Category : Blogs

Sub Category : Miscellaneous

By eighteen I'd been on a few psychiatric drugs, and by nineteen I was curing Ebola with some high school textbooks. I spoke to some demons in a depression who told me I was worthless, and later still in college I spoke with an alien who informed me I was more evolved. I'd remember some days, and not others. 

My 4.0 GPA and dreams of Harvard medical school quickly became a 3.2 GPA and dreams of graduating with at least an AA degree. 

But college was so important, oh so important, I couldn't give up. I couldn't skip anymore classes. I couldn't ignore the piles of homework engrossing my desk or the emails from professors asking if I was alright. And so I ignored myself, I ignored the warning signs, I ignored the man with the megaphone who would yell in my ear and my car breaking down in the middle of the road only to repair itself before the light turned green. I got a job, multiple jobs, and quit each one because College was important and I couldn't do both at once, not with the blackouts, the megaphone man, and the paranoia. 

This was when 4.0 meant something. That was when I let a number decide for me whether or not I was smart. That was when I let the name of an Ivy League make me forget who I was. 

Without a degree, I've trained in and been exposed to practices it took psychologists 5 years to get to. I'm 22 years old. I've lived through mental health experiences most professionals only read about. I'm apart of a mental health movement, a peer movement, something they can only be apart of professionally, never personally. I can be apart of it in both ways. I have the opportunity to network with people thrice my age, to take action instead of sit at a wooden desk in a cramped classroom spewing memorized data from my mind onto a page. 

This coming from someone who was reading at high school level in elementary school. This, coming from someone who had it easy, who never had to study because she could ace the tests easily. This coming from someone who skipped 40+ days a year in high school, and still graduated with an above average GPA. 

College isn't a place for smart people. It's a place for academic people.

Most people use college degrees as their sole qualification. I, my experience, my actions, will be my qualifications. The degree? That will just be a compliment and testament to what I've already done.