"Does your mental health affect your education?"

A counsellor of mine asked this question recently and I realised the answer was more of a journey than a statement.

"Does your mental health affect your education?" 

I've been struggling with mood regulation for as long as I can remember. My mental illness isn't diagnosed but I definitely have one. I've had panic attacks in shopping centres, I've self harmed, been overthrown by my own intrusive, obsessive thoughts. I have learnt to pick myself back up moments after breaking down. My education has suffered at the hand of my sadness and it will continue to suffer sometimes because honestly, a late mark is nothing. A few days to reboot my brain here and there, an afternoon off when I've spent the morning in a self destructive daze, I sleep in a few times a month, or a week. I dropped out last year. 

"How can you take days off so often?" 

The luxury of that statement - the envision of a lazy day escaping your responsibilities and relaxing without a care - compared to the reality of physically not being able to get up in the morning is a striking difference. Sometimes it takes just a little longer to convince the girl in the mirror that she is pretty enough, smart enough, worthy enough to leave the house today. 

"Does your mental health affect your education?"

It's difficult to carry on when you feel so sad. It's hard at night for me. The world goes dark and quiet and my thoughts become bright and screaming. It's harder in the morning when my sleep was nightmare-ridden and it's just so cold outside of the duvet. 

"Your attendance is worrying" 

Thankyou kind sir for reiterating what I already know. I know you're worried that I'm not 'reaching my full potential', that I might fail, or simply that I will drag your pretty statistics down. But please, give me some credit here. I'm intelligent and I'm trying and I'm worth your time I f*****g promise you. Don't give up on me until I've given up on me. It's not and it never was an excuse. Trust me please that's all I ask. Trust that when I was thirteen I didn't want to miss half of the week every week. That the decision to take a year off was one of the hardest but best I've ever made. If I f**k it up then I f**k it up, but I believe in myself. My past doesn't have to be my future. 

"Does your mental health affect your education?" 

It used to be worse but I'm getting the hang of it. Nothing has changed except my outlook. I still cry often and nightmares claw at my tired brain every time I close my eyes. In absolute spite of my mental illness, I choose happiness. F**k, I'm trying. 

"How can we be sure you aren't going to drop out again?" 

I pinky promise. I'm done being a slave to imbalanced brain chemicals. There are two literal halves to a brain but I think mine may have two figurative ones aswell. Constant battles and contradictions - maybe that's human nature but its certainly not natural to have to convince your brain you are worthy of living. The thing is; I'm pretty persuasive and life is too sweet to give up just yet. So it doesn't matter that I have to choose to live when I wake up every morning, because at least I'm choosing right. It's okay that I miss a day or two of education if my persuasion skills aren't so great that time around; and I am proud of myself - even if it's taken a while to get there. 

"Does your mental health affect your education?" 

 

"No, I manage just fine."

Reviews

[SweetWriter88]

The feels! I felt just like that in therapy. She always asked me those same questions and told me; "You're so smart, why are you failing?" I always looked at her like; "I'm here because of my so called "mental instability" isn't it your job to tell me why I'm failing? If I knew I probably wouldn't be. Turns out it was depression and since I was given my medicine, I'm fine..ish...The fake smiles are still in place sometimes.

Anyways...I love how this is so true and so passionate. I definitely feel the frustration and that really drew me in. It's different but not in a way that makes a person stop reading. It made me want to keep reading till the end to see what happened, and I wasn't disappointed.

This is very well written, good job! ^.^