What They Don't Tell You

On today's episode of "I didn't want to feel today, but here I am..." I thought to myself as I scrolled through various social media. "Social" being the farthest from the truth to me. I found myself scrolling again through recommended friends on Facebook. It wasn't hard to get lost in the lives of people you used to spend so much time around.

It's always so easy for me to fall into the endless scroll. That feeling that once I became an adult, everyone I knew vanished for one reason or another. Familiar names dredge up memories long past: some painful, some brought a smile to my face. Once again I started to dig into profiles of former friends and classmates. Seeing all the things that they've done in such a short time. So many of them are getting married, having children, going to college... It's hard to stop myself from feeling like I've been left behind. I couldn't stop my mind from convincing me yet again that I'm a failure.

But I'm not. I know that I've gotten so much accomplished since I left high school that many people don't see. A lot of them will never be seen. I made a lot of progress mentally. I've been working on making my mind better as well as my body and life. It's been difficult and a long fight.

Something I realized that they never touched on in school is what actually happens after it's all done. You're always fed this wild fantasy where you go to college with all your friends and because of college you get a good job that makes you feel happy and accomplished. No one tells you about the endless struggle to get to a point where you're happy with your job and your life all at once. No one tells you that it's okay to not find the right fit for you right away. No one tells you about how you and your friends may grow distant to the point where you feel completely alone. There's an adjustment that no one prepares you for.

Something else I found that is never touched on by anyone throughout your younger years is careers. No one ever mentions how hard it can be to find work that makes you feel fulfilled while allowing you to live comfortably with the money you make doing so. You have to fight for that position, including taking jobs you may never have thought you would get otherwise. You’re not given the proper resources to set yourself up to succeed in finding the correct life for yourself. If you don’t know what you want out of life the moment you are asked, no one will help you. This process doesn’t account for the fact that people and the job market change over time, sometimes seemingly overnight. What you want to do one day may not be a feasible career the next.

It’s difficult when you see people you grew up with ahead of you in their goals. It’s even harder not to find yourself comparing your accomplishments to theirs. The people you grew up with are married, buying houses and cars, having children, graduating college. You, on the other hand, have done almost none of those things. You’re in an apartment you can barely afford, living on your own scraping together whatever money you can from your job working retail. You have to walk to work regardless of the weather because your bike broke and you don’t have the time or money to fix/replace it.

Even though the stigma around mental health doesn’t weigh as heavy on society, it’s still difficult to find care that is easily accessible. Though if you find care, it’s even harder to find someone that you work well with for your mental health. These people could then help us learn how to cope with feeling left behind by everyone after school. Or even the general stresses of day-to-day life. It’s getting better. Everything is slowly getting better. But it’s not helping fast enough to quell the massive number of people struggling to the point of finding drastic decisions being their only solution.