Health First, Please. I Beg You
A story, a lesson, and a letter to the college friends I care very much about
A few hours before leaving Berkeley for Thanksgiving break, I was folding my clothes, reflecting on the semester, and reminiscing about my hometown when I had a slew of high school flashbacks that I had, quite frankly, long forgotten about. In fact, I’m quite certain I unconsciously buried these memories with the intent of never re-digging them up, until now. And here’s why:
I’ve seen things and heard things about crazy sleep and health schedules this semester, to which I’ve, for the most part, laughed about in complete solidarity. Because uhhh duh — we’re at Berkeley. Academics is hard. Life is hard. We do what we gotta do.
But lately, as some of these stories have repeated over the long term, with mentions of consistently messed up schedules (i.e. sleeping at 6:30am and waking up at 10am constantly for weeks on end), bouts of mass-consuming energy drinks with little to no food for days, and long term physical and mental neglect, I’ve become scared for a lot of my friends, whom I’m so grateful for getting to know in college.
Because I’m terrified that some of you guys might die. And I don’t mean the death that we all inevitably face. I literally mean collapse and die right here, right now, when you’re not supposed to. If not now, then in 10–20 years when you’re still young (~25–40 years old). And I’m not joking when I say:
I beg you to prioritize and take care of your physical and mental health.
Please.
Now before you close this story and roll your eyes in absolute exasperation about how boring, disconnected, and delusional I am, I understand that preaching soulless, ideological phrases like that makes me sound like (1) a rogue tiger mom and (2) a health lunatic. But studies show that when people hear or read something enough times, they inadvertently start to implement it in their daily lives (it’s called the illusory truth effect). So here’s a story that I hope taps into that human psychology and rings some kind of warning bell, because I’m going to be very honest right now and say:
(1) This story of mine is not an easy nor fun story to share. But it’s been three years and it does no good leaving this memory on the back burner if it can help others.
(2) I know my main audience is my wonderful gaggle of very supportive friends.
(3) I don’t want y’all to die.
So here we go.
Berkeley’s a grind. 100%. And it’s hard — believe me, I know. But when your health is at stake, nothing else matters. Not your clubs, not your extracurriculars, not your grades nor your projects nor your friends nor your meticulous semester plans nor your future, idealized career.
I learned that lesson the hard way during what you all likely recognize as the most critical period of high school: the spring and summer semesters of junior year. The good lot of y’all were probably applying to and attending prestigious summer programs, beefing up APs and extracurriculars in preparation for a juicy activities list, competing in olympiads and competitions, and preparing for the following semester’s college apps.
Meanwhile, I was lying in a bed in the ER, tubes going through my arms and devices linked to my chest, secluded in a special cardiology room with special hospital applesauce for special youth cases. Why?
Because normal, healthy teenage kids don’t just collapse in school for no reason.
While I was throwing up in the cardiology room and babbling incoherently about missing an APUSH exam (yes, my priorities were evidently not in order), a cardiologist and multiple nurses were in another room, monitoring my heartbeats throughout the day and overnight to make sure nothing was wrong.
This wasn’t the first time I was in a hospital that semester. This was the first time, however, that I was sent to the ER and immediately referred to a heart doctor. Prior to that, I had been in-and-out of multiple doctor offices — exasperated, sobbing, and immensely stressed as my parents and I cycled between multiple arm doctors, therapists, and neurologists to no avail nor logical, clinical explanations. Because long story short? I felt like I was losing control of my body.
It started out simple enough: I had been obsessively practicing flute with no regard to my physical or mental state, on top of juggling an insane amount of pressure from other commitments, and I had hurt myself in the process. What began as a generic overuse injury, however, gradually turned into a tipping point that led to an onslaught of other terrifying phenomena — uncontrollable sensations along my arms that began spreading and turning into a gaggle of unexplainable, painful sensations, long after the overuse injury healed. Some days, I felt like a boa snake was squeezing my bones; Other days, like rubber bands were snaking down my arms and consuming me. I couldn’t do homework nor focus on anything without crying. I didn’t know what was happening to me, and neither did any of the doctors I met. I was recommended, bounced, and sent from one office to the next, repeatedly running into dead ends, sometimes even receiving laughing scoffs from physicians who hinted that I was going insane. (Talk to me about the U.S. healthcare system and I can rant for hours.) Panic attacks were frequent. I broke down in AP Chem crying because the sensations were so awful, and my teacher pulled me aside, concerned, because we had just received exams back and she thought I was upset about my test score — telling me I’d received one of the highest scores in all three classes before excusing me in extreme confusion.
I had no explanation to offer back to her, couldn’t explain that I wasn’t crying over some petty grade, because I couldn’t even begin to describe what was happening. So I just nodded and asked to step outside. In the middle of English a few days later, I asked my teacher if I could go to CASSY (the therapist at school) because I was losing control again, who then proceeded to make me go through a variety of arm and breathing exercises that did absolutely nothing.
Nobody knew what was happening. Online health queries just made things a whole lot worse. The only positive was that I was stubborn and refused to do anything except compartmentalize my pain and find solutions. It got to a point where I had trouble gripping a pencil tightly without freaking out, so I wrapped thick bandages around my utensils to try and continue doing work. When the sensations got unbearably worse on my right arm, I went into a phase of writing with my left hand until that became bad too. I then tried using white board markers because they were thicker and easier to grasp.
Life wasn’t a matter of doing things well anymore; It was simply a matter of getting through everyday while it felt like my body was attacking me from the inside out — all with no logical explanation or diagnosis. This wasn’t a matter of spraining my ankle or breaking my arm, to which there were phases of slow but steady recovery.
Everyday, these uncontrollable, sometimes painful sensations got worse, not better. Every visit to a new doctor brought no answers. Painkillers had zero effect. It simply seemed like this would be my half-state of life forever.
It was only after one last visit to one more neurologist, a month later, that brought some clarity to the situation—he’d seen cases like mine before: Unexplainable pain and physical phenomena that mimicked neurological pain, but had no logical nor neurological basis. Although he didn’t identify the exact term, I later learned of a similar diagnosis: psychosomatic pain, which can be caused by intense, accumulated stress. And to bring some perspective — it’s not an isolated phenomenon: TwoSet Violin’s Eddy was stuck for two months in a wheelchair due to psychosomatic pain, which he described in detail during a video that has now been set to private on his channel. (The pain had started in his arms from violin practice overuse and eventually spread to his legs.) The neurologist I’d visited, who said he couldn’t help me physically because my issue wasn’t inherently physical, advised me to wait it out and do my best with the belief that although it would take time, the pain would improve. Until then, I’d just have to endure it. There was no medicinal cure.
So it was to be that during the most crucial time of my high school years — junior year spring and summer— I dropped almost everything important in my life, including a flute solo gained from winning a concerto competition a year prior, most of my extracurriculars (running, writing, clubs), and tons of summer programs, because I couldn’t handle it with my health problems. Getting through a school day without leaving the classroom and crying was a monumental task in itself. The additional burden and stress was also what had prompted me to collapse that day at school and landed me in the cardiology emergency room — the doctors wouldn’t let me leave because they were so concerned. I finished my National History Day paper in pain. I retreated completely and wholly into my own mind and body, disconnecting from everyone and everything at school; people in school seemed to pass by in this state of depersonalized limbo, and I didn’t know how to explain what was happening to my body. I took all my tests in a special accommodations room. I’d come home panicking and sobbing, so my parents would drive me outside and force me to walk in nature to help me calm down. I spent the night before AP exams practicing how to write with a normal, wooden pencil, shaking yet refusing to give up out of sheer will since (1) mechanical pencils weren’t allowed, and (2) there was no way I could explain any of these circumstances to colleges if I didn’t take my exams. Who even had the time to actually study the content of the material I was to be tested on, if I couldn’t even hold a pencil without freaking out? As for journalism, the kindness of my co-editor for the last two months of junior year, my upperclassmen editors vouching for my work ethic, and my past credit in stories was the only thing that ultimately enabled me to be chosen as Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper my senior year. Otherwise, I would’ve lost everything.
It took me a year to recover from that psychological body pain. I used to force myself to run up the mountain streets behind my home to the point of throwing up so the pain I felt in my lungs was familiar and “real,” rather than the uncontrollable sensations that laced down my arms.
What I could only reflect on much later, after crawling out of that hole and a very tangible depressive episode with no one other than my family and high school counselor aware of the circumstances, was that the entire year’s ordeal was catalyzed by a few, very important things: (1) not taking care of my physical wellbeing, (2) not taking care of my mental wellbeing, and (3) not actively identifying nor respecting my limits. Due, in part, because I had placed excessive expectations and taken pride in overworking, I had sacrificed my mental health with piles and piles of stress, operating every school day of junior year on a very thin string. The physical, flute practice-induced tendonitis injury was simply the last straw — not the overall catalyst—that pummeled into a year of psychosomatic pain I had no way of dealing with — even when I pro-actively tried every possible solution. My body had simply rebelled and paid the consequences.
Nowadays, people who know me probably know that I’m pretty adamant about exercise and sleep, sometimes a little excessively. Although I used to enthusiastically try to impart the merits of exercise and sleep to everyone I’d meet, I’ve long given up on actively convincing people to join the health hype train — what I’ve learned is that if people want to do something, they’ll do it. If they don’t, no matter of convincing will make any difference—and that’s their choice.
But this time, it’s different. I can’t sit idly by while I watch the people I care about—so many of my college friends—dig themselves into a hole that they might not be able to dig themselves out of one day. Health is funny like that. Everything is fine, until one small, random tipping point sends you spiraling out of control. Although these health effects come from long-term, accumulated mental and physical duress, the switch between health and pain can happen in an instant.
I’m not saying that my friends are going to go through what I did, but what I am saying is that if you don’t take care of yourself now, when your body is still young and healthy, you will pay the price in the future—be it in two years or twenty five.
I still have lingering sensations in both arms today, and I’m occasionally reminded of it, even as I type now. You may see me with an ergonomic black strip whenever I take out my laptop — my short explanation is always “ergonomics! it helps with my wrist haha,” but my long story is exactly this. Although the sensations have faded to a point where it has no effect on my daily life whatsoever, it still remains a valuable gemstone of a lesson that I’ve learned from the past.
So to all my friends, or whoever else may be reading this piece: Sleep well, eat well, exercise well, and take breaks for your own long-term sustainability. Please. Should you need to pull an all-nighter or mess up your circadian rhythm out of necessity, moderation is key — don’t do it for more than one or two nights, max. If you put your personal mental health and physical wellbeing as your #1 priority, you have my utmost admiration.
Because when your health is at stake, nothing else matters. And I hope, for god’s sake, that you don’t have to learn that the hard way—like I did.
Happy Thanksgiving 🫶
— CW
