TW: death, depression, anxiety, not explicit suicidal thoughts but some hints at uncertainty (which i feel the need to put in this warning), etc. Stay safe.
In the spirit of reverting back to my high school self because I am back home from college for an indefinite amount of time due to Coronavirus, I thought I'd come on here to say a few things. Partly because I need somewhere to put these things and partly because maybe, just maybe, this will help some of you.
I want to start with a disclaimer and say that I am in no way trying to put my struggles or my current situation on a pedestal. I know that there are people out there who have it much worse than me, but that doesn't mean what I'm feeling is any less important or valid on it's own. We can share our struggles without it being a competition xx.
Let's just jump right in.
Hi. I lost a family member at the end of November 2019. I was close to her and it hit me harder than I could've imagined. I was still at college at the time, so I spent the week shoving the grief away (she passed on Tuesday morning). I finally broke on Thursday night when I was talking to my mom on the phone and she asked if I was alright. I promptly busted into tears and told her that no, I was not. I went home that weekend and I felt better. But the grief still weighed me down when I returned on Monday.
In December 2019, carrying over into January 2020, I was severely ill. We have no idea what was wrong with me. I'm back to normal now and have been for about a month or two. But I was ill for about three weeks. One doctor thinks it was a new strain of the flu. All of the doctors at the Emergency Room where I spent the night had no idea what was going on. The primary care doctor that I saw afterwards told me I was a mystery. My biggest bet is that it was my anxiety.
Because when I returned to school in January 2020 and finally confronted the guy I had been talking to (yes, talking as in we were basically dating without the label because he was too afraid to commit) since September 2019, it reached its peak. And after being home with that situation behind me, I am doing much better.
But I loved him. I won't lie. I still do. I can't lie about that either.
But I left out the biggest part. Three days before I returned to school in January 2019, I lost another family member. A woman I was so close to that it physically pains me right now to write about her in the past tense. This was a death we were expecting and had been mentally preparing ourselves for more than a year. But no amount of preparation can stop the grief that comes with losing someone who you were close to. So close that we were referred to as kindred spirits.
If souls could be one in the same, I know ours are.
Ever since she passed, I have not been myself. And I don't say that to sound cliché. On top of the jarring loss of the first family member and the newfound anxiety about any germs in general due to being so mysteriously ill for three weeks, I then had to endure the death of someone I never wanted to lose and saying goodbye to a boy I honestly loved and never wanted to have to leave.
I was able to cope surprisingly well. If you count coping as distracting yourself to all hell, filling every single moment with homework, studying, writing a novel, hanging out with friends, etc. I was doing great.
And then, Coronavirus hit.
At first, we didn't think it would be this bad. At first it was just one week of extended spring break, then two weeks of online learning. Then that turned into the rest of the semester is online.
And now, my friends and I (and millions of other college students) are having to come to terms with the very real possibility that we may not return to our college's campus until 2021.
