I’ve always been a good student and did what I was supposed to do, but I’m not sure why. Maybe it was because my mother was strict and didn’t tolerate anything less than academic excellence under her roof, or maybe I was actually smart, or maybe I wanted it for myself. I’m not sure.

Elementary school was hard for me. I had a lot of challenges. I would have temper tantrums so bad the principle could hear me from her office, and there were times my mom had to be called from work. She was always so mad, and sometimes she would say the meanest things. I didn’t understand then, but I get it now. As a single mom immigrant working to take care of two children, things were always tough, and it seemed as if I made it worse. I could never pay attention in class, and would be deemed as “talkative” or “eccentric”, even “cantankerous” (that last one was courtesy of my mother and father). After a little bit, my crying had gotten to a level where one day they threatened to call child protective services, something I didn’t find out until this year, so my mother had to sit with me for a year in class everyday, and that was the only time I would stop crying because she scared me, I knew she wouldn’t tolerate it.

I had always been a cryer, but I remember vividly when the moment hit me that no one in the world cared. Everyone always had stuff to deal to with, and my issues were no one’s priority, they just wanted me to be well behaved, so I was. I became quiet, and if I cried it would always be under the protection of my blanket late at night. It seemed as if I had gotten “better” to everyone else, but on the inside I was still struggling. It wasn’t until late middle school that certain subjects like math and science made sense to me, I remember I was sitting in Algebra when everything finally started to make sense. Eventually, I figured out that each classroom had it’s own set of rules, like a board game, and as long as you figured out said rules, you could win, so that’s what I did. I was getting A’s and B’s around the clock which continued throughout highschool.

Fast forward to college and everything went downhill my first year. I had a 2.4 GPA, and had no idea how I had fallen so low. Maybe it was freedom for the first time, or maybe it was the imposter syndrome, or the feeling that I belonged nowhere in this environment. My mother was disappointed but she didn’t yell, it was the first time I truly felt comfortable around her, or didn’t feel the need to lie. She told me she wasn’t surprised, and thought I should take a break from school, I didn’t want to. Not because I loved school or anything, I wanted my semesters of freedom where I made my own decisions. I couldn’t go back home.

I got my shit together and I started getting A’s and B’s, and eventually getting all A’s, raising my GPA from the ashes. I was proud. Then there’s this semester. This semester was the first time in about 2 years where I had fallen so low. I always had anxiety and stress when it came to school, fits of crying and rage where nothing made sense, and a feeling of helplessness because a letter and calculated number determines how valuable future employers see you, and failing was not an option. So I sucked it up and persevered. It always worked until now.

Right now I feel as I did back then. I’m struggling, bad. I was drowning and I thought I could save myself, but this time I couldn’t.

I always hear people saying, “reach out for help” as if it’s so simple. I grew up with a culture that frowns on that. A culture that doesn’t believe in mental health, that shoves things so far down you forget they are even there. I tried explaining to my dad, but he said that I don’t know stress, I don’t know struggle, and he’s not entirely wrong, but that doesn’t make my pain go away. My mother is disappointed, again, and she thinks I am lazy, with no ambition.

It took trying to write a research paper, at 5am in the morning with 27 missing assignments from the same class, me being behind in other classes, and damn near failing this one to realize I really was drowning and this time I couldn’t save myself. I tried to gasp for air but it was too late, I was already under water.

I reached out for help. I’m not yet afloat, just keeping my head barely above water