How Depression Interfered With My Education
When I realized that I had a mental illness, I was able to release some of those feelings of guilt and shame
I was always an above-average student in school and doing well academically seemed to come naturally to me. In elementary school, I was placed into the G.A.T.E (Gifted and Talented Education) program, and in middle school and high school, I was in honors and A.P. classes. My academic abilities were a source of self-confidence and provided me with an identity that I was proud of.
My success in school also provided me with an optimistic outlook for my future. From a young age, I looked forward to going off to college out of state, and I had a long list of potential careers. Depression derailed those plans though and turned my life upside-down.
When Things Started to Change
It wasn’t until around the time I started my sophomore year of high school that something changed inside of me that would affect my education, and subsequently my future. I started to feel hopeless, exhausted, and unmotivated all of the time. My mind was swirling with dark and negative thoughts. I felt like there was no joy inside of me at all. I felt the lowest I could ever imagine feeling.
It was difficult just to get out of bed every morning and get ready for school. When I did make it to class, I wasn’t able to focus, and I wasn’t retaining anything that my teachers taught. My mind felt like it was stuck in a dark haze. I couldn’t even remember to complete my homework anymore.
It didn’t take long for me to fall behind and for my grades to begin reflecting my lack of focus. I quickly went from an “A” and B” student to a “D” and “F” student. Getting bad grades just made me feel even more down.
I felt the judgment of my teachers and my peers weighing down on me. At the time, I had no idea that I was experiencing depression. This was 15 years ago, and mental health wasn’t talked about as openly as it is today. On top of that, mental health wasn’t talked about at all within my family either.
I just felt like I stopped being smart. I thought that I must not have been as smart as I thought I was and now all of my peers were surpassing me while I fell behind. All of my friends at school were able to listen and learn in class. They were able to complete their homework and get good grades on their tests. I couldn’t do any of that anymore. I thought that I must have peaked. My self-confidence was shattered.
Ditching School
School became a major source of anxiety for me because I was failing, and I didn’t know how to explain to my teachers what was going on. They never asked me if I was okay, but they would ask me why I wasn’t turning in assignments or why I wasn’t studying for tests. I didn’t know how to respond because I didn’t even understand what was going on inside of my head.
I got to the point where I felt like I couldn’t make myself go to school anymore because of the anxiety of failing, and I started hiding in the bathroom stalls to avoid going to class. The school hall monitors regularly checked the bathrooms for ditching students, and it didn’t take long before I was caught.
There was never any sympathy or trying to get to the root of the problem from the school administration. I was just automatically reprimanded and sent to what was called “in-house suspension.” It was a classroom at one end of the school away from all of the other classrooms that was meant to house all of the “bad kids.”
The adults around me didn’t understand what was going on inside of my head. They thought that I was being a rebellious teenager by ditching school and not doing my schoolwork. That wasn’t what was happening though.
After I realized I couldn’t hide in the bathroom anymore, I began not going to school at all. I would tell my mom that my friend was picking me up for school at the end of the street. I would then walk away from the house without having to worry about her watching out the window for my friend who was never going to actually come.
I walked to the end of the street and then I kept walking. I would spend the entire school day walking up and down streets in my neighborhood that I knew my parents never drove down. It makes no sense to the rational mind as to why I would have rather walked around outside in the cold all day instead of just going to school. My mind wasn’t rational though — it was sick. All I knew was that I couldn’t make myself go to school. The thought of it made me sick to my stomach.
Breaking Point
It didn’t take long before the school started calling home because of my unexcused absences. My mom was furious with me. She kept telling me that she was going to get thrown in jail because I wasn’t going to school. Whether that was true or not, it terrified me. I could see the stress that I was causing my mom, and it killed me.
She kept asking me why I wasn’t going to class, and I felt like I couldn’t tell her because I didn’t even understand why. I had these overwhelming feelings that were consuming me, but I didn’t know how to explain them to anybody without sounding crazy. Mental health and feelings were never talked about in my family.
My mom started dropping me off at school, and I would pretend to walk into the building and then walk away from the school after she drove away. I felt an overwhelming amount of guilt for what I was doing, especially what I was putting my mom through. The anxiety, the depression, and the guilt were all I felt at that point in my life. There weren’t any more happy feelings left.
Withdrawing from School
After receiving more calls about my truancies, my mom was close to reaching her breaking point, and I felt horrible watching how stressed out she was. I finally asked her if she could just withdraw me from school. I didn’t say why. I couldn’t bring myself to even try and explain to her what was happening inside of my head because I didn’t even fully understand it.
My mom did some research and she found an online independent study program that I could do. The next day she went to my school and withdrew me. As you can imagine, the independent study program wasn’t the solution to my problems. My mom was no longer worried about phone calls from the school and truancy officers looking for me though, so it was a temporary relief.
I ended up completing only a couple of my independent study courses that year, and at the end of the school year, my mom decided that I was going back to my high school for my junior year.
I naively told myself that those feelings that I’d been having were just a funk I was going through. I told myself that when I go back to school this time, everything will be magically better.
Of course, that didn’t happen, and things were even worse. I was now even further behind all of the other students in my grade because I never finished my independent study courses. I only lasted about half the year before I convinced my mom to withdraw me again.
Long Overdue Diagnosis
Five years after depression hit me like a brick wall and derailed my high school education, I found myself as a 19-year-old high school dropout still living in my parents’ house with no aspirations for the future. I wasn’t going to school, and I had a part-time minimum wage job as a secretary that I hated. I had zero self-esteem and zero hope for my future.
My reality was far away from the future I used to imagine for myself. Before depression took ahold of my life, I always imagined I would go away to a university out of state and have a career that I thrived at. Depression took away my ability to imagine a future.
I had continued to blame myself for the way I was feeling and still hadn’t sought out professional help. It wasn’t until I read a personal essay online, written by a woman describing her life with depression, that I started to realize I had a mental illness. Her feelings and experiences were so similar to mine. It was at that moment that it finally clicked in my head that I had depression. My mind was sick, and I had to get treatment.
After five years of silently suffering, I began going to therapy. Therapy helped me take the blame off of myself and relieve the intense feelings of shame and guilt that I felt. It gave me a better understanding of what was happening in my mind so that I didn’t feel like it was my fault.
Finishing School
After beginning treatment, I started becoming more motivated to get my life back on track. I knew that if I wanted to advance in life that I needed to finish high school. I began studying for the GED test, and I passed it with flying colors.
After receiving my GED, I was ready to move on to college. I still wanted to go to a university, but I knew dropping out of high school and receiving a GED would make that difficult. I was determined to make it happen though. I couldn’t let depression prevent me from achieving my goals any longer.
I began by enrolling at the local community college and earned an associate degree. After earning my two-year degree, I was able to transfer to the local university without having to worry about submitting high school transcripts or testing scores that I didn’t have.
I can’t describe to you how good it felt to walk into the university after spending years thinking I wasn’t smart enough for college. My motivation was at an all-time high, and I ended up receiving my bachelor’s degree in a year and a half while making the dean’s list each semester.
Conclusion
I spent years of my life beating myself up over my academic failures. Depression made me feel dumb. But I wasn’t. My mind was sick, and when I realized that I had a mental illness, I was able to release some of those feelings of guilt and shame. My life will always be affected by depression, but I will never let it make me feel dumb again.
