Well, here we go again. As August draws to a close, we find ourselves facing the upcoming school year. I know plenty of college students must feel swamped trying to get all the materials they need while figuring out where their classes will be held and reworking their schedules to fit their new life. However, if you feel any sense of the overwhelming anxiety that I do, I can offer up some good news. End-of-summer blues really do exist.
Fear not though, you certainly won’t face them alone.
I feel like there exists a certain appeal to a new phase of a person’s life starting. Whether that phase comes as a new job, a new relationship or even your college classes starting up again, I think change works for a lot of people. You need to constantly switch up your routine, especially if you feel prone to anxious breakdowns whenever your surroundings change a lot. You don’t want to settle too much into a certain schedule, or your brain might kick into fight or flight mode every time a shift that schedule rears its ugly head.
However, when it comes to something like summer break, you might find it harder to shake away that vacation setting in your mind. Whether you spent those three months travelling or staying at home, you can’t help but feel that upcoming shift when all of a sudden, classes and professors assign you assignments and obligations to deal with. Summer only lasts a few short months, and yet when August hits, you can’t help but fall into countdown mode. Three weeks turns very quickly into three days, doesn’t it? You didn’t have to deal with schedules before! Now you have deadlines piling up and appointments to keep up with?!
Outrageous.
In all seriousness though, everyone faces this kind of anxiety whether in small doses or just large-scale panic attacks. No one likes abrupt change. I know I didn’t then, and I still don’t. As classes peek their heads around the corner, I find myself spending my once calm mornings sending countless emails to professors, PhD programs and foreign universities. I know that this time should excite me with plenty of opportunity awaiting, but I find it scary nonetheless. Just two months ago, I managed to finish eleven novels in the span of four weeks. It hit me recently —as in, just last night— that I won’t get the time to do that anymore.
Now my reading will consist of textbooks on critical theory and Plato. Not that I don’t feel eager to learn since I do love learning, but that doesn’t lessen the anxiety creeping up my chest every time I come face to face with the inevitable reality that there just aren’t enough hours in the day anymore. I need to take notes. I need to listen to lectures. I need to touch up my schedule. It honestly freaks me out.
No matter how good you think yourself at adapting, the idea that the life you knew the past three months will suddenly come to a stop? It raises some alarms.
Maybe for that reason, I refuse to change my schedule all at once (or much at all). I still reread Harry Potter but instead of spending all day at Hogwarts, I visit between required readings for critical thinking classes. I still watch booktube but instead of watching while I write fantasy stories, I watch it as I take my notes. Mostly, I make sure to keep breaks in between my classes and assignments to help keep me sane. I keep my favorite romcom playing in the background to calm my frayed nerves or give myself a good meal to look forward to at the end of the mayhem.
It sounds simple, but the process really works for me.
Most of all, and I advise this to anyone reading, I keep in mind that the panic will come. It sounds morbid, but hear me out. When you constantly fight oncoming anxiety, that anxiety starts to become all you can think of. You put off the inevitable. The simple fact of the matter? Everyone gets anxious. If you just acknowledge that you might start to worry, you might start to feel overwhelmed and you’ll know how to prepare for it while minimizing the effects. I know that my anxiety when classes do actually start might very well get a lot worse. However, I also know that if I stay kind to myself by keeping all my nerdy little coping mechanisms close, I’ll survive it; I always do.
