Tulane students come from a variety of academic backgrounds. Some students came from the most public of public high schools and never had to study for anything while maintaining a 4.0 GPA. Good for them. Others went to private schools that cost thousands of dollars per year, and some were home schooled. I had a very unique high school experience: I went to a public, residential high school that operated as a college prep school and school for the gifted and talented. I went to the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts in Natchitoches, Louisiana, about five hours north of New Orleans. The nature of the school is to prepare “Louisiana’s best and brightest” students for college from as early as their sophomore year in high school by immersing them in a college style living-learning environment, complete with all college level courses, PhD wielding professors, Residential Advisors and dorm living.
My freshman year of high school, I attended Northshore High School in my hometown of Slidell, Louisiana. Northshore (which shares the name of the high school in the Mean Girls movie, which always fascinated me), was a large public high school that I went to because it was in the school district in which my mom worked as a middle school administrator. This school was not the worst, I remember being so relieved to leave junior high that I would have settled for anything. The school was so large that you just blended into your surroundings, especially if you were not involved in school athletics. I was a gifted student and a theatre kid, so the only times I really stood out were when I made good scores on big tests that made the school look good. I did not have to study for anything; I could do my homework in class and wing just about everything, and I made A’s in all of my classes (except for one semester of Geometry because math sucks). To put it simply, Northshore really was not fulfilling, and I have not (and will not) even touch the dismal aspects of my social life at Northshore. So, when I got my acceptance letter to the Louisiana School, I was ecstatic.
That feeling of joy that I felt about going to the Louisiana School never went away over my three years there. Still, the experience was not as idyllic as I thought it would be. Every single class I took was at the college level, I lived five hours away from home, this was the longest time I had ever lived away from my parents, and I quickly started to realize that I was not fully equipped to deal with this new experience. Within a month of my first year at the Louisiana School I had an emotional breakdown; I sat in my hall’s common room with my RA crying and wheezing for an hour until I finally got on the phone with my mom and told her that I needed to start seeing a therapist again and get medication. I started seeing a local medical psychologist who diagnosed me with Bipolar Disorder and ADHD. For the next three years, and still to this day, I have been trying to find the right medication for my brain chemistry. Taking medicine for ADHD has helped me keep up in my classes, and a combination of therapy and medication has helped me to understand my Bipolar Disorder and how I can cope with it over time (stay tuned for a later article where I fully delve into the ins and outs of Bipolar Disorder). Generally, high school is hard for everyone: you’re going through changes, being a teenager generally sucks, hormones, bullies, stress, dare I say more? Dealing with severe mental illness added to the high school experience at this specific high school created a very unique experience that took an emotional, mental, and physical tole on me.
I would never take back the experience for the world. The three years I spent there are highly treasured in my heart, I feel immensely prepared for college, and through the school I met some of my lifelong friends. The catch: I am eternally exhausted. I have spent so many sleepless nights studying for human anatomy exams, I frequently felt suffocated by the pressure and stress I was under, and I sobbed in front of my math teachers way too many times than I would like to admit. The experience, while very rewarding, is exhausting. I fought very hard to get through the Louisiana School experience, in the moment just thinking “I just have to get to graduation.” It was my end goal; in my mind, graduation meant that the hard work and suffering was not for naught and that it would be over.
Now I am here at Tulane, only forty-five minutes away from my parents, much more stable, and with a wealth of knowledge and skill on how to take care of myself and be a well-functioning young adult. But one thing has not changed: I am still so exhausted. It is like I left one college to go to another college, and the new college is just as hard if not harder. Everyone’s experience at the Louisiana School is different, but I have talked to many of my friends from the school and they note a very similar experience. We all just graduated and are starting our college experience across the country. Whether they go to a state school or an ivy league, we are all tired; we all went to pseudo-college for 2-3 years, and now we’re doing more college for real this time. When I struggle to pull myself out of bed in the morning and collapse into it as soon as I get out class, I am faced with my reality: I am a burnout. We all know one: the gifted kid who went too hard too early on and now can barely pull themselves out of bed without three Redbulls and five cups of coffee. I am that kid, and sadly I think PJ’s tastes like garbage (to each their own) so my coffee supply is very low.
So now I’m having to adjust to a completely new experience while carrying the baggage of my burnout. But I know there must be others out there just like me. Who have to take a four hour nap to get their homework done every day. Who feel like going out and partying multiple times a week is just not physically possible right now. And to you I say: we are in this together. We can overcome our burnout, even if we are living on a nap and an energy drink. Eventually, I hope we can culturally find a way to reduce burnouts so kids like me can actually enjoy high school and college without feeling like a grandma (seriously. I am sleeping way too much and my back hurts). Until then, I raise my garbage coffee to you, my fellow burnouts. May you find the strength you need to make it through this.