Anxiety and the Impossible Standards of the Unsatisfied

I grew up as your standard happy go lucky kid with a heart too big for my small chest and love spilling out of every part of me. I was always cared for, I was always loved and I was always told I could do anything with a little hard work. Then high school came.

For those of you who read my past blog posts, you'll know my depression first surfaced my junior year of high school. My work ethic dropped, my grades slipped and no one helped, they just judged.

I was the perfect child, the perfect student and the perfect friend for years and then when I tried to reach out, people just let me fall while expecting me to maintain the same high level of achievement I had always met.

It was so painful, I thought I might die from the sheer overpowering emptiness and abandonment I felt when no one was there.

Years later, I have come to realize a sad but honest truth:

People often do not know how to help, so the choose to not acknowledge those struggling around them. 

I have assumed for years that no one helped because of the stigma surrounding mental illness. Or because my grandmother committed suicide, I couldn't be suffering as badly as she had.

You're okay, it's just a phase, you'll grow out of it, it's all in your head.

No. Fucking. Shit it's all in my head.

As I reached the end of my senior year, the expectations reached daunting heights and I had no energy to meet them.

I passed, barely, with straight A's and went on to college where I hoped to exceed the things set before me.

I did not. 

Not the way I expected to anyway. And I think that made it all the better.