This definitely isn’t the primary use of this website, but with all that has happened, it’s where I’m turning.
I am a current college sophomore at a prestigious school. That is my first bone to pick with this whole college game — you’re getting a college education anywhere you go, so drop labeling it as elite and what not because news flash it’s a garbage system. Is there really a way to not have access to knowledge that others somehow have access to?
I’m sick of this actual crap.
Needless to say I was born into a town that was basically as pressurized as the set of Big Little Lies. College was and is a must. Don’t go? You’re a failure for not planning a future. Transfer? You’re a failure for not making it work. My high school was #1 in the state every year I attended it, and it makes me so unhappy to say that. All these ratings do is somehow reify classes taught and experiences gained through the institution of high school. Who decides what high school is good and what high school is bad? Who is always going to benefit from how the standards are implemented? My school district, in our stupid upper-crust snooty town, was nearly 100% white. And we were rated #1! Do you see where this is going? So, I was taught because we were the best in high school that we had to be the best in college. I think this is why I attend the school I attend now.
I am so embarrassed to say that I feel as miserable as I do, and selfish for being so unhappy at a place that some people would sacrifice everything to get into. I used to be so happy. So happy that I could laugh without really forcing it. And I felt AWAKE. I didn’t feel any of this physical weight pressing down on me. Here, I feel like a zombie walking around. I feel so detached. I exist in this bubble, and the space outside of the bubble is a completely different realm. I go to a bit of a small school — my decision, I know — and I hate that everybody really does know everybody. It’s so scary. One time, someone told ME all of my past partners. I was horrified.
I thought this place would be this world of open arms and constant love. It’s turned out to be a place plagued by sad people doing sad things, not leaving our bubble in the process. I’ve been dragged down with this I think. Now I don’t want to scapegoat everyone here as the reason for my downfall, but I find it hard to want to try in a space where nobody really wants to try around you. I’ve seen it in my classes and I’ve seen it with how people present themselves every day. I don’t want to come off as arrogant, but honest — I won best dressed in high school so I want to look good. But I can’t be the only one really trying. It just feels freaky to me. And I know that my definition of ‘good’ is vastly ethnocentric, but I know some people here that hardly clean themselves and just roll out of bed to wherever they need to be. I guess I wanted everyone to be more driven than they are.
I came in here as driven as can be from high school. It began to feel easier than high school, even as I remember previous teachers saying ‘just wait until college’. I was done waiting and I wasn’t getting it. In this weird sort of way, I operate in a way where I almost need to be stressed to the max to get anything done. So, if I don’t have a lot of work, I won’t try my hardest. I don’t really know how to explain it other than the fact that I was always worked to the bone in my prior education and expected that here. I do love my academic courses, however, but I just want there to be more need for drive — more want for it. Sometimes I just feel so different for TRYING as much as I do? Does that make sense?
So, currently, I’m trying to transfer my spring semester elsewhere. We’ll see how that goes. My grades last year were solid, but I feel like I’m just slipping away now. I think that I’ve lost grasp on who I am. I’m not happy here and I beat myself up for not realizing that sooner. The semester ends in December and I’m going to try to make it, but I feel like that’s impossible. And even as I say that, I feel selfish for saying that I feel so burdened being at this place that many people want to be at.
I’ve told my parents that I’m unhappy and they support me with the transfer process, but they just don’t understand mental health. They don’t believe in it. When I was home over the summer, my mother said something along the lines of: “My kids will never need a therapist.” This was so rattling for me. I feel like an idiot for coming off as weak in my parents’ eyes, but I’m trying my hardest to make it work. I’ve made a list of things that make me happy everyday, but it still isn’t enough. I’ve become exhausted with the lackluster social scene here and have honestly lost touch with the partial friends I once had. A relationship gone rogue last year did not help that in any way at all. I’ve confessed this to my sister who basically says the same thing as my parents: to grow up and get over it. Sometimes I feel like I could be adopted given my differences with them. I know that I’m not but it just feels like they’re my hometown neighbors — good family friends that would have us over for holiday celebrations very often — not my family.
I just feel like a shell. A shell of a college student that operates everyday. Like a robot. It’s every depressing to say that my peers here often have compared me to a “robot” due to my work ethic and habits. I feel so out of place. I’m just trying to do what I know best. But at the same time I loathe where I come from — a rich town that wishes to remain white and further stratify those of non-white descent. That’s another issue in itself: my town is rather conservative, whereas I am a gay liberal. I am no stranger to feeling out of place, and I really thought that this college would be it, hahaha!
Maybe I’m asking for kind words to help me get through or like a literal prayer or something. I don’t know. I’ve become someone I don’t know at all. I blew through all of my money, I think as a way to distract myself from how miserable everything else around me was. I have casual hookups often and I have become no stranger to other dangers. I am sick constantly and I have been lacking that community that I’ve always wanted to find. I feel like I’m in some sort of illusion or Truman Show, and I can’t break free.
I don’t know what the point of any of this all is. I guess if there’s one thing to take away from this: it doesn’t matter where you go. Certainly don’t choose a school because you want to see it kissed by the sunlight on the back of mommy’s Acadia. Please pick a school because you want to go. Prestige is fake.
I guess it helped me to see this all written out and I hope that maybe it helps someone else too. I don’t know. I just want everything to be okay, but I don’t want to have to wait. Now I have to deal with college admissions again while having a whole stack of classes on my plate and now a job. I wasn’t expecting life to be easy, but I just want happiness.