Columbia, I got your crazy

To the tenured, highly esteemed anthropology professor who failed me last spring:

“Why are you even here?”

This was the first thing you said to me a year ago when I sat down in your office before you explained that I would not be passing your class.

It was understandable. I barely attended any lectures or discussion sections, let alone turned in any of the assignments. I earned what Columbia students have to work extremely hard to receive: an F.

I left Schermerhorn, bawling as I walked back to Watt, where I hid for the entirety of my junior year. I thought about Richard Ng, a student who committed suicide by jumping into the East River two years prior. I didn’t know how to swim. It could work!

I ended the semester with an impressive 1.8 GPA. I felt mostly dead. But looking back, I realize I was living, and that was the point.

“Why are you even here?”

I didn’t come to Columbia to be depressed, mind you. I came here to take my high school valediction and press onward, to become editor-in-chief of this paper, to meet the man of my dreams. None of these things happened.

After a tremendous freshman year, things spiraled. I teetered on the edge of my 20th floor window in EC and looked down.

Over the next year, I would accumulate a number of diagnoses: major depression, recurrent, without full inter-episode recovery (DSM-IV 296.32), and borderline personality disorder (DSM-IV 301.83). One psychiatrist told me I actually had bipolar disorder. My mom told me I wasn’t practicing Islam enough. A professor actually told me I was a liar. My friend told me I was just being 20.

You could say this period constituted a Profound Experience, the one often criticized in other senior columns. I know I’m a cliché, and I laugh about it often. (See headline.) But, it is my experience, and it is all that I have.

“Why are you even here?”

There is more than one way to get an education. I may have wasted four academic semesters (you, dear professor, said it had to be expensive to be missing so much of your class, and you were right), but in that time, I learned tons about friendships, values, and of course, myself. Maybe it is a gross justification for not making any waves while I was here, but I’ll take it. Making “waves” just doesn’t seem as important these days.

Not everyone was supportive. The worst was when people told me I just needed to “lift myself up by the bootstraps” and move forward. I had friends who expressed their own skepticism of my inner pain, acquaintances I keep at arm’s length now.

I was often bitter. Bitter that even after I sought help, I was told that study abroad would be too much of a liability for the school. Bitter that old friends stopped calling when I didn’t show up to the last few parties.

Failing grades and missed appointments necessitated the unofficial creation of Team Sadia, with a line-up that evolved as often as I did: two deans, two therapists, a couple of drugs, a few good friends, and a supportive family all kept me in line. And eventually, after the right treatment and some time, I got my proverbial shit together.

“Why are you even here?”

When Eric Harms died this semester, I almost took it as a personal failure. Finally, I was doing so well and instead of preaching the “Gospel of Health and Happiness” to other undergrads, I was too busy enjoying my life in the moment.

As an attempt to raise awareness and dialogue about mental illness in the wake of a confusing, needless act, I’ve been editing a series at Spectator this semester called Mind Matters. (Whether or not that’s a conflict of interest, I don’t know or care.) The aim is simple: maybe if we start writing about mental illness more often, taking a trip to the eighth floor of Lerner won’t feel so unbearable.

The greatest irony of depression is that millions of people suffer from it, but everyone feels alone. It doesn’t have to be that way.

So, here’s the part where I get prescriptive: take time off if you need it—graduating in four years is overrated. Find support that works: if you hate your therapist, find a new one. If talk therapy isn’t working, try something else. (I’m an advocate of dialectical behavior therapy, which focuses on building productive skills.) If you can’t afford a private practice, find a good research university (ahem, like the one you’re in) that’ll allow you to get access to treatment for free. Also, don’t be afraid to embrace your “crazy”—it’s so much better than being boring.

For the “supports”: When your friends, family members, or students seem troubled, or just absent, take it seriously. Don’t try to handle everything yourself—you are not a professional. Ignore the potential anger this person may feel if you seek outside help—their life is more important than a short-lived feeling of betrayal. And stick around. My best friends today were the ones who knocked on my Watt door without calling first.

Columbia can and will be the best of times, the worst of times. How will you cope?

“Why are you even here?”

I am painfully aware that I might have another depressive episode in the future.

But this time, I can handle it.

I wish you could see me now, professor. I got a 4.0 last semester. I live on the 20th floor of EC again, two doors down from a previous site of trauma. I am learning how to swim.

The author is a Columbia College senior majoring in anthropology and MEALAC. She was managing editor of The Eye and news training editor for the 131st Managing Board. She was an associate news editor on the 130th Managing Board. She is the editor of Mind Matters, Spectator’s current mental health project.

Tags: Opinion, Sadia Latifi, Lerner 8, Mind Matters