The Beginning

The beginning of my journey through the mental health system began long before I was actually committed to a psychiatric ward.

I'm a college student, with all those college student woes that most complain of.

Back home, things weren't so peachy either, so I was dealing with a battle on both fronts. While college was my sanctuary, it had also become a torture chamber. 

My classes became an incessant torrent of water boarding and jumping in and out of a veritable Iron Maiden. 

The stress began to pile on, I began losing sleep, and nothing I did seemed to bring me the relief I needed. 

I needed release. I needed help. 

Attempts were made, don't get me wrong. I went to my academic adviser as often as I could, begging him to help me learn to relax. I plagued my roommate and best friend, Dosiq, trying to find the answer to my problems. 

I was hurting. My heart was breaking. I felt as though I couldn't talk to anyone. 

I felt very much like this. Hopeless, upset, staring at everyone with soulful eyes full of longing and pain.

Life began to get harder. Waking up, paying attention, smiling. It all became tougher and tougher. 

There was no relief from my pain, from my suffering. 

A lot of it was internal. Even as a child, I was hard on myself. 

When I was 10 and in 4th grade, I remember getting my first B on a report card. I was ashamed to bring such an awful report card to my mother, haunted by thoughts of failure. 

It didn't matter that I had all A's everywhere else. It was my personal failure. I was making things hard on my mother, making things hard on everyone because of my B. 

Now this is completely irrational, and I accept that. But that doesn't mean anything. 

To my little 10 year old mind, I was the worst girl in the world. 

And it just kept on going. 

As I grew into adolescence then young adulthood with this guilt complex niggling at the back of my mind, driving me. It was the driving force that led me to the honor roll, led me to graduating with an advanced diploma. 

Led me to leading a life that was harder than it needed to be, because anything less than perfection wasn't good enough. 

Now I realize that that is a high bar to set for a 10 year old, let alone a 19 year old college student who feels as though the world is on her shoulders. 

This manifested itself as self loathing. 

I began to hate myself, hate everything I did, everything I thought.
Nothing I did was worthwhile, nothing I could ever do would mean anything.

I was my own worst enemy. It was worse than anything anyone could have said or done to me, save my best friends or my academic adviser. 

This was the beginning.