If It Kills Me

If it Kills Me

I believe in getting help. As an American teenager coming of age in the late 2010s, more options for mental health care are available to me than at any previous time in history. And I have availed myself of these services...except for when I needed to the most.

My junior year of high school was hard and my AP Bio class was too hard. There was this song I listened to to try and cope --”This Year” by the Mountain Goats. In it, the singer croons, “I’m gonna make it through this year if it kills me.” That class could’ve. When I read, the words on the pages of the textbook made sense individually, but when put together they meant nothing. I loathed myself. I’d thought because I’d never needed tutoring before, that I was somehow less and I sunk into such a pattern of simultaneous pride and self-loathing the thought of things I’d once reveled in made me nauseous and dizzy. This and my father’s recent job loss meant my stress levels rose to a point where I could barely function. One time my biology teacher called on me to come up to explain something to the class that I actually knew something about, and I was hit with such intense vertigo it’s a miracle I didn’t hit the floor.  

Life got better. I readjusted my focus and I talked to good people and I went on retreat. I healed. But I never sought help. I, who extols the virtues of counseling, never sought any myself. While I don’t regret much, I do regret that. Knowing that if I had contacted someone, anyone, I could have dealt with my problems and learned how to manage my stress better and maybe not have gone through all I did. Instead of spending weeks and months tunneling under the earth, I could have spent more of my precious little time up in the sun.