Depressions Demise by Devin

Depressions Demise by Devin - May 2021 Scholarship Essay

School as a whole is a challenge; science, politics, arts, business, and many other majors can feel like an eternity of studying. What can make them harder is underlying mental illnesses that may not be talked about due to numerous different reasons. Depression for me has been my biggest struggle in this part of my life where I strive to learn. At an early age I was aquitted to a sudden death in my family, one that I never could have prepared for or seen coming: my uncle shot himself two weeks after visiting me when I was nine years old. That moment in my life forever changed who I was and what I was going to do with my life. It was something so devastating that even after eleven years of therapy it still and always will affect me.

Living with depression is not something everyone experiences but I can share a little about it from my personal experience. For me it felt as if I am trapped in my own body; knowing what is healthy, what is not and being unable to stop myself from doing the unhealthy things. You become a passenger in your own life, getting out of bed becomes one of the hardest things to do, let alone doing multiple essays, homework problems, and tests that you are told if you fail you will never become something in life. Adding that information on top of the social stressors of school, it can feel like the worst place to be.

Though difficult, it was not impossible. Over time as I learned to better understand my mental health and how it affected me I was able to work around it and sometimes work with it. Whether that be getting up at 3 A.M. to do work because that is when I felt motivated, or talking with my teachers about different due dates and just overall advocating for myself. Even though it took many years to do those things it made me into who I am today. Someone who can advocate for themselves, work hard and hit deadlines to become the person I want to be. You learn to live with that side of you, instead of rejecting it or having to be its passenger. You learn that no matter how hard or how much pain you may be in, there is always tomorrow and that is another day to go good by yourself.