Depression and boosting self-confidence: Extreme efforts don’t last

At the end of sophomore year, I started running near campus. I had gained weight at college. Somehow I forgot that my eating habits needed to change from high school. Those two hours of basketball practice every day, five days a week really made a difference! Imagine that. My interest in that fall semester basketball course was an effort to help me regain focus of being physically active.

I had never been interested in running as its own activity; I hated it as a form of conditioning in high school. But I gave it a chance anyway. Somehow, I came to enjoy the rush of adrenaline, well, after the “I hate myself for doing this” wave passed.

Shaky legs: When my own body betrayed me

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I’d experienced shaky moments before. These encounters typically meant my legs would shake, and perhaps I’d become lightheaded. My vision and hearing might be affected, too. I recorded a moment like this in fifth grade and then an experience in eighth grade when I was walking to another room and then finding myself on the floor the next moment. No one could explain these episodes.

It happened several more times in college. Regardless of whether I actually blacked out or my vision only blurred, I considered them equally as blackouts.