I was divided before going to college. One part of me was filled with an energetic anticipation of college, thinking that this was where I would go to finally resolve my personal problems. I would be in classes that engaged me, have friendships that would be fulfilling, become romantically active (sometimes I dreamed of myself as a veritable Don Juan). I knew, on a conceptual level, that there would be problems and issues, but generally speaking, I would be happy. Happier than I ever was before.
Then there was the other part of me. The frightened part. The part that feared leaving the comfort of my home, being in a world I had no experience with. The part that feared that I wouldn't know what to do, that I would be more isolated than ever, and that my hopes of friends and relationships would only ever be hopes, never fulfilled. But what I feared most of all was that this entry into college would mark another crossing point that was bringing me ever closer to what I feared was my ultimate destination--failure. Failure in job, relationships, life.
Ultimately, neither my greatest dreams nor my worst anxieties happened. No major shift occurred in either direction. I did not become a new person.
I became only myself, in a new place.
The same things I struggled with in High School I continued to struggle with in college. My anxiety and my depression did not change, though the things I worried and despaired about might have. More significantly, I did not cease to have Asperger's syndrome. I still struggled to interact with others as others could interact with others. I still was not interested in parties and other high-intensity "social" activities that my peers enjoyed, such as concerts or going to bars. I still struggled to relate to my peers and continually felt a disconnect from them.
At the same time, I began to develop further my personal skills and better learn the career I wanted to take, and begin taking the steps towards that career. I had my first relationship, and have made new friends. My grades have been generally improving. I'm away from the stifling aspects of the home life, and am in a position that has enabled me to better foster my own personal development.
Yet those were not the things I focused on. I ignored that I had not fulfilled my negative expectations, and instead focused on how short I had fallen of my positive expectations, which of course left me feeling more depressed. I still felt isolated like I did in high school. I still broke down like I did in high school. I still felt the urge to hurt myself like I did in high school. Like in High School, this was never a constant state, and it moved in and out with more positive feelings. But those feelings were still there.
I think one root for the development of mental illness in college, and my own unhappiness in college, is the failure to meet expectations.
Our culture expends a great deal of energy convincing us that college is worthwhile--more than worthwhile, that we must go to it. It does this by affecting us with wide-ranging fantasies, of career success, of finding "who we are", of achieving our career goals, finding good love and good friendships. Perhaps for some people that is true, in exactly the ways which they conceive of it. But I think for a great deal of us, those high expectations fail to be met, and we feel the frustration of having not met them. I think a lot of unhappiness arises from lack of acceptance--from our expectations being in conflict with reality. We desire to reach a point, but we do not actually reach that point, and we become sad and unhealthy at the gap between desire and reality.
Of course, this only applies to causes which are more, shall we say, psychic in nature, which is to say they have to do with our thoughts and feelings as thoughts and feelings.. Some mental illnesses develop out of neurochemical or otherwise biological causes (forms of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, for example), and all I can suggest with regards to why those occur more often in young adults is that perhaps those psychic causes become triggers leading to the development of those disorders, or that an unhealthy psychological disposition leads then to the development of psychobiological illnesses. Perhaps the neurobiological qualities of the developmental stage itself is a breeding ground for mental disorders. Ultimately, though, I don't know shit about those things, so I couldn't really say.
Regardless, I know personally at least that a great deal of my distress arises from seeing the world which I live in now, and being frustrated that it was not what I desired it to be. I look at friendships and wonder why they are not more fulfilling. I look at my classes and wonder why I do not get better grades. I look at my depression and wonder why I am not feeling happier. And all of those feelings, that constant contrast, leaves me miserable.
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Yet things have been changing.
Not suddenly, not dramatically, as I had envisioned they might be. But gradually, subtly. I was in a new environment. I had to learn new ways to manage my problems, to deal with classes, and a greater workload. My old means of coping were insufficient, and I needed to learn new ways. My mom saw my struggles, and found a therapist dealing especially with people with Asperger's, and with him I began to learn how to better manage not only the current issues I was struggling with, but issues that had been plaguing me for years before. We dealt with class stresses, with old regrets, with pretty much everything. What had initially been gotten just to help me deal with old stresses was creeping into far more deeply rooted problems. I began not merely to sustain, but to recover.
And it has been far from a straight road. It has been bumpy, going up and down. I've still broken down, and old issues still creep up. That is what makes recovery so challenging--that there is no clear pattern, and the future is uncertain. But as I have argued prior, I maintain that hope is not only valuable to recovery, but invaluable.
There is no final stop. There is no moment of total euphoric triumph, there is no happy ending, at least not in the sense that there won't be problems afterward. Rather, it is a dogged, constant effort, moving forward one step at a time, up a hill, in the pouring rain. Sometimes you slip and fall, and gravity pulls you down. But there's nothing else to do but to get up, wipe off the mud, and keep going. The top is so far away, and sometimes it just feels easier to lay your head against the mud and rest, but goddammit, you might just get there. And someday the rain will stop, and the ground will dry. You will get strong, and climbing the hill won't seem as hard.
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