Salwa Meghjee

I have never dealt well with change. My usual response to change is to curl into a ball and cease to function until I finally get used to my new reality. 

The looming giant of bureaucracy stands in the way of achieving the smallest of goals, whether it be a link on CalCentral or a few sentences on a syllabus.

My bed and I have a complicated, toxic love-hate relationship. Mental illness is exhausting and causes me to sleep a lot.

While my therapist has me rate how I’m feeling on a 1-10 scale each week, there isn’t actually a definitive way to “rank” my mental illness and its severity. Illnesses are relative; what is “severe” for one person is functional for another. Both deserve to receive as much treatment as they need.

Access to accommodations is the sole reason I am able to remain in school while severely depressed. My accommodations don’t give me a leg up over my peers; they put us on an even playing ground. 

I know we’ve had a rocky relationship in the past, but I wanted to write to say how much I’ve grown to love you.

I have received a plentitude of terrible advice in my time as a Chronically Mentally Ill Person. One of my favorite (not at all appreciated) pieces of advice (that is not at all advice) is “It gets better!”

It can be easier to confront how we physically feel than to confront how we emotionally feel.

Despite being surrounded by people in class, at work and in clubs, I constantly feel utterly isolated, completely alone.

Out of sheer luck, I am equipped to tackle my mental illnesses in ways many others don’t have the privilege to, because of issues like accessibility, economic inequality and outside support.