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College Difficulties: Mental Battles


Since the time I could first talk and be able to understand words and phrases, I have been told that I was going to college. I was pushed academically, scrutinized for not being at my best academically, and praised for all academic achievements all in hopes of getting me to being on this campus, with these books, pursuing this degree. I don't think that our parents, friends, and other family members truly understand what it is like to go through the college experience in this day and age, especially with most of them not even having that opportunity to go to begin with. They don't understand the social challenges that we face to fit in and find our place. They don't understand the challenges of wanting to call home for help when faced with a financial burden, but fighting yourself not to because you are 18+ in college and everyone expects you to just "figure it all out". They don't understand the struggles of dating in college and making friends and realizing in the most traumatizing ways that everyone is not meant to last. And not only that, but we struggle with being away from our families that we have always been tied to. There are no more Sunday dinners, waking up to R&B on Sundays letting you know its time to clean, trips to the mall with mom, its not the same and I still haven't got adjusted to it and it is my last year of college. Us college students of all ages and backgrounds go through challenges through this experience that is perceived to be as "so wonderful" and many people know nothing about it. When I faced depression and mental battles within myself, I dealt with it independently, as most of us college students do. It is not that my family members do not support me, but their level of support changed once I got to college because they felt as if they prepared me enough to go to college and be able to handle it. But, the thing is, most of my family never went to college, so how could they have possibly prepared me for all that I was going to endure over my four years of being at Missouri Western. Yes, my dad gave me talks about boys and how boys were, but he couldn't have gave me insight on going through a breakup while managing to get a college degree. He couldn't have possibly explained to me how that breakup would spiral into depression and in result cause me to skip classes, get shitty grades, and want to drop out of school. My mom... my mom gave me talks about perception, discretion, and carrying myself properly before college, but she didn't prepare me for how false perceptions of me made up on a campus with women lacking support for other women, would travel with me my whole college career and be the basis for how people would look at me and define me. She didn't explain to me how your problems from years ago could travel and haunt you regardless of it being your fault or not. Or, my grandfather... he raised me to not give a damn about what other people think about you, but he couldn't have possibly understood how hard that would be when most people judge you before getting to know you. Because you're a great person, right? You're a fun person, right? But people just never want to give you the chance. We go through so many challenges over these long ass four years, and keep our mouths shut because when people ask how we are doing, we want to believe it ourselves when we tell them that college is great and we are okay. We are not okay. We are wanting to drop out of these classes that we study all night for, get tutoring for, and still making D's in. Shoot, many of us are wanting to just start life all over again with this newfound knowledge on how college is and redo everything all over again because we are coming to the realization that we didn't go about this college thing correctly. We picked the wrong college, we picked the wrong friends, we picked the wrong companion, we said the wrong things, took the wrong job... we made so many mistakes that we are just now realizing, years deep into this degree with thousands of loans invested that WE MADE MISTAKES. Not just one, not just two, but multiple and with us realizing those things, we are needing support. We are regretful and stressed, and we are just wishing that when we call home to our happy families, that they would READ us and be able to sense that we are not okay, but we are just too damn scared to say it. I was scared to say it. Everyone is not strong throughout this journey that you all mislead us to believe was beautiful, and, some parts of it is, but the whole journey isn't meant to be. We are supposed to be broken down, built up, challenged, tempted, and many other things throughout college, therefore, you parents and friends cannot just drop us off on that first and expect us to just figure it all out, because we need you, even though our prides are too high and our fears are too dominating to say it.

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