By Yamila García
The fact that I didn’t know I was neurodivergent for so long made me an expert in “enduring” whatever I had to live through. It’s hard for me to stop and understand that I deserve free time and fun. I grew up believing that if others could do certain things, I had to be able to too. It didn’t matter how much it cost me, or how many crises I had, I always ended up doing what I had to do because “I had to.” I did not understand why some activities were so difficult for me, but I refused to accept it and thought that they were just silly things in my head and that I was just overthinking. I forced myself for a long time but now I’m learning to listen to myself.
We are officially 4 weeks from the end of the semester and I can already feel my battery is low. All the effort made at the beginning of the semester to adapt, the struggles with classes, assignments, and due dates, and the anxiety of exams, seem to have consumed a good percentage of our energy, and only a little remains. It is not that it happens on a pre-established date. Instead, I realize it because, for everything I do, I need more time and more effort, and I feel that I already carry a good dose of stress. At other times of my life I would have sworn that it only happened to me, but today I know that there are many of us who are going through this. We need to be patient with ourselves, we need to respect our body, our mind, and the time it takes us to do whatever we have to do. We have already done a good part of the semester’s work, we should be proud of it, and although what is coming is important, we will not be able to do it if we do not arrive in a good physical and mental state at the end of the semester. Go for a 10-minute walk, listen to your favorite song several times in a row as many of us like to do, play with your pets for a while… Stopping studying or working for 10 or 15 minutes does not have a great impact on these activities, but it can have it on our mental health, renewing our energy and serving as the push we need to get to December on our feet!
Listening to ourselves is not being weak, but being intelligent. Our body and our mind are what allow us to do what we want to do. How are we supposed to do it without taking care of ourselves? The lower our battery is, the more things we have ahead of us, and the more difficult what is to come… the more we need to give ourselves time and care.