Walking in Darkness

Let me start this by saying that I am walking in the darkness. What were once manageable negative feelings now overwhelm and threaten my being. I feel like I'm drowning, but in darkness rather than water. It's that feeling of constriction, like I am trapped and can't see and anything could be in front of me and whatever is there could absolutely destroy me at any moment, but I cannot even see it. 

If that all sounds like too much imagery and not enough truth, let me tell you about my darkness. I chose to come to an conservative evangelical college because they offered me the best scholarship. Now that I am here, I am tired and burnt out by what I've found. The spirituality all seems so superficial and fake. Everything seems like a show, meant to impress others more than serve God. People fight and debate theology left and right. How you align yourself theologically defines who you are to many. It is cold and winter seems endless, and I am not sure how to make it through the week nonetheless the next three years, and yet - I will need to stay here because I can't afford to go anywhere else.

The darkness seems so great. I am a shell of who I once was, and I feel like I fail at college and at life. My once overly outgoing self has now pulled back into her shell, and I have been avoiding many people at all costs lately. I feel frustrated and cynical and I who once accepted and wanted to befriend everyone now sits back and judges everyone and everything. I who once lived a life of service and leadership now works to pay for college and spends my spare time in my room alone. I'm busy, stressed out, empty. I still believe in God but I can't feel Her. I don't really have anything to do with her and anything about religion and faith turns me so far off and away. I who was supposed to be successful and thriving in college am struggling. 

These are supposed to be the best years of my life and yet I'm miserable and practically friendless. I look back on high school with envy of what I had, and fear that I'll never have it again.

I am not okay. And nobody know.

There is so much pressure on college students. You make all these crazy big decisions and now you better be happy with them. Everyone is looking at you to make sure you are. You come home from breaks and you're expected to swap school stories with friends to see who has the crazier friends and adventures and who is enjoying college the most. When my closest friends are those at other schools, I hope that is is obvious why I can't call them up and say how deeply unhappy and alone I am, how I messed up terribly and am struggling. 

A favorite blogger of mine, Kate Connor, wrote a post recently called "Puppy Box." It is all about the idea that we are like puppies, nestled together in warmth and community, and when we move and leave, we feel cold and alone and hopeless. One of her tips for survival was having a safe friend, and I think every college kid needs to read this, because it entirely relates to us. There's so much pressure and competition that we tend to keep our struggles to ourselves, sinking deeper and deeper into loneliness and despair. 

Kate says, "It’s dumb and self-defeating to tell everyone who asks exactly how hard life is.  Complaining is ugly.  But if you don’t have one safe friend, one person that knows, you’ll start thinking crazy things like, “I’m alone.”  ”Nobody really knows me.”  ”I’m the only one dealing with this.”  ”Every one else has normal lives.”

You need to hear about somebody else’s bumps and bruises to remember that we’re all people; there is no “Get out of humanity free” card; no one’s exempt.   And you need someone to see you, because…well, because you need to be seen.

Amen and amen. You can't answer everyone who asks about college by telling them about how much it sucks, but you do need to tell somebody. Our despair isn't the only despair around, and we need the reminder. Life is so hard, no matter what stage you are in. Everyone is always rushing to delegitimize people who struggle in other stages of life, but the truth is that it is all hard.  

I read a post by a newspaper blogger this weekend, about the topic of a UPenn student who recently jumped to her death. This girl was a track star, an honors student - she was supposed to succeed but yet she struggled, so much that she took her own life. This blogger's response made me very angry for many reasons, one of which being that she was so out of touch. She said something to the effect of, "I'm not going to pretend that our college students have it difficult with flexible schedules, no jobs, and a constant social life" and that made me angry. For her to say that college life isn't difficult is incredibly insensitive, especially because college students don't jump to their deaths over small inconveniences. They do it because life is hard, and we don't equip our young people very well to deal with it. No matter what stage of life you are, life is very, very hard, but we have to keep moving to find the light. I put my trust in a God who will eventually bring me back into the light, and it will be all the more glorious because I have experience the darkness!

For encouragement and reassurance, enjoy these two videos