by Lizzy Hermosilla ’23

Throughout four years of high school I have never escaped stress, and I can safely say that much of the time I have spent in high school was defined by a state of distress. I was caught up in the stress of getting perfect grades, fulfilling obligations, and living up to a self-imposed standard. I had week-long headaches, days where I could not eat more than a bite of food, months where my skin was raw from compulsively picking at it, and nights where I became physically ill.

The signs that should have raised alarms to make me change were drowned out by my love of being busy, and subsequently my need to be stressed. Freshman year I got MRIs done to investigate my headaches, and after that I should have let go of some extracurriculars. Junior year when I nearly passed out during a class presentation, I should have dropped some of my club responsibilities. The summer going into my senior year, I cried nearly every day at work when I should have simply quit.

However, despite all of those signs that my body could not take on this amount of stress, I still signed up to work 20 hour weeks, tutored nearly every day, played sports both in school and outside of school, took on more responsibilities in clubs and honor societies, and increased my course load. I was addicted. Not only to stress, but to the idea of having a full plate. Despite my body screaming for me to take a break, it was not until my grades started to slip that I actually saw the problem.

I am no longer the student that I was in my freshman year; I miss school almost more often than I am there, and I often don’t turn things in on time. The effects of the pressure I put on myself made me completely unrecognizable from the person I was just four years ago.

Quitting was not an option, so I had to adapt. I learned to set firm boundaries with myself and others to prevent myself from taking on more work than I can handle out of superficial obligation and guilt. While everyday I fear the same fate for my mental health in my next four years of college, I can not live in fear of stress and the strain it causes. I am much more confident in my ability to prevent, notice, and accept the signs of unhealthy levels of stress and rather than ignore them, like I did throughout high school, I know I am capable of finding my way out of whatever stress-inducing events I will confront in the coming years.