Student has Breakdown About not Having a Breakdown Yet

It was 3 pm on a Thursday and all that could be heard were the wallowing screams of a young student in Appleby. The shrieks echoed through the hallways of the dorm, bouncing from wall to wall, reaching new places screams have never reached before. Kate Reich CMC ’22 recalls laying in her bed pondering about all the work she had to do for this upcoming finals season while binging another season of Queer Eye on Netflix. “I mean I feel like I don’t have too much work to do, like it’s just a couple papers and a test” Reich tells the Golden Antlers.

When all of a sudden her roommate Jenn Willows CMC ’22 runs into the room hysterical about all the work she has coming up. Reich can never forget what she heard from her roommate that day, “I have a final test for Econ 50 that’s worth 40% of my grade, two 15 page papers for political philosophy, a 4 hour long test for algebra, and for intro bio I have a take home exam, a 10 page lab report and a final exam.” 

“Those words still haunt me today,” says Reich. “I guess it all got to me and I just starting escalating. My mind shut off with all the anxiety and stress that is impending and probably never ending, and I’m just sitting here in bed watching Netflix. I mean how is everyone else having a breakdown but I haven’t yet. I don’t even have a summer internship lined up and I’m not even worried about that. Am I missing something? Am I doing college wrong? Am I going to fail and have to become a leech of my parents fortune?”

At that moment, Reich started having a breakdown. She hit pause on the episode and began bursting into tears. Now accepting the harsh truths of her reality that she subconsciously avoided, she filled up with anxiety about not even having any anxiety to begin with. “Is this normal? Why am I not stressed? Am I really having a breakdown about not having a breakdown?” Reich muttered to herself underneath her sheets. Reich then reached for her bong, took a couple hits and reassessed her situation. Moments after, she stopped crying and said, “You know what, I’m chilling. Things will work out. I just gotta go with the flow.”