Title: Is It Possible To Come Back From Rock Bottom?
Description
This is the story of how I hit my rock bottom from struggling with mental illnesses my first year of college. I lost so much during that period but I also gained so much. I never thought I was going to come back from that awful place but I did, and here is how.
This is the rough cut of my video, the final video can be found here.
Script
When I first started college in 2015, the only thing I wanted was that picturesque college life you see in the movies and on tv but that did not happen to me. I made friends pretty quickly and I started learning about my major and all the normal things that college freshmen experience. However, it was too much change for me in such a short amount of time. I felt as though I was on top of the world with my friends but it all kind of came crumbling down for me. Anxiety was the first thing to hit me. Anxiety brought depression, depression brought insomnia, and the list just kind of goes on. I ended up losing all of my friends because no one wanted to watch me crumble. Unsurprisingly, my mental health started to affect my grades and attendance for class… and by “effect my attendance”, I mean I just stopped showing up. When I went home for Christmas, I received a letter in the mail saying that I was on academic probation because my GPA dropped to an astounding 0.067. Thankfully, my mom was understanding and willing to get me some help.
Against my better judgement, I returned for the spring semester without getting any help. Armed with only a fake smile slapped across my face, I spent countless hours trying to convince myself and my family that spring semester would be much better than fall. In a sense, it was. During the spring semester, I tried getting help through on campus counselors but they actually made things worse. I was told that it was too late for me to fix anything and that I should just give up the college dream. I sought out help off campus and met with a therapist named Doug, who completely changed my life for the better. During all of this, I had stopped going to class… again. But with Doug’s help, I found the courage to not only go back to class but talk to my professors about what was going on. All of my professors were incredibly understanding and allowed me to make up quizzes, tests and projects all for full credit. Doug and I took the time to do some research and found out that I could appeal failed grades. Extensive paperwork was filed and Doug wrote a letter to the school board but I ended up getting the appeal approved. Sadly, the appeal went through too late and I was suspended from Kennesaw State anyway. Thanks to the appeal process getting approved, even though it was late, I was able to take some classes at a community college in the mountains my parents lived at that would transfer back to Kennesaw State.
In 2017, I returned to Kennesaw State filled with determination. The first thing I did was switch my major from something I hated, which in this case was Computer Science, to a major that I loved, which was English. In my first semester back, I got a part time job, started the introduction classes for English, and got featured in my local newspaper for getting straight A’s and making the President’s List. Not too bad for someone that had just gotten kicked out. It’s been almost 4 years since I received that letter about academic probation and now I’m in my senior year of college, which is something I genuinely never thought I would accomplish. I learned a lot of valuable things during the lowest point of my life. I learned that I only need to surround myself in supportive people. I learned that thinking anything less than what I truly am is such a disservice to myself. I learned that therapy isn’t a total load of hot garbage and also nothing like the movies. I learned that people who truly matter will stick by you through your toughest times. Lastly, I learned that it always gets better. You just have to put forth the effort and change it.
Ink and Crystals 