Who are those solitary skeletons that are stiffly placed in their cubic boxes in the computer labs…or perhaps are they invisible to you? Have you taken a second glance just to observe them? To notice them? or perhaps you don’t care? Do you see that girl, the one who always seems to be wearing a pair of comfortable leggings and a hooded sweater, she seems to come here quite often actually, every single day, in the same computer lab, occupying the same seat…In her little nook at the very back of the computer lab, she has created her very own safe haven secured by her headsets and protected by her hoodie she lives in another world and soon everything around her becomes non-existent. Because when her purple headsets have engulfed the corners of her ears she has entered a new dimension a space full of endless opportunities anything she has ever wanted or dreamed of she has it! It’s a good thing that you haven’t taken the time to notice her because that’s exactly what she wants, she isn’t looking for your attention, she is looking for a space where she can hibernate in her thoughts. A place where she can be herself without judgement in a world where she is accepted, in a world where she can forget all her problems, fears and insecurities she can block it all in here…
I am happiest when I have my headsets on its like I have transformed into a virtual character where I can choose whichever world I want to visit in whatever form. I am a part of something they allow me to eavesdrop in their conversations, they tell me their favourite food, they laugh with me in happy times and share secrets and insecurities that they too experience. You mean something to them that’s why I continue to champion their success because they are my friends…I have two hours to spare before my next class so as usual I grab a quick snack at the student centre and just like that I am off to my favourite computer lab. Timing every pace quickly and swiftly I pass the crowd of busy students that are walking to their next class and some even eating their lunch with the squads. My headphones playing music loudly on one ear and my hoodie on the other end concealing my identity.
From the corner of my eye, I see a familiar face and just like that I begin to quicken my pace whispering under my breath…” Please don’t say the name, please don’t say the name”
” I hope she can see that I am wearing headsets surely that will signal to her that I can’t hear her” …
“Damn this stupid hoodie is covering my dam earphones!”
” But maybe she can see that right?”
” Yeah that’s a great excuse in case I bump into her again, she will surely know that I wasn’t ignoring her or perhaps running away from her…I mean why the hell would I do that!”
“Olwethu!” she starts calling my name
My heart races as I hurriedly try to manoeuvre around the crowd so that I can reach my final destination-my haven…But it was too late she had caught up with me, I felt her touch on my shoulder! I have no choice now, I must deal with the situation, there isn’t room to hide. Just like a Grammy-nominated actress, I put a mask on and summon my character to the stage …3 2 1 ACTION!
They never knew…when you saw me on campus you would have never known…But Olwethu you so bubbly and cheerful whenever I bump into you? Are you always full of jokes and you crack me up njena? Do you think??? YOU never knew the amount of energy and role-playing it took for me to act normally around people how carefully I drafted every word and sentence…YOU can’t imagine the number of times I had avoided conversations with all of YOU. How I used my headphones and the music in my ears to conceal your cries as you called out names hoping for a small chat. Did you know I feared YOU… all of YOU! did you know that the scariest part of my day was the 2-minute walk I would make from my class session every Tuesday to the student centre and back praying that none of YOU guys would see me with my hooded sweaters and swift strides I had learnt to master…
But how would you have known? my social anxiety wasn’t obvious, I concealed it with a big smile and an animated character. There was a point in my varsity life when my anxiety had escalated to such a level that I started to avoid certain bathrooms on campus that rarely had visitors because I didn’t want to bump into the awkward hand-washing scenario where there is just the two of you in the bathroom, followed by an awkward compliment I was never really good at small talk. My social anxiety was a product of depression, if you have ever experienced any type of depression you would know that it feeds on isolation, loneliness being its home base where it is bred.
When you are depressed you tend to spend your days isolated and a lot of the time you find yourself blocking everyone from your life because you assume that your struggles make you a special case, unique that they can’t possibly understand half of the pain that you are experiencing and because you conceal all these emotions not sharing them can harm you and especially if you don’t receive the help that you need. When you measure your struggles immeasurable what you are doing is creating a barrier from people, you are separating your struggles and distorting them to seem unrelatable, basically overblowing your despairs and protecting yourself by doing nothing about it because not acting on it feels better and feeling sorry for yourself even more. “You don’t understand! “sometimes it’s easier to feel sorry for yourself because when your situation leaves you “crippled” it disables you and gives you the permission to stop trying to feel better or to work towards a solution because you do not want to face your problem. You allow yourself to be miserable and sink everyone around you with your negative energy…That’s what happened with my mental health, I never took responsibility for the negative energy I poured out to the world. I was a cynic but looking back I now realized that there was also a chemical imbalance in my body that never was regulated or medicated and because of it I fed it with unhappiness, cynicism and loneliness I had created a monster and no matter how hard I tried to get away from it. It didn’t allow me to break free from its grip instead it manifested itself in different forms throughout my daily life.
From the girl who refused to throw away her trash outside because of the fear of bumping into her neighbour. To the girl who walked around campus with headsets, so I could avoid conversations with familiar faces I could just smile and wave as I passed by…always pretending to be late for something! To the girl, you now see sitting in the corner of the computer labs with her headsets tuning into someone else’s life every day, always another Youtuber…In that world, I felt comfortable I didn’t feel bad about my social life or the lack of it. It was almost as if I had another opportunity, a restart button from all the awkward social encounters I may have had with human beings that day. I could live again…through someone else and whomever I followed and subscribed to their souls become my alter egos I would go to them whenever I was feeling insecure about myself. I became obsessed with watching these people because they were everything, I was not… And I would turn to their channel just to remind myself what a happy life looked like and that one day I would be like them, I would be brave enough to live my own life instead of vigorously living through them. I would be brave enough… to take off my headphones and take the necessary steps to be confident in social situations. In a world filled with beautiful people, families with lovely homes and jet setters who travel the world and network and build businesses. I watched as they enjoyed the fruits of their labour it was as if I was a fly in their wall, in their lives which gave me the autonomy and permission not to live mine.
So how did you regain your mental health Olwethu? I am sure a lot of you guys are curious was it something that you just snapped out of? Unfortunately, that was not the case… one video changed my life it was my antidote, my Aha moment. A video by a woman called Marie Forleo not only was witty and beautiful but her advice was totally relatable she spoke on her weaknesses with honesty and humility. I wasn’t just consuming crap, but I was getting tips, tricks and tools to start living my best life. I downloaded 3 episodes that night to watch at home. The very next morning I was on campus at 7 am to download more episodes, I binge-watched over 100 EPISODES on Marie Forleo videos that weekend and then I moved on to Brendon Burchard, Simon Sinek etc anything I could find to get me pumped and in the gist of things. I had noticed a shift in my mentality and whenever I was starting to feel down, negative or insecure I had a video for every dilemma. I then started categorizing my videos into folders and gave them labels…for procrastination, loneliness, how to make friends, and dealing with a bad day. That overconsumption helped me, my online mentors started to give me tasks that I would need to follow through like greeting a stranger or raising my hand to ask a question in class and I became more comfortable with my own voice! That was two years ago, and a lot has changed since then, last year I was a full-time postgraduate student working at 3 jobs on the side. Today I am working for my dream company, I continually am amazed at the woman I have become, I am fearless, ambitious and not afraid to be myself and it all started with a single video that change my life. Dear student your mental health is important to take care of it… loneliness is a reality for a lot of students, although my life right now is much richer, happier and busier when I walked past the computer labs, I still saw those skeletons, but I smiled- I was free, my ears were free…
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