When I rolled up to campus on college move-in day in an SUV full of dorm necessities five years ago, I didn’t think I was asking for much from my college experience. All I wanted was to stop being so afraid of everything.

At 17 years old, I felt anything from wary to terrified of what I imagined a typical college student looks forward to in their first year. Independence, new people and social events were the last things my anxiety disorder wanted to experience, even after almost a year of talk therapy and medication. I'd spent the months leading up to my first semester of college embarking on painstakingly planned dorm shopping trips — the routes I'd drive, in what order I'd visit stores, what I'd buy from each — and spending hours late at night preparing for dorm life by watching endless amounts of YouTube. I needed to know exactly what to expect from my college experience so I could be in complete control of it.

In the first year following my diagnosis of depression stemming from generalized anxiety disorder, I’d made minimal progress, enough that I wasn’t crying every other therapy session.

But I knew that I could do better. Somehow, I was sure there would be a day for me when I didn’t feel burdened with my invasive, obsessive and oppressive thoughts. I knew that someday I wouldn't spend most of my waking moments fearing a panic attack.

That ideal life, I decided, was going to start with me living in a dorm full of strangers at a college campus a safe 30 miles from home. 

(Above: Look, I did things! It took hours of mental planning to prepare for a social event, and I left early.)

At first, being in a shared living situation with a mental illness wasn’t too conducive to starting friendships on the right foot. Depression for me didn’t look like the girl who lived at the end of our hall and never said a word to any of us all year — an image most people would associate with such a mental illness. I was friendly, I got along with my hallmates, and I did normal things like going on Target runs and sunbathing on the lawn.

(Aforementioned Target run. Let’s not talk about the quality of either the pic or my choice in food.)

But while my new friends saw me as amiable, I later learned they also thought I was closed-off because I’d often turn down invitations to anything from seeing a movie to going to the dining hall across campus. My anxious, irrational thoughts told me I’d have a panic attack during “The Fault in Our Stars” and an asthma attack while walking across campus. I knew I shouldn’t, but I listened to that voice. I believed it.

So I overcompensated for being held back with anxiety by suggesting we do things within my comfort zone; I bought Bananagrams, Jenga and Apples to Apples; shared a 50-pack of chocolate chip cookies with the entire floor every week; started a collection of film classics for movie nights in our 11-by-14 double room; and invested in an iPhone 4S so I could participate in iMessage group chats with new friends.

(Above: The infamous 50-set cookies.)

Establishing myself as the “game night girl” and “’She’s the Man’ girl” —  and, I’ll admit, “Twilight” girl —  helped bridge the gap between me and my potential friends. We did lots of things together, so I hoped they wouldn’t think too much of it when I bailed on other plans.

Things were going well until, a few weeks in, I came face-to-face with a trigger that threatened to set off a panic attack.

On a particularly quiet weekend, my randomly paired roommate pestered me to go to the beach with her. Despite my protests — the secret reason being that I wasn’t familiar with the place we were going and I was afraid of long walks — and my barely concealed discomfort, she coerced me into going off campus, thinking I was just being lazy.

As we drove alongside the beach, I convinced myself that it wouldn’t be as bad as I thought: We’d sit on the sand, watch the waves and head back to campus. But soon we were passing bonfires blowing plumes of smoke, and my thoughts raced with ways to convince my roommate to change her plans. If we were to go down to the beach, the smoke would aggravate my asthma, I'd have an asthma attack and I'd have to call the paramedics (again) —  or so I told myself.

My roommate, excited to explore her new city, didn’t notice at first when I didn’t get out of her car. When she confusedly looked in through the window, I knew I was cornered. If I didn’t tell her my irrational fears, I wouldn’t get out of the plan.

With the faint smell of smoke triggering my fight-or-flight instincts, I got out and asked desperately if we could stay by the car as a compromise. But when she insisted that we go by the water to enjoy the beach, I couldn’t hold back anymore. As I cried in front of her for the first time, I admitted that I really didn’t want to be there and didn’t think my asthma would survive the bonfires by the beach.

I expected an awkward, confused apology and an equally awkward and confused silence as I cried on the short drive back to campus. But the woman who would, within a year, become my best friend instead surprised me with a sincere apology and a compromise.

That afternoon, she drove us less than a mile down to a park with an ocean view, and we spent an hour lying on the grass and watching airplanes take off right over us. I decided crying in front of my roommate crushed a barrier between us, so I shared my worries that people thought I was weird and unsociable. She admitted that she’d wondered why I was concerned with things like leaving for class 35 minutes early for a 15-minute walk or the fact that she kept our window open at night.

I was stunned that she’d noticed and wondered about my quirks that I thought had mostly flown under the radar. So I decided it was time to be more honest with my mental struggles; if I wanted a salve for my anxiety, establishing trust and friendship was a good start.

I told her that three years prior, I’d experienced a near-fatal exercise-induced asthma attack, and that prevented me from walking distances. Running or hiking were absolutely off limits. Though I had no experience with alcohol, its effects terrified me, whether it was me or someone else consuming it. Loud noises put me on edge. If I wasn’t the one to plan something, I couldn’t partake in the plans that (I thought) I had no control over.

My thoughts were irrational, but that's not what my roommate told me. Instead, she promised to be more aware that I had struggles that she never realized someone could have. “This can be our park now,” I remember her saying as we folded up our blankets to head back to campus. For the first time since moving to college, I was comforted with the knowledge that someone actually understood me.

(”Our” picnic park, pictured 1.5 years after the ~asthma incident~)

Our core friend group naturally grew to our circle of floormates, and our plans evolved from Banagrams on the hall floor and movie nights in my dorm room to hikes around the city, concerts and house parties. I expertly waved off parties with excuses of late shifts at the library and avoided hiking trips with my own on-campus plans. Though leaving campus made me anxious, my friends — who, through my roommate, vaguely understood that there were things I couldn’t do — still extended invitations on the off-chance that I’d join.

With the passing weeks, I grew self-conscious about my efforts to push my mental limits at my own pace. Surely, no one would want to be friends with someone who wasn’t “down” for everything.

(Above: A DIY wall quote that definitely helped me on those nights I spent alone in the dorm room. Plus, you know this pic was taken in 2012 by the horrific editing job.)

I picked and chose what I was comfortable doing, usually plans that didn’t involve walking distances, and somehow was able to socialize enough to maintain friendships. Sometimes we had to drive when we could walk, and sometimes I’d go quiet during our excursions to talk myself out of my anxious thoughts, but my new friends accepted that was how I was and encouraged me to push myself to go on more local adventures without knowing why some things could be so hard for me. And I started trusting them.

We didn’t get to that point with just dorm ice breakers and RA-organized events. When someone would ask what medication they saw me taking every night, I’d reveal I was on a low dose of an anti-depressant to stabilize my anxiety. If asked what my Friday plans were some weeks, I shared that I was seeing my therapist. I put a pause on my “fake it ‘til you make it” attitude to let my closest friends know that I was struggling with a mental illness.

And in return, my friends were open about their own struggles — with homesickness, with stress, with their own anxiety. We hadn’t known each other a year, yet we trusted each other during the biggest transitional period of our lives.

By my second year of college, I was able to embark on my first college road trip. With the help of my friends, I pushed my asthmatic self up the hills of San Francisco’s Chinatown and explored new places without the fear of not being in charge of planning.

For once, my excitement to be doing things that I considered normal for college students was louder than my anxiety.

(Those two hands belong to two women who remain some of my best friends.)

The rest of undergrad flew by as I kept surprising myself and my friends with the things I was able to push myself to do. And, even better, my best friends pointed out when I'd do things that my freshman self never would have considered. I started going to the beach for fun sophomore year, and I tried going to a house party junior year (I didn't last long). By senior year, I was going on short hikes and felt comfortable in bar and club environments.

I was only able to overcome these anxieties because of the difficult moments I faced in college, which I shared with my closest friends. At one point or another over four years, I had to ask each of them to talk me through an anxious episode or sit with me as I battled my own thoughts. But not once did they seem uncomfortable with such a request; later, they’d admit that those experiences helped them understand my condition. They were even happy to see the strong trust we’d built.

By the end of college, after trying to be as open as possible about how anxiety affected my daily life, I’d become a go-to support system for friends who found themselves struggling with mental health.

When a friend confided in me about her signs of depression, I tried to destigmatize and demystify seeking professional help by sharing my experiences from four years of therapy. During my junior year, I talked and comforted another friend through a panic attack —  and didn’t allow it to trigger my own. When my best friend shared that she was experiencing anxious feelings for the first time, we talked about what anxiety felt like and brainstormed calming methods.

A few years after I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression, through medication, therapy, strong friendships and gradual confidence building, I was in a mental state where I was able to counsel the same friends who had supported me through my own battles. And it was in these moments of feeling like I was giving back to my ever-supportive group of friends that I felt happier and stronger than ever.

I’m proud to have not suffered a single panic attack during college. But I’m even prouder of the fact that, as I'm enjoying a life where I can travel and jog on a treadmill, I’m still surrounded by the same friends who would help me through whatever obstacle comes my way.