You Are Not Alone
Like many people, I often turn to music when I am feeling any sort of strong emotion. Up until about a month ago, I was feeling lonely very often. There’s a song in the musical Dear Evan Hansen, that I would listen to on repeat, called “You Will Be Found”. If you haven’t heard it, I highly recommend giving it a listen. There’s one line in the song that really spoke to me, it says:
“Have you ever felt like you could disappear?
Like you could fall,
and no one would hear?”
I would listen to this song while I was sitting alone in my dorm room at school and would always cry when it got to that part. I cried because that was how I felt, like I could fall and no one would hear. I felt so alone and disconnected from the world around me, I didn’t have any close friends at school, and my family was far away from me. It got to the point where it was difficult for me to even leave my room to eat, because the thought of eating another meal alone was worse than my hunger. After a week of being back at school for second semester, I knew that I couldn’t suffer in silence anymore. I had to tell someone how sad I was. There’s another line in “You Will Be Found”, which encouraged me to finally tell someone, which says:
“‘Cause when you don’t feel strong enough to stand
You can reach, reach out your hand
And oh, someone will coming running
And I know, they’ll take you home.”
I took this line to heart and decided to finally reach out a hand, because I had no strength left in me to stand. I called my parents and they came running to D.C., and after many tears and much consideration, they took me home.
I’m not going to go into the exact reasons of why I made the decision to leave school, as they are very personal, but I am taking the semester off to focus on myself and to work on my mental health. I plan to transfer to a school closer to home next year, so that I never have to feel so alone again.
Since being home, I have truly discovered how not alone I am. I am surrounded by friends and family who love and support me no matter what. I thought that people would judge me, or be disappointed in me for coming home. I was scared to face the people who had once been so proud of me for chasing my dreams. I didn’t want the people who admired me to think that I was giving up, because I wasn’t. But whenever I see a friend from high school, or a parent that has watched me grow up, they make me feel like no matter what I do I’ll always have a hand to reach out to. So, this is to all the people out there who feel like they could disappear and no one would notice. You are loved and there are people who care about you. Sometimes it’s easy to feel alone when you’re far from home or when life has been hard on you, but I promise that if you look around you’ll find someone who cares. When I posted on Facebook last month about my struggles at college, I was feeling especially lonely, but after getting so many positive responses, I realized how many people care about me. When I hit rock bottom, and felt like there was no one around me, all I needed to do was reach out my hand and I was rescued. I’m not saying that whenever things in life get hard you should just move back home, but it’s so important to be around people who love you, and no one should ever have to feel like they have to fight the hardest battles alone. I am so grateful to all my friends who have carried me through this hard time and shown me that the sun will rise again. After just a month of being home with the people I love, I feel so much happier than I was at school. I have been found, and I know now that if I disappeared, so many people would care. I want everyone reading this to know that if you ever feel like there’s no one there for you, you’re wrong. Even though it seems scary, if you reach out and ask for help, you’ll find that you are not alone. All I needed was the reminder that there are people who are there for me, and I am ready to rise again. I leave you with the chorus of “You Will be Found”, which perfectly sums up the last month of my life. Thank you.
“Even when the dark comes crashing through
When you need a friend to carry you
And when you’re broken on the ground
You will be found
So let the sun come streaming in
'Cause you’ll reach up and you’ll rise again
Lift your head and look around
You will be found.”