Building Friendship and Confidence through DZ

With so much free range to type about, I’m at a loss for ideas. I guess I’ll just start here; My name is Chloe. I’m 18 years old. I’d say I’m pretty lucky to be where I am in this moment, which feels endless. I’m in school for English and dance, I have a family who loves me, and I have finally found my place in the world. It only took nearly 20 years. Loneliness is definably considered “sadness because no one has friends or company." I wouldn’t say in my young age, I had no friends, but I did feel that sensation of isolation from my friends. I was a black sheep in high school, in some sorts. I floated from group to group and I never had the greatest connection with some of my closest friends. Sure, opposites attract, but I didn’t even have a friend to sing “Pretty Girls Make Graves” with...and everyone knew I loved The Smiths. From youth on up, I always had struggled with managing my anger and emotion. I remind myself of a tea kettle; The heat and steam builds up inside me until I hit my breaking point, whistling violently. Once high school hit, where I really remained connectionless, I separated myself from the world. I stopped talking to people, I stopped going to school, I deleted my social media, and I shut my phone off. I don’t really know when or why I got diagnosed with depression and anxiety, but it happened. Curse you, dad, with your shotty genes and all! Now, I won’t go into gruesome detail over what’s made me this way, if it had an impact at all on my mental state, because the story gets better. The last three years of high school were miserable and I don’t think I’d ever felt so lifeless. I cried the day I graduated, right on stage, because I knew this stage of my life was finally over. Summer was great, I felt semi-whole again. I was ready to move away into a great big city full of opportunity, but upon getting here, I felt anxious and lonely again...probably because I didn’t know anyone. Fast forward a few weeks over my crippling awkwardness when placed with confronting other people my age, where I found myself attending a Panhellenic meeting. Like I said, I grew up in a family of artists, musicians, professors, and dancers, and I knew I was not sorority material. I was a film junkie, a literature nerd. But there I was. Going through recruitment was a little overwhelming, but not in the way I was used to. For once, I felt overwhelmed with love by hundreds of random girls who’d I never met until that day. Not even my friends from school who had been around for years could show me such compassion. It was a weird feeling to watch these girls come over in groups, who desired my friendship, who wanted to speak with me. Fast forward a few more days and bam, I got a bid from my number one choice, Delta Zeta. I was filled brim with positive vibes and optimism for the first time in a while. Here I am, a month-ish later, completely content and feeling at home. I finally made those deep, long-lasting connections with people in college I yearned for, for so long. I feel like I can be myself and not fear who has what to say about me. Yeah, I’m still depressed, I still get anxious, I still take my meds, but I don’t want to die anymore. I feel like this situation is the college version of Charlie’s life in “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, and my friends are like Sam and Patrick- except I’m not in love with the Sam of the friend group (haha), and I am Charlie. I can only imagine what the future holds for me in this organization of empowering women.