I live with a mental illness. I have severe OCD, and very bad anxiety. I am a theatre major.
These are facts. These are things I deal with every day. I’m a 24-year-old senior, and reaching a level of mental chillness, not mental illness, has been an extremely long and arduous journey.
I took a two year break between my junior and senior years, finally returning to school this fall. Every student needs to know this. Every single person feeling down, every person who suffers from a mental illness, every person who wakes up in the morning and looks in the mirror and lets out a sigh of defeat:
You can do it.
I’m serious. It’s all about the fight. It took me two years to get back into therapy as an adult, and get my meds regulated, and I honestly have to say I’ve never felt better. I need my meds because my meds regulate me.
We live in a culture that likes to romanticize mental illness. Believe me, I love characters like the Joker just as much as the next fanboy, but mental illness isn’t cool. “Alice in Wonderland” would have you believe that mental illness is all bright colors and funny punchlines, but the reality is much darker.
Dealing with a mental illness is revisiting the darkest corners of your mind, always on the lookout for a trigger than might bring back a panic attack or a feeling you thought you had left behind. Dealing with a mental illness is being constantly vigilant in a world that is not gentle nor caring of your problems. You have to be your own best friend and your own best supporter.
You can do it.
As I’ve grown, I’ve begun to reflect on just how I want my art to reflect my person.
What’s worse is there are teachers who will not have your back. All of my mentors, save two, have been outside of school. I have had very little help in my field. In fact, I have had a ‘mentor’ tell me my chosen field might not be suitable to me. This was years ago, however, and I’ve come to terms with this tidbit of information. I want to work with people who have mental illness and maybe shed light on these subjects, because we live in a state and a country where mental illness is pushed slightly to the side, always in the peripheral but never in focus.
I can do it.
All of my life I’ve dealt with the voices of my own anxiety telling me I’m not good enough or I can never do it. Forget all of that.
I am an adult and I don’t need a professor to tell me that I’m not good enough or that I can’t or that I won’t, and neither do you.
If you have a dream that is beneficial to the world and doesn’t harm anyone, then go for it. You do you. If you want to sing, or dance, or act, start taking those classes. If you want to be a nurse, go be a nurse. If you want to teach calculus to kids in Indonesia, find a way to make it work.
Don’t let a professor tell you that you are too fat, or that you need to lose some weight to succeed, or that you’re not smart enough or not good enough. These are not platitudes from someone who has your best interest at heart. These are words from someone who is jaded and bitter. Chase your dreams, and don’t let anyone tell you different. The first and only word I was ever punished for saying was the word “No.”
The only word I hate as an adult is the word “No.” If someone tells you that you can’t do something, just go do it.
You can do it kiddos. You can do it.
