Photo Courtesy of Jessica Zagacki 

“Something that I’ve been dealing with throughout college – it’s come and gone – is anxiety and depression. I’ve actually never had too hard of a time talking about it when people have asked. The issue with anxiety and depression is that it makes you stay to yourself. It sort of drives you to be an introvert and that’s exactly the last thing you need when you’re going through struggles of that nature. A lot of people know me as sort of a cheery person, very open and friendly. I don’t share this sort of thing with a lot of people, and I think it’s important that I do it more often, especially when it’s at its worst. I struggle a lot with time management and with staying focused, getting sleep, keeping healthy … things like that. It took me a long time to get to the point I’m at and I’m still certainly not perfect. After you’ve had it for a while you start to realize when it’s happening, and that can be the hardest part because it’ll deceive you. Sometimes just realizing that you’re not feeling right is the first step and the hardest thing to do in that moment is to reach out to somebody about it, but sometimes you just need to talk to someone. If you have a close friend, that’s great. If not, it’s not always obvious, but the school does have decent resources for helping with that – the counselors have been great. That’s the biggest problem I have when I’m going through the worst of it. Really just reaching out to resources, even if you don’t think you can talk to friends, maybe family, maybe counselors, people on campus. Talking with someone is the best thing you can do to help you realize that you’re not stuck and that you can move forward through it. You don’t want to bring anyone down [or] interrupt [them]. You feel bad about putting your struggles on other people, but you have to recognize that asking someone to talk, even just to vent to someone for a bit, you’re not forcing them to do anything. You’re putting yourself out there and they have the choice to reach out or not. It goes both ways. You’re putting yourself out there and letting people take the opportunity to hear you.”