I’m being brutally honest – starting college was a “crash landing,” if you will. Here’s another piece to the story. I’m thinking if there’s a part two, then I might as well go big and do a trilogy; 'cause trilogies are the best:
My first signs of life outside high school were grim and ominous ones. After all, I felt like I was just getting started – I had built and fostered more relationships in one semester than I had in numerous years. It was like the childhood timer suddenly ran out once I had shown up to life as more of a real me. The chapter that I felt I had suddenly caught onto was closing, forcing me to leave behind the life that I had fallen in love with.
The momentous occasion of graduation hurt like the devil. To this day my parents will tell me how much pain was in my eyes that day. I walked across that stage into a new way that I didn’t want yet; with all my heart I just wanted to stay where I was until I had fulfilled all of the goals that had suddenly become all too real and possible. As the wheels of life kept turning, my heart was left behind; I was going to college, yes, but no one could have told me that. Summer vacation came and went like it was shot out of a cannon – I’d say with supreme confidence that it was the fastest of my life. All the emotional ups and downs were like chains; as the summer progressed, more and more of them were heaped upon my shoulders, leading to one of the more humbling experiences my 18 year-old life had seen. I just couldn’t take it anymore; I broke down in front of my group of friends one night like I never had. Crying was something I hadn’t used to deal with pain often. I suppose the oppressing buildup of chest-tightening stress, mixed feelings, and the realization that I had to let go of everything finally resulted in a massive explosion of emotions that shot out of me in front of my brothers. The vice grip I had so greatly loosened on my friends returned that night despite the Christ-like brotherly love they displayed. They all gathered around and prayed for me – it hit me then that my friends were pretty great, but I didn’t let the emotional explosion alleviate my pain for long.
An explanation could not be found for my feelings once the packing for college started. All I remember was that it was the middle of August 2010 and I was headed for the University of Arkansas. A kind of cruise control for humans had taken me over – I was going through the motions necessary to get by, but I was upset to the point of blocking out all the nauseating feelings of emptiness. Moving in day, however, is more to clear to me; I was sent careening into reality (a place that can be ever so cruel on a given day). My mother says I looked like a ghost – pale, expressionless, and unable to respond. To me, life was over, and the college thing could have only been a dream. Yes, I was there with most of my best friends, but things just didn’t seem right. The surreal sense given by stepping into a new walk of life is inexplicable; I was just waiting to wake up in my own bed and make the ten-minute drive to the school I had grown so close to.
As time crept slowly by, God wasn’t so cool to me anymore. The cowardly, worrisome person I thought was gone began to reapply its poison, taking back a firm grip on my life’s reins. I began to act as if God had abandoned me, forgetting all about Him who gave me new life free from a debilitating mental disorder. Even the simplest of social interactions began to be filled with self-defeating thoughts and terrifying feelings of awkwardness as I tried to fight the battle of life completely on my own.
This is astounding when I think on it now, but this whole time I had been taking the same medication – nothing should have been different regarding my levels of anxiety, but it was. It was like God was trying to send me a message for the entirety of the first semester of college; that He was the cause for my recovery, and that I had thrown Him under the bus in return. It was clear that I wasn’t going to win the battle for my mind on my own terms, but no one could have convinced me of it back then. It wasn’t until a short time after the 5-week long Christmas break that I realized the giant steps I had taken backwards. God and I had grown far apart over that four-month semester – not that I had let us get that close in the first place.
Grace and Peace,
J. S. Wade
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