” or “it doesn’t affect me anymore” when clearly it’s visible that I’m lying through my teeth. Yeah, it doesn’t interfere with my daily living, but it played a major role in why I function the way I function. It’s a part of the snowball that began to roll and roll into this exact moment all these years. And I should’ve realized that the moment I began to pretend that part of my life didn’t exist anymore.

The interview became heavier and heavier as time passed by, and I was now feeling the knot in my throat and trying immensely hard to hold back from crying. I felt raw, I felt stripped, I felt exposed, and I felt vulnerable. I felt as delicate as glass. I felt easily torn like a piece of paper. I had admitted things into the universe that I repressed in my mind for so long.

“What made you want to seek therapy?”

I’ve felt more disconnected from myself more than ever in my life. I don’t know who I am anymore, I don’t know what I am to people, I don’t know where I belong in life. I graduate a month from now, and I’m scared. I’m afraid of everything that’s to come to the point where I’m not even happy that I’m graduating. I never felt this distant from myself and from those I care about most ever in my life, and I feel like it’s gradually getting worse.

After a while, the words just felt empty. They had no meaning. They had no depth in them. They felt loose and liquified, like vomit. I was done talking for the day, and I needed a breather. I think Allison sensed that, and she automatically said the interview was done. She showed me my rights as a patient, and she told me that in a week or so, I’d be getting a phone call from the therapist that is assigned to me, and from there the therapy process begins.

The Departure.

The elevator doors open and I immediately see my mother in the same spot she was in before, but the first floor is now noticeably emptier than it was before. I had to make an appointment for the second part of the evaluation, which was the official diagnosis with my assigned psychiatrist. That wasn’t going to be until two months later: after grad school ends, after I graduate, after everything I was anxious about should be finished. I sucked it up and made the appointment anyway. After we left the building, my mother asked me what did I say to the social worker in the interview. Of course, I said nothing and just went on with my day.

September 25th, 2018: Morning.

As I’m reviewing this before publication at noon, I realize just how much progress I’ve made since then. Since then, I’ve seen my therapist once a week, I’ve seen my psychiatrist once a month, I’ve been on anxiety medication since July, and I’ve seen an immense change in how I function. I’ve been able to get closer to the people I loved most after knowing what I am working with. I’ve been able to be more aware of my behavior and actions towards things and not be so afraid or ashamed to show my anxiety to the world. I am more vocal about how I feel, I am becoming more assertive with my anxiety disorder, and I am able to make steps moving forward in the progress of getting a career. Five months ago, I was a struggling grad student, and five months later I am now a TA for a graduate class in preparation for teaching my own college course in the future. I now have a professional who I trust enough to share and be honest about myself with in hopes of getting a better understanding of myself and gaining a better solution into overcoming certain obstacles. Five months later and I know I’m not completely cured, nor do I believe I’ll ever be knowing the severity of my social anxiety, but I am now in a better headspace than I was entering this world of therapy five months ago.

Five months later, I don’t repress uncomfortable thoughts or memories as I used to. I now discuss them in therapy.

 

-Liz. (: