By Samantha Chrin

For many people, going to college poses a fair number of challenges. How will I pay for school? How will I choose a major? How will I balance my classwork and social life? Health is one thing that many young people don’t think about as a potential problem. After all, most young people are the picture-perfect definition of good health.

 

My first year of college went surprisingly well, considering that I was still coping with residual anxiety from the panic attacks I used to experience in high school. I made friends, attended social events, and aced all my classes. Then the summer hit, and something shifted inside me – something still inexplicable to this day.

 

Though the cause of this shift was a mystery, the result was not: I became unbearably, debilitatingly exhausted.

 

I’m not talking about a, ‘I only slept three hours last night after cramming for an exam’ type of exhaustion. I mean exhaustion that occurred despite eight hours of sleep on a routine every night. Despite doing everything ‘right’, I was falling asleep on the couch watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer at 6 pm. I brushed it off until the school year started.

 

I started to fall asleep in class. Never had I, a type-A worrier and serious student, fallen asleep in class before. To be dozing off in the middle of a lecture was baffling. That time became my first and most alarming bout with chronic illness. I saw specialist after specialist and got no answer aside from, ‘you’re just a stressed-out college student who isn’t sleeping enough,’ even though that wasn’t true – like I said, I was doing everything ‘right’.

 

On top of the exhaustion, I started to experience chronic pain in my abdomen, neck and head. Due to the lack of answers that I received from the multiple specialists I’d seen, I simply put up with feeling ill for the rest of my years at university.

 

What became clear during that time was that I needed to be doing more than just exercising, eating well and sleeping well to manage my health. Here are some of the ways I learned to manage my undiagnosed chronic illness during my four years in college:

 

I Learned When to Say No

 

My education was very important to me. As much as I cared about my social life, saying ‘no’ to friends or events when I knew I had a lot of work due or wasn’t feel well became a staple to managing my symptoms. Work and rest became the priority, and everything else became fun additions for when I had the time and energy for them. In retrospect, this mentality did put a bit of a damper on my social life, but I learned later that it was better to find friends who were willing to adapt with you than make you feel bad for missing a night out.

 

I Learned to Set Limits

 

Physical activity is important for general health, but I didn’t realise until I was almost graduated that my workouts were making me feel worse, not better. I was overdoing it for my body. After I became aware of this, I prioritised lower impact workouts like walking, yoga and body weight exercises over 90-minute sessions in the gym, where I spent half that time on an elliptical and the other half in the weight room. Overall, learning how to limit or work around any energy-consuming activity (such as exercise, cooking, studying etc.) is so beneficial.

 

I Took Up Hobbies

 

In an effort to relax and unwind more often, I started to prioritise hobbies instead of only doing schoolwork or spending time with others (two very exhausting activities for me as an introverted, dedicated student.) I bought a game console and set aside some time to play video games, and doodled in some colouring books. I checked out books from the library that weren’t books I had to read for class. Finding something that you enjoy or haven’t tried yet and committing some time to it each day is something that I highly recommend.

 

I Practiced Self-care and Compassion

 

Incorporating boundaries, limits and hobbies into my schedule wasn’t enough to ease all the stress that came with managing undiagnosed chronic symptoms. I needed to change my mindset, and that meant showing the same amount of care to myself that I would to a friend going through a similar struggle. I prioritised resting and taking breaks in my day, after learning over time that beating myself up over ‘not being productive enough’ was hurting me more than helping me. I started to show myself more kindness and understanding over how I needed to spend my day to feel the best and also be the best person and student I could be.

 

Though my medical issues didn’t resolve from any of these tactics, I’ll always advocate for boundaries, limits and self-care because they helped me get through college and develop healthier habits over time. I didn’t get any answers to my health questions before I graduated with my bachelor’s degree. Answers wouldn’t come until later (the results: endometriosis and chronic migraine), and even now I’m on a search for what’s remained unclear. Going through college with undiagnosed chronic illness and trying to explain to my healthy peers what was going on when I had no clue what was happening to my body wasn’t easy. But I still have a degree to my name; I managed to get through it.

 

If you’re in college right now and struggling while reading this, I want you to know that it’s possible to make changes now that will help you get to the end goal. But if a break is needed to get there (I ended up taking one while in my graduate program), there’s nothing wrong with taking a step back, either. At the end of the day, we all need to do what’s best for ourselves to take care of our health.