My journey in college has been a battle of the mind. As of now, April 22, these are my conclusions. I have depression, and its a manipulative son of a bishhhh. It changed over the years in its form and the way it manifests itself, from grief over my mom and extreme family toxicity and malfunction - which took me time to heal - to realizing that I haven’t ever done anything for myself without force. A lot of times I don’t see myself as worthy. I want to be comfortable. Well, comfortable is toxic.
And this is the way it manifests itself now. Not seeing myself worthy enough of having self discipline, of letting myself be passionate about a career.
So here is what I want/am doing (present tense - to make them values now instead of future ideal self) to do:
1. I refuse to let life’s stresses overwhelm me.
2. I take my tasks one step at a time.
3. I do not stress about a decision in advance. I think carefully of when this decision needs to be taken and do not allow myself to think about it until then.
4. I recognize my illness. That it is not the place or the people I am around. It is me, depression and its ways. BUT the above is also me.
5. I am passionate. I am worthy. I impact the world around me and will continue to do so. I want to help people through life’s circumstances.
I want to create better realities for people to live in. A family that has just moved to the United States should have easier ways to ensure their family’s health. They should have better ways to find housing, to be able to feel included. Those families are my family, and when I hear those stories, I am the kind of person that wants to jump to action. Not console, because those requests are not a mental health issue at base, but they may result in one. Hence me not choosing to go towards the therapy route.
This is what made me take the route of public health and social work, because these are basic rights. In a perfect society, public health specialists and social workers would not be needed, resources would be accessible to everyone alive. Which is why I am also interested in the policy part of it. I care about system wide change, especially in a nation where it is possible. It takes only decisions and priorities, but the infrastructure, labor, and facilities are there. I take these matters very personally, which is why I chose them as a career. I am driven to make a change so that immigrant and underprivileged families can live in the same world that more privileged families live in.
Because newsflash: Moving sucks. Leaving everything behind. Having a home destroyed sucks, something I didn’t go through but would imagine how damaging it is to a person’s soul and identity. Then fleeing and being told to go back to a place that no longer exists. being told that there is no place for you here, or anywhere. Imagine being a human who once had a physical space to stand but lost it, and now can’t move.
I may not be able to fix wars but if I can help make space, then that is what I want to do.
Having a fragmented family sucks. Your family teaches you how to care and show care. Your family is safety, it is supposed to be the people who understand you unconditionally, and will love you unconditionally. But that all develops by physically being together in the same space. Wars, politics, inaccessibility, can ruin that. So imagine how damaging that is to a person’s soul and self worth in a society that emphasizes them as the odd ones out. Everyone else has their families man, you just have issues. Well, it is not me, its structural - I have NO hand it this. Yeah Yeah, but if you work hard enough you can change your circumstances. Speak for yourself, I am not even allowed the space to work hard. Physically unable, legally unable and not allowed, ex- “convict”, etc. are ways of existence, making them any less in terms of access is denying them humanity. Imagine how toxic that may make a person become. Hatred is born out of this. Self hatred and loss of one’s own humanity and compassion is out of this; Of being ripped away of everything that made them human in the first place. No one is born evil. No one is born with hate in their heart.
Humanity isn’t just abled, walking, specific skin color and religion people. Being human is being all kinds of people, and therefore basic rights and access should not be off limits to them.
I like practicality, and method evaluation. If I go about solving a problem, I am going to be looking at how likely is my method to be effective before I implement it. I like to have solutions that get shiz done, and am very critical of methods taken around me and their effectiveness and impact.
These are my passions, AND I take them personally.
I think it is because of how personal my passions and career choices are to me that my depression downplays them. They’re too serious man, I need to relax. Sit here and watch netflix. Watch youtube. Live the “goodlife”. Chill and be happy. If it gets fixed it gets fixed, if not, its not like you as one person can do anything about it.
Brain, you are A LOT sometimes you know that?
