College, depression, & why a manual would help

My parents insist that college is making me even more of an insufferable idealist than I already am. They both dread the day I make the evening news; caught on camera screaming obscenities at the current administration (which is really well-deserved, in my opinion), lecturing bystanders with quotes from Marx’s “Communist Manifesto,” and strutting around in a custom-made Mao suit. Overactive as their imaginations may be, I guess my parents’ worries are understandable, since we come from a relatively conservative brood where the most radical thing anyone ever does is splurge on decorative household items. And though I can’t deny the fact that college life is a colossal change of scenery, I actually find the view to be quite refreshing — despite the newfound pangs of depression I’ve acquired. No, I am not bipolar; there are just those days when I get that faux, clinically depressed feeling. I say “faux” because I know people who really are clinically depressed (emo, anyone? but not the commercialized kind), and I for one am not willing to cut my wrists over the state of the nation… until further notice.

But seriously, I’ve had depression creeping up my spine ever since those first few weeks in UP. Granted, it may have been due to my feelings of imminent doom about the world market (okay, not really), but it was mostly because my person could only take so much autonomy and in-your-face reality. Apparently, I am ill-equipped to cope with the freedom of finding my way around campus; the freedom of sitting down anywhere I please (so long as it resembles solid ground); the freedom of walking into the middle of a tuition protest; or even the freedom of buying schoolbooks from random people in the ladies’ CR. But more than all that, it was coping with the freedom of being alone where I discovered my tendency towards bouts of depression — as well as my talent for self-humiliation. Case in point, I once locked myself in the backseat of my car during a thunderstorm in order to kill the three whole hours before my next class. I could have done something more befitting a UP student (like rejoin the human race, for instance), but I desisted for reasons that escape me until now. There was another time I was feeling so… friendless — I shut myself in the toilet for a good 15 minutes to play Snake II on my cell phone. I kid you not. And this was how I spent the first few weeks of school, adjusting to the autonomy of what can jokingly be referred to as my UP life.

As for the depression brought about by my reintroduction to reality, I have mostly The Collegian (UP’s campus paper) to thank for that. When you interact with perpetually cynical people on an almost daily basis, a dismal outlook on life begins to rub off on you. I mean, how many times have I heard staffers and editors ruminate about financial woes, political killings, cyclical poverty, and the sorry condition of life in general? Not to mention the topics that we’ve covered to so far… 14-year-old “gimmick girls,” campus militarization, the floundering RH bill — it’s no wonder we have that notice on the side of the door reading: “First-Aid Kit: Bang your head here. Have a nice day!” And although working for The Collegian paints a pretty depressing picture, one can hardly tell from the outset. For one thing, the press office is usually a hotbed of festive pandemonium: editors nagging (or affectionately bullying) their writers to finish a draft; people chasing each other in and out of the knob-less doorways; the occasional intrusion of senile Mang Romy; people smoking, drinking, or singing in the humble conference room; our news editor setting up posters of borderline porn as “Christmas decoration”; indeed, when life gives you lemons — you make lemonade. 

When all’s said and done, college has done absolutely nothing for the betterment of my health, since even faux clinical depression should amount to something. However, I can say that my mind’s been absorbing these new experiences and lessons in overdrive, and I take that to be a good thing. Ah, UP. As my brilliant editor at The Collegian once said, “If you aren’t outraged, you’re not paying attention.” Don’t get me wrong, though; I am smitten with the vandalized, confusing, and liberal jungle that is UP Diliman — I just wish I had read the manual first.