Inside every human being there is a fighter, a fighter with the strength and courage to win any battle. However, despite our inner strength, we have emotional vulnerability that becomes potentially powerful in a situation of stress and pain. This is my story as an immigrant and a college student and a woman of forty, whose illness triggers an atmosphere of emotional turmoil until I developed a panic disorder. Panic disorder creates in me deep feelings of death that escalate to the point where suicide was my only way to escape. Until I found the divine connection in my college with people who saved my life and made me understand that I am an eagle, and I can fly higher and reach the university.
For people who have been facing death it is impossible to be in a healthy state of mind, to understand and assimilate things in logical way of thinking. I am personally facing an illness that causes me to become impaired in most areas of everyday functioning, living my life in social isolation, and failing to take care of myself even in regard to my personal hygiene. Despite my emotional and physical state, I was determined to finish my education and transfer to the university. For this reason I took the step to knock on many doors looking for help, some were closed but others were widely and divinely opened. I will always be grateful to the people who gave me their support for they were surely used by God to show me my destiny in life, to be a psychologist.
In reading about college and student suicide, I was able to find the divine connection that unlocked the support to change my suicidal thoughts to hopes of accomplishing my educational goal. I strongly believe that the majority of college students who died by suicide haven’t found the divine connection to save their lives.
However college authorities are paralyzed and blind about what causes student suicide. Fortunately through my experience I learned that college suicide can be prevented through communication between professors, counselors and students, especially immigrant students that carry with them horrible scars of kidnapping, rape and death. As an immigrant, I came illegally into this country facing extreme and painful events that had left severe psychological effects on my life. But I always kept my educational dreams deep in my heart even in the times that my illness awakened my emotional scars, causing me to remember my dead friends who came with me to this country but haven’t had the opportunity to survive. But I took the emotional pain as a strong bond to survive and for this reason I would rather die than give up my emotional dream.
Although I am dying from panic, I have a divine connection in my college with the Puente Program, which makes me feel useful and gives me a major coping mechanism to survive and relieve my pain. Through the help of special professors and counselors I found the courage and strength that I so desperately needed to frame my way of thinking. At the present I am back in my body and fixing my feet to the ground. I believe that communication and support are as strong as death and more than ever I want to be alive and transfer to San Francisco State as a psychology major and help save peoples lives.
