Going to BYU is going to require a freaking ton of antidepressants

April 17, 2013

I shouldn’t have checked my email before dinner. I just shouldn’t have. I came home ravenous from swim practice and now I just feel nauseous.

I shouldn't be surprised at little emails from colleges ruining my day. I stare at the screen, feeling everything on my face droop.
         Dear Jessica Rosa,
      We were delighted to offer you admission to BYU, with an accompanying full-ride scholarship. Don't forget to log on and confirm your acceptance of this amazing opportunity! If we do not receive an answer from you by tomorrow, we will have to give your spot and you scholarship to another deserving student.
      Sincerely,
      BYU Admissions Office
        It makes sense to accept. It makes so much frikkin sense.

I can’t do it.

At this point, I’d almost rather face the antidepressants than make a major decision about my future. I study the message and my mind wanders. 

 I used to have big dreams about moving away and going to college and everything being solved. I guess I thought that a big change would finally rid me of depression.
        But, I am now realizing that it won’t. Especially with a college that I’m being dragged to, kicking and screaming. I’ll take the same problems there. There is no end.

So I suppose it really doesn’t frikkin matter where I go to college. At least at BYU, I won’t be a financial burden to my parents. I open the website and click my acceptance before I can think about it too much.

Before I go to bed, I pop open my pill container, all orange and white and official.  The pills are the soft green of throw up or hospital walls. With a sip of water, I down a single pill. 

I flop onto my bed. A part of me feels very relieved—like, good I'm taking charge of my crazy! But mostly I just feel afraid. Am I a crazy person? Will these even work? An irrational part of me feels bitter and angry.

And also.. there is a feeling, a knot forming in the pit of my stomach. It’s unfamiliar. Failure, I realize. It is failure. In taking the pills, I have admitted there is something wrong with me and that I need help to manage my own life. I’ve always been so independent.

There is something formless deep, within me, crying out in despair. I feel as though I have drugged and bound some innermost piece of myself. I guess I've lived with depression for so long that trying to get rid of it feels like betrayal. 

I don’t know how to feel all these things at once, especially after so long of a feeling famine. I curl up beneath my covers and hope for sleep to come quickly.