Going into college, there were so many lists, on Buzzfeed, Teen Vogue, The New York Times, from older siblings, from Frocos, telling us which rugs to buy, and how to bullet-journal, and how to shotgun a beer, and how to text in class without your professors knowing. Some of these lists helped, some hindered (hint: your professor always knows when you’re texting). The one list I never came across was “How to Tell Your Roommates that You Struggle with Mental Health.” It turns out I needed that one the most.
My journey with mental health began much earlier than I had previously acknowledged, at least according to my psychiatrist. After just one session, she said that she wouldn’t be surprised if I had been struggling with anxiety since I was a kid. But everything I’d associated with my anxiety started well into high school—I definitely had it before I could put a name to it, but even so, I could only trace the feeling back to 9th or 10th grade. By the end of my junior year, I was over-committed, exhausted, and so, so emotionally fragile. But my friends were in similar places so it had to be normal—I was fine, it was the system that was messed up. I cried when my parents asked if I wanted to talk to someone. I cried while my dad made the appointment. I cried through my first session. I cried in most sessions after. I cried a little each day. Never big cries or true releases—they were small bursts, hints at what I had buried for so long.
Flash forward two and a half years, and I’m on my second therapist whom I love and rely on, though that relationship itself took a lot of work to build. When she said she thought there was depression mixed in with my anxiety, I was confused, and definitely didn’t buy into her claim. In my family, I was the happy-go-lucky kid. I always had a smile and a joke, ready to make someone else laugh. My dad coined my hugs “day better hugs.” There was nothing I loved more than laughing. So, naturally, I didn’t quite believe her, and told my dad of her diagnosis with incredulity, expecting him to laugh it off with me.
Imagine my surprise when he instead asked why I was so against the idea of it being true. That I was depressed. I didn’t quite know how to answer him, but after a bit of soul-searching (and therapy), I realized that I was okay being diagnosed with anxiety because it felt expected. I thought that anxiety came with being a little stressed out, with being one of those “gifted kids” who grew up with high expectations to deliver and make her parents and teachers proud of her. I realized that I’d always thought it would go away after I got into college. But her diagnosis of depression, despite explaining away some of my symptoms that weren’t tied to anxiety, suggested that my struggle to understand my mental health was just beginning.
I had a hard time leaving for college. The idea of leaving home made me curl up in my parents’ bed and cry. Every week that summer, I’d go into my therapist’s office, not knowing how to calm the nervous anticipation or even how to cope with it. She didn’t have any real answers for me and refused to hand me empty platitudes. Though I was optimistic about Yale’s suite-style housing—I could get a single, which for someone with anxiety was an essential safe-haven—I soon found out I’d be living in a suite of ten girls. Ten. Girls. I hadn’t even learned how to manage my anxiety while living with my family, let alone nine strangers. They were going to know, and make fun of me, they wouldn’t understand what I meant or needed, and oh god.
No one told me how to explain my mental health to my suitemates. No one told me what to say when I needed to disappear for a little while, or how to explain why some days I just wouldn’t be able to smile, or how to teach my suitemates ways to talk me out of anxious spirals. No one knew how I should go about explaining my anxiety and depression, explaining that it wasn’t just worry or sadness, to people who might have never faced those feelings. And absolutely no one knew how I should explain to them, later on, that I was going on anxiety medication.
I regularly revel in the fact that I was gifted with the best suitemates I could have ever hoped for. They are my best friends and I can’t imagine my life without them. They accepted me, most of them without me formally telling them about my struggle with my mental health. If it came up in conversation, great. If not, great. They loved me then and now despite all of it (and maybe even because of it). But even though we became fast friends, I still had to face that dreaded discussion.
Having that discussion didn’t make any of the last year easy, but it did make it easier. In the last year, a documentary I produced won an Oscar and, a month later, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. In the last year, I went on anti-anxiety/depression medication and quit therapy for a month. In the last year, I travelled more than I attended class in certain months and took on a heavier course-load than I should have. But I also shared all of this last year with my friends—we laughed until we cried, stayed up all night talking, went on last minute day trips to New York City and got drenched in Times Square, and had an epic water balloon fight in the JE Courtyard.
Some people reading this might think that this piece is all cliché crap. Some of it is, but that’s because I love my friends and I’m just a sappy person. I’ve excluded many of the darkest details of my journey with mental health because this isn’t my journal, nor a therapy session, and some of it is too personal to even contemplate sharing. But if you can relate to any of the experiences I’ve recalled, then you have an idea of what I am leaving out.
My journey of attempting to explain to new people the intricate ways in which my own mind is my worst enemy is not over, nor has it gotten easier, but I’m better at it than I was when I was a first-year. But I still wish I’d had someone back then to talk to, even if they hadn’t figured it all out yet.
So, this is your how-to, part one. I know there’s so much more to say, but I’ll leave it here for now.
Get to know your suitemates as soon as you can. Even if it’s just a few casual conversations at the start of the semester, it’s better than no established connection at all.
Find a private space in your vicinity in which you feel safe, a place where you could weather out a panic attack or just take a moment to breathe.
Let yourself adjust to new surroundings, and give yourself time to work through all the associated mental health issues. Don’t put pressure on yourself that you need to adjust all in one day. No matter how your mental health is manifesting in one moment, know that it won’t stay like that forever.
Start small with the ways you communicate to those around you.
Mention that you “might be feeling a bit anxious today” or are “feeling a bit off.”
Include them in self-care activities, even if that means facemasks and essential oils, not your usual coping mechanisms.
Keep going to therapy!!!!!! (If you don’t have a therapist, or cannot afford one, Yale has free counseling which, for its faults, is much better than nothing.)
Have The Discussion™ if needed, or desired — but don’t feel pressured to explain yourself more than you are comfortable.
Trust yourself and your experiences. The only person who can have this discussion is you.
If these steps don’t work, and they sometimes won’t, that’s okay. Anxiety and depression, along with all other mood-disorders, are pervasive, and more people than you think have been in your shoes. Look for those people (like here, in the Layer), and read their stories. And as much as I’d like it to be, this isn’t a one-time conversation. This is a conversation you will have time and time again, but I’m hoping that sharing my experience might help make the first one just a bit easier.
By Sophie Ascheim.
