Luster, 1

Malyah Luster

ENC 1101 0M05

10/16/17

Paper 1 Final Draft

Growing up while feeling down: My Struggle with Mental Illness

I spent most of my life with this weird feeling inside of me and blindly slayed demon after

demon without really knowing the meaning behind these continuous monsters like feelings. I

was 17 years old when I was diagnosed with general anxiety disorder and clinical depression. To

think that I spent my whole life questioning my inner thoughts and deepest feelings and being an

outcast because I felt weird and abnormal about who I was. I spent most of my time either

avoiding public speaking in class, or just avoiding school and people in general. Tackling and

dealing with my anxiety and depression is one, if not the biggest and most complex literacy that I

can trace all the way back to elementary school.

I was labeled shy the moment I could talk. My teachers, my family members, and even

strangers labeled me shy, but it wasnt until first grade that I got the feeling that being shy was a

bad thing. First grade was a nightmare. Halfway through the academic year, I was plucked from

my class and forced to join a group of other students to work on our speech, but, the real

motive was to get us shy students to interact more. The fact that everyone knew I was in group of

select socially awkward students embarrassed me. Imagine being six and knowing the only

reason youre in that group of kids is because you cant normally socially interact with other

kids. I was placed in a box, feeling restricted in a place that I didnt want to be, a place that my

six-year-old brain couldnt comprehend. I clearly remember an assignment that the whole class
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had to participate in. This assignment was an end of the year assessment of all the things we had

learned in our first year. Each student would pick a career they wished to achieve when they

became adults and write about why and then present it in front of their peers and families.

Halfway through my presentation, about why I wanted to work with animals, I stumbled on a

word and heard a few students giggle. I broke down in tears and the families of the other kids,

including my own family, got it all on camera. After that day, my teacher decided that due to my

lack of social interaction with the other students that I should stay back a year. I repeated first

grade and to this day only a few people know.

Middle School was the next big milestone in my struggle with my undiagnosed anxiety and

depression at the time. I continued to sit in the back of the class but it started to become hard to

avoid public speaking and people. I experienced my first panic attack in 7th grade. It was during

gym class when I was forced to play volleyball. As I stood in the back avoiding the ball, I got a

sudden surge of anxiety and lost my ability to breathe. I felt like I was dying. I continued to

experience panic attacks to the point where I was excused from my classes and had to sit in the

office and do the work that my teachers sent down. At this point, I was no longer labeled shy; I

was now labeled weird by other students. Eventually, I stopped coming to school and my straight

As that I had kept up until then were thrown in the mud. During this time, I felt this empty hole

where my heart or soul was supposed to be, almost like it shriveled up and died. I didnt want to

do anything that I loved and I wasnt going to classes. I did research and found that writing

helped a lot of people cope with their emotions so I started to write in a journal. My journal

became a friend that I could tell everything: my deepest thoughts and feelings were poured onto

every inch of every page of my first journal. My mom recently gave me one of the notes I wrote,

that she found among my things. I wrote I have a bad life but only because there are bad things
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in it. To save my life, I have to stay in my line not everyone elses. Looking back, my life

wasnt bad, and I didnt have bad things in my life, I was just confused and lost. Im sure this

letter is what prompted my mom to send me to Minnesota with my dad because she thought he

could possibly save me from my self, but I didnt know this at the time. Moving to Minnesota

was a turning point in my life. Moving meant a way to reinvent myself. The people I met there,

especially my best friend, essentially saved my life. I felt like a part of something bigger than

myself, which was something I had never experienced. I became more positive and felt secure

and accepted and for a while I felt normal.

Times when I felt stable were the easiest times for me. I still struggled with my mental health

but I was mostly happy. There was a correlation between my mental stability and my grades.

Transition into high school was easy because I was with the same people in the same town, there

was consistency. In 10th grade my family packed up and decided to move to California and after

a few months had passed decided to move us all the way to Miami. In 10th grade I went to 3

different high schools in 3 different states. Each school I moved to, the more I felt like I was

falling behind academically. I was the new girl twice, which meant everyone was curious and I

was no longer invisible, which was usually my shield. I had never felt more uncomfortable and

more motivated to just disappear among the hordes of strangers at my new schools. I guess you

could say I also didnt fit in with my family. They were pro change and I was anti change and

would do anything to just stay in a routine. They never understood why I hated moving or why I

would lock myself away every time I was forced to change schools. No matter where I went, or

who I was around, I felt isolated. After moving so many times, I got used to being the new girl

and the staring and the curiosity didnt bother me because I got to reinvent myself, but I still
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craved to be normal. When I moved to Miami, I was put into intensive classes to prepare for

various EOCs. I felt anxious telling people my schedule, so I worked ten times harder to move

up to all honors classes. That year I did the best academically and qualified to apply to a magnet

school that only accepted students with high academic credentials.

Due to my usual reaction with change, my parents suggested that I go to a physician to make

sure that I could handle the move to another school. I agreed to go because I knew it would make

them feel more at ease, although I didnt think I would be diagnosed with anything. When the

physician told me that I was diagnosed clinically depressed and had anxiety disorder, I had this

weird feeling. I let out a big sigh as though I was glad to be diagnosed at all. The truth is, my

whole life, I felt that I couldnt explain what I was feeling to other people because I didnt have

words for it. Getting a diagnosis felt like a new beginning and step in receiving help. I no longer

felt lost because I knew other people experience the same things as I did. I finally understood

why I felt the way I did and I no longer thought I needed to hide who I was or try and be

someone I wasnt. When I entered 11th grade at my new school, Cutler Bay High School, I felt

like myself. I met my best friend that year, and she became someone who understood what it was

like dealing with depression and anxiety. I felt more comfortable inside my own body and

motivated to make something of myself. I decided to take up various clubs and got into the

National Honor Society, and being in a Magnet school allowed me to take only Honors, Aice,

and AP classes. By the end of my 12th grade, I still struggled with anxiety and depression but it

wasnt something that I let hold me back. When I walked across the stage to get my diploma, I

looked at my senior class, and I felt that I had conquered all my fears despite my illness, and that

feeling made me realize how far I had come.

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I am now in college, writing my first paper, and reflecting on all the experiences that I have

faced throughout my academic career and life. I am Biology major, zoology/ pre-vet track, which

makes sense since I grew up avoiding people and finding comfort in animals. My anxiety is one

of the many reasons I am at UCF in the first place. I decided to come here because I hate change

and being close to my family gives me peace of mind. Now that I am in college and moving on

to the next chapter of my life, I question all the choices I have made and I analyze how my

mental illness must have played in many of the choices I made leading up to this point in my life.

Recently, I started taking language classes, and writing to keep my mind busy from the stress

that is college. Before, I found myself avoiding challenge but now I seek challenged and new

experiences that college offers.

I now see my struggle with anxiety and depression over the curse of my life, and now as a part of

my foundation. Every experience has genuinely made me who I am and put me in this exact spot.

It feels like not long ago I struggled with this idea that I needed to be normal. Today, Ive

accepted that nothing and not a single person is normal, normal is nonexistent. Being able to

cope with having a mental illness has been one of the hardest things but, most rewarding at the

same time. Ive seen myself grow from a person who struggled to socially interact to someone

who is at least willing to step out of their comfort zone. I dont let my inner struggle with anxiety

and depression define who I am but I would be lying if I said it didnt play a part in shaping the

person I am today.