Emily Hoeven | Sleepless in Philadelphia

Growing Pains | Why I'm resolving to love myself more this year

By Emily Hoeven 01/12/16 10:36pm

I’m not someone who regularly writes down New Year’s resolutions, mainly because they often remain consistent across the years: do well in school, go for a decent amount of runs every week, keep in touch with friends and family, journal more.

But on the six-hour plane flight home after an exhausting and stressful semester, pale from lack of sleep and anxiety and anxious about my anxiety and lack of sleep (causing further anxiety and lack of sleep), it hit me that I was missing something. I should have felt relieved that I was done with my five finals and wouldn’t have to create decks of flashcards or write a paper for the next four weeks, but all I felt was more apprehension: In four weeks, I’d have to go back and do it all over again.

I have berated myself over and over again for my bouts of anxiety. I tell myself that I shouldn’t get worked up so easily, that I should be able to get a grip and handle myself in a normal fashion, that I should always be in control of my thoughts and emotions.

But somewhere in the midst of writing two 15-page papers, muttering French monologues to myself in my room to prepare for an oral exam, going through hundreds of slides of neuroscience lectures and trying to understand what in the world a pumping lemma is and how to use it, I found myself locked in an uncontrollable cycle of panic.

I would suddenly begin to feel anxiety and panic bubbling up within me, and then I wouldn’t be able to concentrate, which would make me more anxious. I felt nauseous whenever I looked at food, I couldn’t sleep well and I would pace around my apartment and campus in an effort to calm my jittery nerves. I didn’t want others to detect my anxiety because I didn’t want anyone to wonder why I was projecting a persona other than my “normal” one.

However, masking my anxiety only served to make me feel like the temperature had been increased in the pressure cooker of my mind. I had effectively isolated myself in my brain.

What this unceasing cycle of mental torment led to was a New Year’s resolution to practice more self-love. As I looked back at my habits over the past semester, I realized that I had taken very little time to truly care for or treat myself. I often rebuked myself for taking an hour to talk to a friend or cook a meal when I could have been studying. Never once did I sit down to watch a TV show or movie. I didn’t splurge on a massage or an exercise class that would have refreshed my body and mind. I ran from meeting to meeting, used my study breaks to ferociously type emails, attended all the guest lectures I possibly could and simultaneously told myself that I wasn’t doing enough — when, in fact, I was doing too much. I was doing too much, and I couldn’t admit it to myself because I didn’t want to believe it was true.

At Penn, too much is never enough — until you find yourself utterly broken down at the end of the semester, afraid you won’t be able to recharge in time for the next one and afraid of showing anyone your anxieties or fears.

But who said that putting on a brave face can’t be the same thing as wearing your real face? The same as showing someone your weaknesses? Your vulnerabilities? Your stress? We have got to get away from the notion that anxiety is something to be ashamed of or that it marks us as less fit in the survival of the fittest. We have got to change the culture of collegiate competition which says that our individual accomplishments must reach the absolute pinnacle of achievement for us to be worth anything.

But before we can change the culture at large, we have to change the culture of our minds. We have to tell ourselves. We have to convince ourselves. We have to own ourselves, believe in ourselves, accept ourselves, stand by ourselves, trust ourselves, be willing to be ourselves — even if we’re messy, even if we get anxiety attacks, even if we have weird quirks we’re reluctant to show other people, even if we’re afraid. What else — who else — do we have?

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.