Today, I shared vulnerably on Instagram about finally being diagnosed with NVLD after years of misdiagnoses. The post received more likes than almost anything I’ve shared—many from former classmates and grad school peers. As superficial as it might sound, that validation felt good. For so long, I moved through life misunderstood, with peers thinking I was rude, weird, or shy. To have people quietly say “we see you” through a simple like carried real weight.
Getting this diagnosis has been both a relief and a bittersweet milestone. I now understand my strengths and weaknesses more clearly. On the other hand, I can’t help but wish I’d had this clarity years earlier. My teen and college years might not have been marked by so much loneliness, frustration, and misunderstanding.
Back in my junior year college, my dad once sent me the viral video by Emery Bergmann about college loneliness, just as I was about to go to Spain for a semester abroad. Travel has always been something I’m deeply passionate about—it’s carried me through rough times—but at the time, I felt like a pariah on campus. All the cliques were apparently already established, and I didn’t fit in anywhere. My dad’s intention was loving—he wanted me to see that things could get better—but I had already resigned myself to thinking finding “my people” in college like everyone and their mother insisted I inevitably would just wasn’t in the cards for me. I had tried joining clubs, volunteering, and working on campus, but when none of these efforts led to meaningful connections, I felt disheartened. Unlike me, Emery attended a much larger school with sororities and a wide variety of social opportunities, which made it easier for her to meet people and find her “tribe.” My very small, rural college didn’t offer that kind of environment, and that made all the difference.
As a sophomore, I posted openly on Facebook about my depression, anxiety, and loneliness. A lot of my parents’ friends freaked out and assumed I was suicidal (which I’ve never been), and I quickly deleted the post at their behest. But what stayed with me was how many of my peers “liked” it—especially those from my international school, from places like Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, and Norway. Many came from cultures where mental health is deeply taboo, and I always imagined their “like” was a quiet gesture of solidarity. Even people from my old public school, where I’d been bullied, showed that same support. Looking back, it was a small but powerful reminder that I wasn’t alone—even if I felt that way.
I even vented online on College Confidential. Some posters offered advice, but others assumed I wasn’t trying hard enough or was weird and unfriendly. One comment, in particular, accused me of not taking advice to get jobs or volunteer—even though I had done both. Their intention was probably to make me realize I was the common denominator and could’t passively wait for friends despite my rejection sensitivity, but all I felt was dismissed and misunderstood. It was a sharp reminder that good intentions don’t always land the way they’re meant—whether from strangers online or even well-meaning parents.
A lot of my struggles were also shaped by bad luck. My freshman roommate was noisy, entitled, and very different from me. I was born and raised in the U.S., naturally more introverted, private, and preferring to keep to myself—especially when stressed or in a bad mood—while she was a devout Muslim from Pakistan, entering an arranged marriage with her fiancé. My mom had pushed me to request an all-girls dorm, thinking it would be safer and that I’d be around kids who didn’t do drugs or engage in promiscuity. She even insisted on making my roommate a bed out of “motherly instinct,” feeling bad that “the poor girl is coming all alone in the middle of the night with jet lag.” My mom has a big heart and is incredibly generous—even with people who aren’t the nicest and who later take advantage of her. Ironically, all this led to me being paired with this roommate. The all-girls dorm ended up being the only thing I had in common with her, and I still resent my mom, my roommate, and the RA, thinking that if things had gone differently, I might have had a much more enjoyable college experience and an actual “safe space.”
The roommate would stay up all night, refused to adapt to U.S. time, and barked at me, “This is your country and your culture,” forcing me to adapt to her habits instead of compromising. Meanwhile, her fiancé would bombard me with messages needing to know where she was—especially as they fought constantly. She even implied that he was cheating on her. She would take my things without asking and pretend to be sweet and innocent in front of the RA to make me look like the bad guy. She even falsely accused me of forbidding her to talk to her fiancé, claiming that blocking him was controlling—although she had only said “nice things” about him to be polite, which is entirely different from respecting boundaries. It was a total shitshow, and now I know very well what gaslighting is.
Both my roommate and the unhelpful, aloof RA definitely gaslit and manipulated me. What hurts the most is how I crossed paths with people who didn’t have good intentions and only caused me unnecessary strife during an already challenging period of my life. I’d even been talking to a friend just two days ago about how this RA was extremely dismissive and unhelpful—far from a mentor let alone a neutral third party with whom I could feel safe advocating for myself. Oddly enough, today I learned through Facebook that this same RA is now in jail abroad, after someone posted a fundraising page to help her find an English-speaking lawyer. Life has a way of surprising us.
Weekends became essential escapes. I would go home just to get peace, have a quiet space to do work, and a decent night’s sleep—otherwise, I was getting about four hours of sleep per night. This lack of rest affected my grades, my health, my mood, and even triggered migraines, especially during my first semester.
A few months ago, my Master’s faculty advisor—who is of Puerto Rican and Irish heritage, and therefore much culturally closer to me as a Latina woman—asked me what my college roommate was like. She shared that her daughter’s roommate would get blackout drunk, trash the dorm, and hook up with men in their 20s and 30s she met on Tinder. I gave her the full story: the disruptive roommate, her devout Muslim faith, and even her fiancé who bombarded me with messages. She had told me that her daughter’s college roommate, was a bit wayward, skipped senior year and entered college at 17, the same age I started college. My advisor’s story highlighted how different personalities and backgrounds can clash, and also reminded me of my dad’s view that I might have been better off doing a gap year or repeating a grade due to having an October birthday. Despite this, I was always able to keep up academically with my classmates, though my parents thought being closer in age to the younger cohort might have helped socially. My advisor reacted, “That’s someone who couldn’t be more different than you.”
At 26, I look back with a mix of resentment, sadness, and understanding. I see now that my parents were acting with good intentions, even if the outcomes weren’t what any of us hoped for. I also see that the “advice” I received online, while meant to help, sometimes missed the mark entirely. And I can see, too, that the real growth doesn’t come from wishing for a different past—it comes from choosing to build a life today that my younger self could never have imagined.