The summer before leaving for college I visited a long distance friend I had met at a writing camp two summers prior. Although Emily and I had only been together for three weeks during the duration of the camp, it was uncanny how we managed to connect on every possible level. During those three weeks, we crammed in the minutes together. We wrote poetry by the lake for hours, ate buckets of ice cream in the dining hall, and joked about our friends back home and how much we missed them. I truly felt like I had found my soulmate best friend. On the last morning when leaving camp, I grasped her arm and said that we would visit each other somehow. Tearfully, Emily shook her head, smiled, and said that she didn’t think we would. It was just too hard. Camp friends don’t stay best friends across the country.

She was wrong, of course. Somehow, we managed to talk every couple weeks, sending each other funny or memorable things happening in our lives during our junior year of high school. Both of us struggled with the long distance communication, but it wasn’t as big of a deal as we thought it would originally be. We didn’t feel the need to talk every day, or even every week. I missed her dearly, but it really wasn’t until that next winter during my senior year that I was able to see her again. I can still remember my joy as I eagerly tugged my suitcase off the plane in the Minneapolis airport, sprinting outside to find her car. When we reached each other, tearfully embracing and ignoring the harsh cold that bit our cheeks and numbed our hands, I remember feeling whole again. My entire senior year had felt like it was slipping away from me. Suddenly, when I was sitting with Emily in her warm car laughing along to a song on the radio as if no time had passed, I was happy. I felt safe. I felt loved. 

It’s not like I didn’t feel love at home. I had friends and family who cared about me, who supported me. I could see the love they gave me and the time and effort they put into our relationships. Unfortunately, there was a part of me that didn’t feel understood by anyone that year when I slipped into a period of horrible mental health. I spiraled quickly when I stopped taking my medicine and going to therapy. I’ve discussed in my other blog post how my strength to carry on with day to day activities quickly deteriorated as the months passed by.

But I haven’t talked about how lonely and distant I felt during that time of depression. For a long, long time, I just felt different from many people around me–those feelings stemmed from as early as middle school. They weren’t new during my senior year. To put it simply, I felt as though everyone around me had some sort of “secret” to succeeding easily in life, a secret I had been deprived of. I looked around my class and wondered how everyone did it: how they felt so content with their lives, how they thrived in social situations, and how they managed to do everything with comfort and ease. In my head, everyone around me knew what they were doing. From a young age, I felt uncomfortably different-I selfishly believed I felt things so strongly and deeply that nobody else knew what I was going through. This was one of the many reasons I began writing at such a young age. Creative writing provided a space to express myself, a way that I could escape into a world I created in the pages of pages of fiction and fantasy. Emily was the first person to get me to write poetry during that camp. Once she opened up that world, I was hungry for new writing styles and techniques. I found that I could express myself in a different way than before, and dove deeper into my hidden emotions I resented repressing. 

But that senior year, I still felt distant from everyone around me. The urgency of those thoughts struck me again and again throughout the day: I was different. Nobody understood me, not really–not even my closest friends and family. You could say that these thoughts stemmed from my depression, and part of them probably did. But now as I write this article I can say with assurance and confidence that I wasn’t just feeling that way because of my mental health. Pieces of the puzzle felt missing since I was ten or eleven. And I wasn’t sure how to get those pieces back. 

When I visited Emily during the winter of senior year, I felt like my puzzle was whole again. Maybe it was because I was able to escape from my hometown and go somewhere that nobody knew me. Maybe it was because she accepted me for who I was, because we were able to laugh and joke like sisters, because we could write with one another for hours. I liked how artistic and creative she was, and I felt like I could watch her paint forever. For the week that I was with her, exploring freezing downtown Minneapolis, eating milkshakes in Dinkytown, and getting our tarot cards read in Uptown, I felt like I belonged. I was finally with someone who understood me for who I was. 

When that trip ended, I felt like the tether to who I was snapped in half. I came back home to St. Louis and the wilted trees and my mundane school that seemed to never end. As my depression worsened, so did my self esteem and my belief that nobody around me actually understood me for who I was. I remember calling Emily after a New Years Eve drunken escapade with my best friends at home. I sat in the hallway of that hotel, clutching the phone to my ear, and cried that I felt completely and utterly alone. Even though she insisted that I wasn’t, it was hard to believe her. I sat on that carpeted hallway that smelled like mold and listened to the muffled sounds of the party, wishing desperately that I could feel like I belonged. That sounds dramatic-believe me, I know. But it was how I felt. When you feel alone, it’s hard to stop isolating yourself. I told myself I was just leaving social situations and canceling plans because it was better that way. If nobody really understood me, what was the point?

I didn’t see Emily again until the summer before going to college. My mental health at that point had lifted enough that I could see that the people who surrounded me in St. Louis loved and cared about me, and that I wasn’t truly alone. I’m not sure how it happened. It might have had something to do with going back to therapy, taking my medicine, and reaching out to my friends and family around me to let them know that I was sorry about pushing them away. But in all honesty, I can’t pinpoint the exact moment that I started feeling whole again. Realistically, I believe that I just reached a point where I couldn’t keep living with the notion that nobody understood me. In order to feel whole and happy, I needed to feel accepted and loved by the people around me. In order to feel accepted and loved, I had to acknowledge the fact that feeling “different and lonely” didn’t make me who I was. I could still be different and be happy. I could still write and feel accepted by everyone who had been there for me my entire life.

When I visited Emily the summer before going to college, Minneapolis was hotter and our friendship had thankfully stayed the same even though months had passed. I still felt a soul crushing connection to her, to this mysterious writer and painter who I had met during camp for three weeks. Someone who I could tell anything to. Someone who I always missed dearly. But during that time, when I visited her–I realized that she wasn’t the only person who loved me and understood me. As we laid there on her couch during that weekend, she passed me her phone and told me to take an online personality test: the Enneagram test. 

I didn’t think much about it at first and easily cruised past most of the questions, but of course, there were some that made me pause, hide my screen, and wonder if I wanted to answer honestly. I am more sensitive than most people. I compare myself to others to see how I’m doing. It’s important to feel like I belong. If I’m not too careful, I can get isolated from others. There is something beautiful about sadness. And my personal favorite: When I’m with someone as unique as I am, I can get a little jealous. 

 Damn. It was hard to be truthful and answer yes to those questions.  Emily watched me carefully as I finished the exam and held up my screen to show her the number bolded in dark colors: 4. I had no idea what the hell that meant, but Emily was ecstatic: she was a four, too. 

“That explains a lot,” she said, grinning at me over her computer. “Just read the description. Tell me what you think.”

So I did. At first, I didn’t like most of the information it told me: that type four’s were usually isolated, emotional artists that felt alienated from society. As I read the other nine enneagram types, I was jealous of how wonderful the other numbers sounded: type two’s were incredibly giving, type one’s were organized, type seven’s were energetic and outgoing. The list went on and on, and I felt incredibly put out. What was the main description of the four, you may ask? Creativity, and the deep longing feeling that something was missing from their lives. How thrilling. I knew that it applied to me, and Emily seemed thrilled to have found another four like her, but I bitterly ignored the personality test and the results for a few weeks until I left for college.

I went through a rough transition period those first few months for a number of reasons. Leaving home and entering a new environment is tough for anyone, and it was hard for me to decide the type of person I wanted to be. I had the opportunity to present myself as a completely different person than I was in high school. I debated changing my name from Maddy to Madeleine, but ended up deciding that Madeleine was too formal and the name I would have to use for the rest of my adult life. I joined a sorority and tried to push myself out of my comfort zone. I focused on my studies and making new friends. I met another girl named Madi who reminded me of Emily because of how strongly I felt like I had known her in a past life. 

And I realized many different things about myself. The first: I enjoyed being alone and writing by myself. The more I researched my number on the Enneagram scale, the more I realized that many, many people felt the same way I did in high school. It comforted me to realize that other people across the world had most likely, at some point in their life, felt alone, too. The feeling that I didn’t belong and that I was “missing” something was a common emotion. Previously, I had felt like my fear of not belonging was something that only applied to me. I cannot explain in words how relieving and comforting it was to realize that I wasn’t alone in my plight of feeling like I wasn’t quite the same as everyone around me. Learning more about myself, and that I wasn’t alone in my deep cavern of emotions, steadied me.

One thing I’ve learned through my growth is that I don’t always need to soak up the emotions of everyone around me and demand an emotional response from them. Some people just don’t work like that. My Mom, for example. It says on the Enneagram website that type one’s (my Mom’s number) and type four’s (my number) are often like oil and water when mixed together. One’s are organized, practical, and tend to abstain from an emotional response when a job needs to get done. Four’s are highly emotional, prone to distraction, sensitive, and concerned with self-expression. It was no wonder that the two of us struggled to “speak the same language” when I was in high school. Now, however, we’re much closer than we were when I was sixteen. I know it’s better to not argue and just organize my room when I’m asked. I know that I don’t have to see my Mom cry to know that she’s feeling something powerful. I know that it’s better to ask questions and listen to her instead of pushing her away when I feel like she doesn’t understand what I’m feeling. I try to do that with everyone in my life now. Not everyone cries when they listen to Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major, and that’s okay. Everyone expresses themselves in different ways: and Enneagram taught me that it’s okay that we’re all different.

Of course, the Enneagram test isn’t an excuse for the way you act, or a complete explanation for who you are–it doesn’t help and apply to everyone. Some people just don’t seem to fit any of the categories, or feel like their number doesn’t apply to them. That’s okay, too. It’s just a test. But it helped me through some of the toughest times of my life my freshman year, because I understood that I wasn’t alone in what I was feeling. I learned that my scale of how I feel about being “different” can tip both ways: sometimes, I love that I feel unique. I love that I write to express myself and that I look at the world and emotional responses from people with a different eye. Sometimes, of course, the feeling that permeated my youth comes back to haunt me: that I don’t fit in any category or with the people around me. Whenever this thought comes up, though, I shove it away. I tell myself I can still feel different and belong.

 I still have a lot to work on. The growth that happened my Freshman year is still happening today. I know that I’ve come a long way from who I used to be, and I’m grateful for the experiences that I went through during that first year of college that helped me grow into the woman I am. For now, I’m taking it day by day: working on not needing constant reassurance that I belong. Working on accepting people’s love, not pushing it away when it gets too hard. Working on controlling my emotions so I don’t lash out at everyone around me. Finishing my second book and sharing that with the people I care about. Taking long walks at night to look at the moon and write poetry. Keeping up with my social life and my schoolwork. Coming to terms with the fact that depression and anxiety don’t make me who I am. It’s a tipping scale, but I feel like I’m at the top, right now (knock on wood). I know myself better. I know I’m not alone with what I’m feeling–and that everyone feels deeply, even if they don’t express it like me.

I haven’t seen Emily since I left for college. We send each other our writing from time to time, leave long voicemails if we’re feeling extra lonely, and talk about the next time we’re going to see each other. She’s one of those friends that you know was meant to belong in your life, the type of friend that will never leave. I’m planning on visiting Minnesota or Montana, wherever she is, to climb some mountains, drink some milkshakes, and talk about life. That’s what we do best.

https://www.eclecticenergies.com/enneagram/dotest

I was in math class the first time someone made fun of my body. A boy sitting next to me joked to his friends that a girl in our grade had hairy legs, and I bluntly told him that she didn’t need to shave. He turned, looking me up and down, and snidely remarked that I was flat. The boys around us snickered. It was the first time I wanted to change something about myself.

The next time was in seventh grade. I was in science class. A boy I liked told me my body was shaped like a peach. I wasn’t even sure what it meant at the time–I still don’t–but I felt incredibly uncomfortable. When my face fell, the boy immediately apologized. He said he hadn’t meant it. We never talked about it again.

In that same science class, I watched two of my female classmates compare their bodies. I sat in silence and observed them, pretending to write something in my notebook. They bragged, competing, holding up their arms and legs to compare how small they were. That night, I went home and snuck into my parents bedroom closet where they kept the scale hidden behind fallen shoes and old winter coats. I remember placing it in the center of the bathroom, taking a deep breath, and stepping upwards. The metal felt cool under my bare feet. I wiggled my toes and looked down at the number, five pounds heavier than the girls in my class. That night, I cried about my weight for the first time.

My body, unbeknownst to me, had started developing quicker than most girls my age. I had always been an early bloomer, losing all my teeth in third grade and getting braces by fourth. My period started when I was eleven. With early blooming came training bras, and then, eventually, real bras, while the rest of the girls in my grade still looked the same as they did when they were eleven. It was in seventh grade that I got my first boyfriend. It was also that year that someone told me he only liked me because of my body.

There comes a time when every woman becomes painfully aware of who they are. When we are forced to look in the mirror and recognize our differences: our lips, our breasts, our curves. The things men like. The things men want. The things you start to hide at twelve because you can’t walk home alone from school anymore.

Perhaps my awareness came from the notes boys passed me in class asking to touch my ass after lunch. Maybe it was when I went on a jog with my friend and a grown man stopped us to say he could see through our shirts. Maybe it was when I went over to a friends house to watch a movie and he tried to put his hand on my chest. When my Mom picked me up twenty minutes later, she asked why I was shaking.

There are people I could blame for the way I started to look at myself. There are situations I could blame, too; like when I watched my best friend cut up apples for lunch in eighth grade and run six miles every morning. When I cried to my Mom that a boy had told me I was a prude for not making out with him behind the school. She held me that night, stroking my hair, and told me I hadn’t done anything wrong. Boys were just different.

We learn to be sexualized. We learn to be catcalled. We learn to keep our eyes forward. We learn to notice our bodies. We learn to hide them, our curves, our breasts, from hungry eyes across the street and men that just can’t seem to get enough. We normalize the way we don’t get up in class so people will stop telling you your sophomore teacher kept staring at your ass. We normalize our soccer coaches telling us not to wear leggings to practice because it’s distracting to the boys across the field. When we cover ourselves–we’re prude. When we don’t–we’re sluts. Nobody wins.

Today is a day for mental health awareness. And I guess that’s what I’m trying to get at–how aware I became of my body the older I got. I attended a writing camp before entering my junior year of high school. It was there that I was faced with eating disorders for the first time in my life. I watched as a close friend starved herself day after day, running until her bones protruded and her cheekbones sunk in. We wrote poetry by the lake as she counted her calories. We watched the sunrise the morning before camp ended, and I remember looking at her, the sun hitting her face, and wondered if she was going to die.

I went to that camp with the intent to lose three pounds. I left losing ten. When I arrived back home my Mom commented that I looked like I had lost some weight. I was elated. I downloaded an app where I could count my calories and track my exercise throughout the day. I spiraled quickly. Perhaps it was the compliments–people telling me I looked different. Maybe it was the worried look my boyfriend gave me when I refused to eat dinner. Maybe it was the way I never seemed to stop running and the way my hands started to shake and maybe, maybe, maybe. There will never be enough maybes.

Therapy started. Then the medicine. Zoloft, Prozac. Take this. Watch your Mom sit down in front of you, hands folded, worry lines creased on her face. Look at the clock, push your food around on your plate. Refuse to get out of bed the next morning. Take another pill. Feel the anxiety swirl at the pit of your stomach. The leaves change, but you stay the same. Snap at your boyfriend because you’re hungry. Tell him you love him. Yell at your friends for telling your Mom you didn’t eat lunch. Apologize. More pills. Run so fast and so far that blood seeps through your white socks and you have to toss them. Look at the clock. It’s January, now. The leaves are gone. And you want to be, too.

Senior year came. I made excuses for the way I felt about my mental health: I was just tired. I was just lazy. I didn’t put enough effort into my schoolwork. I didn’t put enough effort into my relationships. There came a point where I deeply considered moving to another country, peeling off my skin like glue, and starting over again. I wanted a new identity. I wanted a new life–and not the one I was living. I felt guilty for feeling the way I did, for hating myself when I had been given so much by my parents. I lived in a good neighborhood, I went to a good school, I went to therapy. Maybe that’s why I stopped taking my medicine that year–because I was guilty for being depressed. I told myself I didn’t need to take medicine for being lazy. Not getting out of bed was a choice.

I remember the night everything spiraled out of control. I had been putting all my effort into writing my book, neglecting everything else in my life: school, soccer, work. It’s strange how you can hear the signs of depression but not apply them to yourself: the way I couldn’t stand to look in the mirror, how nothing seemed to interest me anymore. How numb I felt. The night it spiraled was the night my parents confronted me in our living room about my plummeting grades–concerned about their star student and star daughter who had never had issues with doing well in school. I looked at them, my fingers laced together in my lap, and told them that I didn’t really see the point anymore. Bewildered, they asked me what I meant. I shrugged, my nails digging into my skin, and said it again. I. Don’t. See. The. Point.

We argued. I told them they didn’t understand what I was feeling–they asked me to elaborate. I couldn’t. I screamed, crying, running up to my room and locking the door. Eventually, when my Mom threatened to break it down, I opened it again.

I watched them fight from the corner of my bedroom. They shouted, mother and daughter, biting their nails with ragged expressions, furiously trying to get the other to see their point of view. Her grades were dropping. She hadn’t been going to school. The mother felt, incredulously, that it was her fault as a parent. But she wouldn’t admit that. So they fought until the mother said how do you think this makes us feel and the daughter said I can’t believe you just said that to me and grabbed the car keys and threw them across the room, sprinting out of the house with bare feet in the middle of December and no that can’t be me, that’s not me, is it? I wouldn’t throw anything. I wouldn’t yell at my Mom like that.

I sprinted to my boyfriends house after the fight. I told him that it hadn’t even felt like me saying those things–that it had felt like I watched the argument from a different side of the room. When his Mom came home from work she held me as I cried, my cheek pressed against her neck. It was the first night I admitted that something might be wrong. That I hadn’t been taking my medicine. And that I deeply, deeply needed help.

Things changed after that. I started taking medicine again and going to therapy. My grades rose, and I went back to school. I tried to mend my relationship with the people I had pushed away during my depression, people who had loved me and who I will always be grateful for. Even now, as I write this piece–I can still remember the way I felt the night I ran. How trapped my mind told me I was. How lonely. I could have run forever.

It’s difficult to explain how quickly mental health can spiral when you tell yourself nothing’s wrong. It took a close, trusted adult to tell me that maybe I needed help, and I will always be grateful for her. And my parents. And my past boyfriend, my friends, who always supported me when I didn’t want support. Who stuck with me when it got bad.

There are many things that can lead to depression and eating disorders. It builds. Maybe it’s genetic like it is for me: many people in my family suffer from anxiety and depression. We’re all pretty open with each other–I’ve joked with my brother once that we didn’t really stand much of a chance genetically. But it wasn’t just genetics that lead me to the point I was at senior year–it was my horrible body image, my inability to accept that I maybe needed to listen and rely on other people, and my chronically low self-esteem. A feeling that something was wrong with me, that I should’ve felt guilty for being depressed, because there were so many other people suffering.

And here’s what I have to say to that: a close friend once told me that it’s okay to acknowledge your feelings. What you feel is valid. Everyone is fighting their own worst battles–and those battles look different for everyone. You can’t diminish or feel guilty for needing help because other people are suffering, too. And you don’t need to suffer alone. I will be forever grateful for the people who helped me get to the place I am now: my family, my friends. And while depression, anxiety, and eating disorders are things that never really go away, I truly believe I can fight them better now.

I am strong. I am loud. I am brave.

I am, I am, I am.