Pain in my sole/soul
My foot hurts. I sprained it a few weeks ago and ignored that pain. Why did I ignore it? Because I was stubborn, or how I saw it, determined. Resting my foot would mean not going to my daily barre classes and that just didn’t seem like a good option for me. It’s summer and I strive to be active and healthy. In my mind, healthy means exercising, not resting. But the pain became unbearable and I finally had to concede that maybe the healthiest thing for me was not exercising. The healthiest thing was resting. As I forced myself to reconcile with this decision, I realized that this is not the only instance in my life when I ignored pain to a point at which it created an unsustainable lifestyle.
The last time I was in this much pain was this past April. The pain then wasn’t in my foot, it was in my heart and in my head. I had returned to college for spring semester having sunk back into the clinical depression that I had not experienced since I was 13. But I had started a new medication and was hopeful that within six weeks I would be back to my bubbly self and ready to take on the semester. Four months later and boy was I wrong. Some days I felt even worse than I had in January. I added new medications, started going to therapy twice a week, and tried to take walks as frequently as possible in order to calm myself down. Nothing helped. That soul crushing depression was my throbbing foot. But then too, I wasn’t about to take a break. At my competitive, high-pressure college, taking a step away from the work just didn’t seem like a smart decision. In my mind, the smart thing to do was to continue pushing through my intense course load and ignore the pain and darkness in my mind.
Physical pain is easier to grapple with than emotional pain. It only took me two weeks to realize that I needed to get off my foot if I wanted to get better. It took much longer to realize that my depression was too much for me to continue my life at school. After a strong push from my parents and my therapist, I decided to do the smart thing and go home. I didn’t feel smart when I left school early last semester. In fact, I felt like a failure. I was so disappointed in myself for being unable to handle my work. It took me a while to realize that in the long run, taking care of my mental health was the smartest thing I could do.
When I first sat down to write about my experience, I was not writing it as someone who had made the right decision and had gone home. I was writing it as someone who was desperate for solace, but unwilling to make the necessary change. I wrote that first draft through tears in my dorm room. I had hoped that getting my feelings out about what I was experiencing would be enough. It wasn’t.
I am writing this final draft as someone who is much happier and, other than my foot, much healthier. There is no way I would have reached this point if I had forced myself to stay at school. Now that I recognize how healthy my decision was, I am much more willing to keep my foot elevated this week and skip the workouts.
It may seem obvious that resting an injured foot is a healthy choice. So why is it so difficult to recognize that taking a break from school may be the smartest choice? Students compete over who is the most stressed and who is getting the least sleep. We stew in a culture focused on perfect grades, brilliant essays, and error-free problem sets. When I workout, I don’t see people in casts and slings, or wincing with every step. That’s because injured people know to take breaks. So why is it that I see people falling asleep in lectures or holding back tears in the library? It’s because no one tells college students that when experiencing emotional or mental pain, it is ok to take a break. We need to start talking about mental health and we need to recognize that taking a step back from schoolwork is healthy and smart.
I was so scared that people would judge me for my decision to go home. Instead, I was met with support and encouragement from family and friends. In fact, many adults confided in me that they too had taken time off while in school. Maybe if I had known that this would be the response, I would not have put myself through so much pain and I would have left and gotten the help I needed much earlier. I hope that by sharing my experience, I will start clearing a path for others who may have considered taking a hiatus for self-care, but have feared the consequences.
Since starting my break from exercising, my foot is already feeling better. I did what I needed to do and now I am beginning to heal. The same is true for my mental health. Breaks are important. They are healthy and they are smart. Pushing through the pain is not the answer. Sometimes going home is smarter than going to school, and sometimes sitting on the couch is healthier than taking a barre class.
