I'm not okay.

I know it's not true, but I feel like I'm programmed to fail.

Every good intention, every honest effort to succeed, somehow seems to betray me.

And I can't win.

I'm not okay. This is the third time this week that I have been up all night, staring at blank documents, trying to make myself do something productive. But I've just been paralyzed every time.

These past two weeks have introduced me to a new low. After trying so hard this semester to stay on top of things, I've finally let everything go. It all started with a research paper and a conference grading session.

A week and a half ago, my research paper was due and my teacher wanted us to conference grade with her, so I signed up for the time right after class to get it over with, went in to her office, expecting that it would be bad but that at least I'd be done with it.

I felt very anxious in a one-on-one setting, but I wiped away my tears as quickly as I could when they would come so that she wouldn't see me being weak. It's not that I think people should go easy on me because of my condition (and also she didn't even know about my condition) but it's just that I am so fragile that I honestly can't handle criticism. Even when it is constructive and deserved.

So she started pointing out flaws in my paper. I didn't argue, I knew she was right, so I just agreed with everything she said. I guess that wasn't satisfying because then she started asking me questions, like

"did you even pay attention during class when we discussed this?"

"so you knew where to look to get help but you didn't look at it?"

"you transferred from a junior college, right? Didn't they teach this there?"

"what it looks like you did was just give me the minimum effort of what was required."

"this is your chance to defend yourself, don't you have anything to say?"

By this time, I can't even hide it anymore. Tears are just freely flowing from my eyes and down my cheeks while I sit there silently, not even knowing what to say.

"are you crying because you think I'm being hard on you or because you know this isn't your best work?"

I can't speak. I have no words. I just cry.

"did you feel like you couldn't come talk to me and get help?"

I open my mouth to talk and I just lose it.

"No, because every time I try to talk to a teacher at this school, they're condescending and belittling, and I can't handle that."

By this time, I'm sobbing. Every time I inhale, it sounds like a goose is honking. I am humiliated, uncomfortable... I can't believe this is happening. I wish I was curled up in a corner, away from sight and sound of anybody else, instead of in front of one of my professors during a conference grade, my hair a mess, my leg shaking uncontrollably, and gasping for breath in the same clothes I wore to bed the night before because I woke up ten minutes before class.

I sit there for about ten or fifteen more minutes (I honestly don't actually know because it felt like forever) and tried to answer her questions, but it was all completely incoherent.

"do you have anxiety attacks like this often?" she asked me.

"every day,"  I say. but it sounds more like...nothing. It probably, honestly, sounded like loud, breathy, noise.

She says she wishes there was something she could do to help.

I tell her that no one can help. Professionals have been trying for months and nothing has helped. but that probably didn't sound like anything coherent either. She told me I could take my paper back and try again, so I scooped up the pages and walked out of her office, still unable to compose myself and my uncontrollable blubbering.

That weekend, I do the thing that always makes me feel better: road trip. I can usually go a day or two without an episode when I take a road trip, and that was something I definitely needed. The first night was good, but then I woke up the next morning with nowhere to go. I tried texting people. Busy. I went to my safe place which was my car, but the air conditioning is broken (just in time for summer, yay) and it was miserable.

I tried to go into public buildings where it was cooler to work on some homework maybe, but I knew that I needed to break down. I knew that I needed a place where nobody would ask me if I was okay. Where nobody would see or hear me hurting. But I didn't have that place.

Finally, I ended up at the park and sat underneath the shade of the tree, laid on the grass, and wondered how on earth I was going to make it through the weekend.

Then I got some more bad news--my old real estate management company had inappropriately allocated the money I paid them when I sold my contract and was now ripping off the new tenant. I feel like this is a common thing, but nothing makes me feel more frustrated and anxious and stressed out than owing people money.

And then my dad talked to me about the test that my doctor had done to determine good and bad medications, and the test was $3400. Of course, that was before insurance, but the insurance wouldn't pay for it until they knew why the test was taken.

As I sat there, sweaty, baking in my overheated car, right outside my friend's house, I knew that that was the moment that I would most like to be dead. If there was any time I wanted it the most, it was then. I could not even imagine being able to live another day. It sounds so... dramatic. And by definition, I guess it is. But it was real.

I made it through the weekend, painfully.

The Monday after I got back was the first night I stayed up all night trying to get myself to rewrite that paper. I looked at sources, I looked at my document, and I couldn't even think. I couldn't even imagine how I could write it the "right" way so that my teacher wouldn't trash it again. Everything I typed, I deleted, knowing that she would probably cross it out when going over it.

I was on the phone with my best friend back home crying and said that I wanted to drop out and come home. He told me I should because I needed to do what was right and healthy for me. I texted my other friend what I was thinking and she expressed the same sentiments. I knew that my dad had told me he's support me in whatever decision I made.

So I decided: I will drop out. I will pack up, I will go home, and I will just cut my losses. I'll get a job so I can start paying back my debt. I considered the fact that I knew I had already paid for housing and school, but I came to terms with wasting that. I imagined talking to people back home and having to tell them why I dropped out mid-semester. I planned my entire blog post. My mind was made up.

I called my mom as soon as the sun came up to tell her what I decided, and she stopped me. She reminded me of how close I was and how I could do it. She told me to drop another class if I needed it, but that it was worth it to stay and finish the semester. I hated that she was right, but I knew I should stay. All I could think was that I probably shouldn't have even come up here in the first place.

I avoided that teacher's class for almost the whole next week. I forgot to take the midterm. I did all the homework, but since I knew it would only be torn apart again, I figured: why bother? I decided to drop just that class, but after wrestling with that idea, I just couldn't rationalize it. Great decision to try and stay after you blow it big time like that, huh?

That week was dark. I stayed in my room and didn't talk to anyone. I watched all 7 seasons of Parks and Recreation, so that gives you an idea of how useless I was. But I just sunk, deep. I didn't know it was possible for me to get lower than I already was, but it was. And it happened. My dad who I had leaned on for support started seeming more apathetic, and for the first time in months, I went a few days without calling him. It was bad, considering he was half of my support, but I guess I was hoping that he'd miss me or worry and call. He didn't.

One day I didn't go to any of my classes. I knew I would take a huge hit, miss a quiz, and a presentation, but I just didn't go. I just slept through it, woke up, and then cried and thought "I am ruining my life and all I can do is sit back and watch it burn knowing that it's all my fault but there's nothing I can do to stop it."

It's like I am rational enough to know that I am making the wrong decision, but not strong enough to stop myself. Luckily I have deep rooted values and live in a pretty safe place so my bad decisions aren't as bad as they could be, but it still terrifies me.

I don't know what other types of challenges are coming my way with this disorder. Every time I learn or experience something new, I realize how in over my head I am and how scared I am. I don't want to be classified as a psychopath. I don't want people to hear that I'm bipolar and think "oh, wow, that makes so much sense." I just want to be normal.

But what I'm learning--and what I hate to learn--is that I'm not who I once was. I can't do what I once could. I can't care about what other people will think of me if and when I decide that I need to do what's best for me. And let me tell you, it is the most hopeless lesson I've ever had to learn. Because that person I became? I loved to be her. Those things I could do? I took pride in those. Those people whose thoughts I care about? I hate letting them down.

People tell me I can be that way again--that I'm not a let down. I don't know if that's true. But I just hope that I can be happy to be me again one day.