A Day in the Life; Mental Health Pitfalls of a Black Woman in College

As children or young teens, we don’t realize how important mental health is. As college students, it’s important that we constantly and consistently check with each other and ask each other how we’re feeling, just to be sure that we’re all on the right time.
Sometimes, we feel as if we’re completely okay, but once we sit down and think, everything that we’re going through all goes through our mind at the same time. Some of us have things going on at home that we can’t control which affects our mental health. Others are just having problems with just being okay and learning to relax while away from home.
As a black woman in college, this semester has been the hardest with my mental health. Sometimes it’s really hard for me to just sit down and focus because of all the things I’m constantly thinking about. My biggest problem that affects my mental help is being away from home and missing my mom. I’m an only child, so I’m used to being alone all of the time.
But one day when I went to the library, just to see how it was because I never went into the library in the first semester, and I actually enjoyed being in there and not being around a lot of people trying to talk to me. I was able to relax and finish my work all at the same time. When I don’t go to the library, I go on walks alone to free my mind. This also helps relieve my stress.
At one point, I was thinking about leaving Baton Rouge and going back home to Memphis and just staying there and not coming back. I decided not to because I shouldn’t give up after one year of school. I realized the only way to help your mental health is by finding ways for you to get through it. If you don’t fix your problems yourself then your mental health will not be better. If we don’t fix our mental health when we first realize it’s a problem, it could get worse and lead to other things.
Check on your friends, and take care of yourself, because as a young adult in this brand new college environment, you never really know what’s happening in the lives of your peers.