When you take your seat in a boardroom full of those who will determine your future, your sense of power and self is stolen from you in a way that I cannot describe. The emotions this setting triggered, took me back to a time when I thought, rather, knew, that I, a young mentally ill African-American girl, was nothing.
The thrill I experienced when I received my acceptance letter from the Holton-Arms School lit up my soul with dreams that I knew I could achieve. One of the most prestigious institutions in my area wanted me, yes me, to be a member of their exclusive club. It was the school I had strived for, the one that I knew I belonged at. At the tender age of 13, I was unaware that, in this world, I will never belong.
My life at Holton was fine at the beginning. I attended my classes, I made new friends, and I felt a sense of confidence that, at the time, I was not prepared to have stolen away from me. As time passed, my illness began to creep into my life, as though it was a shadow I could not escape no matter how much I tried to dim the lights. I began to struggle; I couldn’t do my work on time as it is difficult to put pen to paper when the paper is damp with the tears of knowing you aren’t where you are supposed to be. I carried on day-by-day, doing worse and worse, wondering how all of the other girls managed to smile while I struggled just to open my eyes each day.
At a certain point, I began to speak with the counselor, the one who is supposed to help me through these times. She listened carefully to my story and, looking back, I realize that she was an employee, not an angel. Her job was not to care for me. Her job was to make me feel safe in an environment that was eating me alive.
Hearing the school counselor suggest that, maybe I was the problem, is an idea that I have carried with me for the last seven years of my life. Instead of being treated for my illness, and treated like any student who suffered from a physiological illness, I was instead treated as though I was lazy, and simply not smart enough. It was funny, as before the clouds began to surround me, they believed I was smart enough when they stamped and mailed my acceptance letter.
Things got terrible, and, without going into great detail, I can say in the deepest parts of my heart that the Holton-Arms School nearly ended my life, in the most literal sense of the word. I was treated as a second-class citizen, and their façade of a perfect student body could not accommodate a student who needed their help, not their despicable attitudes towards my mental state.
After leaving Holton, things got much better. I attended a high school that helped convince me that I am not my illness. Bipolar Disorder does not define me, and I can do whatever I believe that I can.
However, in college, it was an entirely different novel. As I mentioned earlier, sitting in that boardroom was the most alone I have ever felt in my life. As I explained to each member of the board that my grades were going to be fine, they were only incomplete due to illness, I heard whispers that I was not emotionally fit to be there. The board members treated me as though my illness, an illness that is no different from a broken leg, made me not good enough to continue my education.
I ended up being able to continue my education, but every step of the way I was encouraged to leave, being told that maybe I just did not belong. Drexel University allowed for a student that they knew to be physically abusive to remain on campus, and because of that, I ended up being physically assaulted. That assault led to my feeling of safety being taken away.
When I explained the situation to my professors, one claimed that maybe I should focus on school more to avoid situations like the one I found myself in. Fast forward two years, and I am now supposed to take a course with that same professor, the one who mocked a student on the first day of class for having a bruise and joking “oh, did your boyfriend push you down the stairs again?”. The hostility I have felt from both Holton-Arms, a sacred institution, and Drexel University, a well respected university, are nothing more than attacks on who I am as a person. They see me as weak. They do not know that my illness does not define me. I am strong, and I will not allow any institution, no matter how large, to tell me that just because my brain isn’t working just the way it is supposed to, that I am less than. I will succeed, despite every single person standing in my way, and I hope that the many other students who are going through the same issues, learn that they are not who they are told they are. Only you know who you are and only you know what you are capable of.
When you find yourself in the future, happy, and successful, remember every single person who told you that you were not worth their time. You are worth every single second you are on this earth, and that is a lesson that I have learned, and will never forget.
