If You Struggle With Mental Illness, You Need to Join a Campus Organization

I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of articles that refer to mental health disorders as if they are allergies that can be managed rather than serious, lifelong disorders. This is not that article. This is not even really an article — it’s a farewell letter from a certifiably insane Exponent editor who feels like she’s graduating despite herself. I’m writing this not to tell you how to manage your mental illness in college, but to implore you to find something to commit to on campus.

I probably came out of the womb amid a nervous breakdown. By the time I was in tenth grade, I had gone through everything from twice-weekly sessions with a school counselor to hospitalizations. I was sure that my grasp on reality was much weaker than my peers’, and I worried about my ability to function in everyday life. Every adult who knew I was struggling told me that if I could just make it to my twenties, I would feel better.

Unfortunately, the reality is that many disorders can either onset or present their worst symptoms in one’s early twenties, according to Johns Hopkins University. The past five years I’ve been in college have been — in some ways — the darkest time of my life. I’ve spent a lot of time panicking, digging myself into holes and feeling like I don’t belong in college at all.

If you struggle with episodes that feel like they only get worse as you enter your twenties, I’m sorry that I can’t promise it will immediately get better. In many ways, your early twenties serve as a second puberty — except this time, you are a hundred times more self-aware. You might feel like you have to hit rock bottom and rebuild yourself again and again. I can promise, though, that if you commit to something on campus that you have to show up for with people you don’t want to let down, you’ll build a support system that’ll make the college experience worth it.

When you join a campus organization, you push yourself to show up more and interact with people. Over time, the people you work with and the routine you build will become your biggest lifeline. Sometimes you miss a day, or you arrive as the worst version of yourself. This happened more times than I care to count in my two years as an editor, but showing up to the Exponent twice a week saved me from a far worse fate: completely checking out of school.

Before applying to the Exponent, I thought joining something on campus would take too much energy and time away from my schoolwork. In fact, it gave me more energy and confidence than anything else. It pushed me to try my best to be a leader, manage my time better, get organized, truly listen and focus more. I constantly gained insight from my fellow editors and writers, and every week we put together something I could be proud of — even when I felt like I couldn’t accomplish anything in any other part of my life.

Most of all, I built real friendships with my fellow editors. They asked me if I was okay when I needed it most, and were a buffer between me and my tendency to take the most manic course of action possible. Most of all, working with them made me feel like I had something to offer in times when I genuinely thought I had nothing left.

When you show up week after week and work with a group of peers who share the same passions as you, they’ll find a way to see the best in you. They can’t make you reach out and grab your best self — only you can do that, and it might take longer than you think — but they help you see it. They guide you towards your true strengths and abilities.

You might fumble, fall and mess up a lot of opportunities — but somehow, you make it. You push through to graduation. And because of the support of the people who stuck their necks out for you, you’ll accomplish a few things that exemplify the best of what you can be. If college is as hard for you as it was for me, you might not feel proud of yourself when you graduate. You might still see life as a big, scary thing. You might not recognize your accomplishments, but the people you worked with will see them. And they’ve seen a lot of your mistakes, so you’ll know they mean it when they tell you that you earned it.

That kind of support will stick with you throughout your whole life, not the shame you might have about the assignments you didn’t complete or the hours you spent self-sabotaging. The real point of college is to learn how to create the types of connections that build your confidence and get you through when you’re at your lowest.