Blog written by Gabrielle Cox (Fall Talladega College Intern)
I overcame so much but I still have a ton of growing to do
I am a person. I am a person before I am a student before I am an athlete before I am an
employee. I have to tell myself this every day. As a student-athlete, I have faced many mental
struggles such as stress, anxiety, and even depression. Each year becomes a different struggle and a different obstacle. Starting out at a college and being only known as the “2020 Class”, the class that brought COVID-19, was challenging enough. We had to fight a disease, the government, our school work, and many more.
It became very draining but made me want to try even harder. We not only had to transition from in-person classes to online classes, but also had to regularly test ourselves, social distance, and masks. It was like we couldn’t breathe already with this drastic change but adding something to our faces was even worse.
I had to start college not doing the thing I loved. I loved to run track, it was my life, and it
was a part of me that I could not let go of. When Covid-19 hit, my season in high school started and ended on the same day and life never felt the same anymore. We had to quarantine and find ways to make do with our time. I then went into a depressive state of mind and I lost a ton of weight. I started picking up more and more things to make due to my free time which included some college courses. I still felt empty. I was battling a lot that when I got to college I was still missing that piece of me. My sophomore year I started running again. I finally started to feel like myself again but then realized that my body wasn’t the same anymore. I couldn’t run the times that I ran in high school anymore. I then started falling back into my depressive shell. I did want to do anything. My grades started to fall but I got up and continued to go through the motions that I wasn’t the same anymore.
It took me four months to come to the realization that I would never be the same again. I
am not the girl that I was back in high school. I had to work and go to school because my
parents could not pay my way through college. I had to take up my own responsibilities. I was living in a room with a complete stranger who went through my personal items daily. I was doing 7 classes and trying my hardest to get an A in all of them. I started talking to a guy and forgot all about my classes. I am not the same girl. I am better I am strong, I am smarter. I had to work harder to get my grades and my GPA back to where I wanted it but I did it.
Later on in the year I moved off campus and made my life more tough. It is really hard to
work because I now have rent to pay, a car note, car insurance, water bill, light bill, wifi, phone bill, and food in the house. I also wanted to participate in campus activities and joined the soccer team, while running track for the school, and a sorority plus my schoolwork. I had a very hard time trying to juggle all of those things and paying my bills. I cried so much, I was overwhelmed with life overall I was tired. I know my boyfriend was helping with the bills but I still didn't feel like it was enough. I was exhausted. I wanted to drop out of school. I wanted to stop working. I wanted to leave the house in which I was living in and just give up. I just could not do it. I had filled all of my time up and was too tired for all of it. I had to drop something. I dropped track. The one thing I loved the most I dropped it. It was not benefiting me actually it was holding me back from my growth. I could not become the person I was supposed to be; the person I am today. I overcame so much but I still have a ton of growing to do.
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