*Poet’s note: This is dedicated to fellow students experiencing mental health disease in Lehigh’s campus. I my- self have received counseling. And this piece is to paint a caricature about the current mental health stigma.
I hold an envelope, a key, a ticket
As other seniors shouting about their Ivies
Here I am: strangled, bludgeoned, crucified
If that seal is for my fate or failure
“Congratulations for your successful application…”
I live to worry another day
I come to campus with cubes of stuff and prisms of dreams
Bid the folks goodbye, and to college hello
Yet as I wait alone in my room
Before the noise and superficial smiles of orientation
The air turns thin, my vision dark
Thoughts murk, emotions swerve,
Stress swells, my demons lurk “Do I actually belong here?”
I do not know
I sit at the fourth row, feels familiar
Close enough to hear the professor
But far enough not to call any attention
Make small talk, write notes, daydream what I would rather do
But the figment turns fickle, the farce fatal
I wonder not if but when the F’s start piling up
When they see me for me
“a weird, stupid, fake”
I will admit
I get invited to a party by a friend of a friend
The theme: Summer Vibes (which I have never felt)
so I borrow my roommate’s only Hawaiian shirt
And the dude across the hall yells
“Wear new white Vans, to pick up new White girls”
Confused, I go with a group
Although there was no one there I really knew
Inside a dreary house across the street
I sipped my first beer, smoked my first blunt
There I met a girl as her hips touched mine in dance
But the ghouls of my past welcomed me back
“Do you actually think she’ll like a loser like you?”
I never texted her back
Now, I’m here sitting at a psychiatrist’s chair
No, I did not attempt suicide (but the thought I’ve entertained)
I had a panic attack
My brain had three million two-hundred seventy six thousand things more than it could handle:
Getting my first C. running out of swipes. having a professor who couldn’t teach. being broke and in debt. my two dozen clubs. 5-hour sleep schedules. study abroad applications. scholarship applications. internship applications. most likely unemployed applications. food stamp applications. applying for voluntary slavery and forgetting the liberty of being.
my binge-drinking. my hand-me-down car breaking down. my freshman fifteen. my fifteen first-year friends leaving me. my Uber Eats bill. my taxes due on April. my juul addiction. my porn masturbation. my first college hook-up. my first college break-up. my first last-minute project. my last first-time kiss.
up-and-down. my directions losing ground. my mind ground-zero
General Anxiety Disorder. Panic Attacks. Hysteria. Lunacy. Brains with dopamine insufficiency.
I have all of it.
Everything
but
Depression.
Even the voices in my head said
I should get checked
Again: No, I did not attempt suicide
I attempted freedom
But was too afraid that second to liberate myself
So I just listened to the demons non-stop,
Binged on Netflix for hours
just to feel that mind-numbing buzz of a numb mind
Watched how we’re all going to die because of Corona
If I don’t die of alcohol poisoning because of the other Corona
And cried myself to sleep for a week
And woke up with no one around me
Was I always quarantined like this?
Was I always socially distant like this?
Was I infected with it the entire time?
Then I decided to get help
Adrian Suarez