High school mental health/period of bad grades? Please read!

Applying to College
1

So I barely use this account, and my first ever post is motivated by, honestly, fear. Anyone willing to offer their (hopefully informed) opinion would be much appreciated! Like, seriously!
I’m a sophomore at a large, pretty competitive public school, and am really worried that I’ve ruined my chances at going to a college I like. Long story short: I’ve always done well in school and was getting a pretty even mix of A’s and B’s until around winter break last year, when I developed what I now know is depression and generalized anxiety disorder. 2nd semester freshman year and 1st semester sophomore year I got pretty bad grades. Not exactly “calling my parents” bad, but there were plenty of C’s (and one D…). To make matters worse, I dropped out of my main extracurriculars during that time. It sucked in many ways but I’m learning to deal with mental illness and, as evidenced by this post, finally feel motivated and excited for my future.
…except for the fact that my 2 semesters of bad grades will probably ruin my GPA, despite my being on track to get way better grades this semester and the semesters to come. But I don’t mean to write a post about how bad I feel for myself, and am wondering if anyone’s been in or witnessed a similar situation and has advice. I’ll list more specifics below but essentially, I’d love to hear what you think I can do to show colleges that despite a period of bad grades, I’m a) not an idiot, and b) capable of succeeding at their school.
(I hate this part of CC bc it’s such blatant bragging so sorry in advance)

  • I’m in all honors/AP classes, and have been since I started high school, if that helps
  • I want to go to a liberal arts college (which may help bc of holistic admissions?) and, ideally, major in English or political science
  • I’ve always done well on standardized tests and think I can count on good ACT/SAT scores
    -I’m working on getting more extracurriculars, and am at the very least writing for my school paper next year
    Anyway- I don’t want “chances” or anything, but it’d be super reassuring to hear how anyone resolved similar problems. And any advice on explaining (or not explaining) mental illness to colleges would be more than welcome. Thanks!
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There is a place on the Common App for “additional information,” or your guidance counselor could talk about it in the stuff they have to write to accompany your application. The latter is probably better, as it gives the claims some credibility.

Glad you’re feeling a bit better now. Good luck!!