Submit your MIT confession here: (100% anonymous)
#737
"I slept with a guy and later that day I found out he has a girlfriend..."
#736
"I wish it were the semester instead of the summer, because then I'd be surrounded by friends and busy, instead of having all the time in the world to think about my ex. I should be fucking over this by now."
#735
"Where do you draw the line in humor? I was raised by a serious, intellectual-minded woman who made it her mission to be personally offended by everything. And so as a kid I was like her, correcting people's grammar and getting righteously offended by blonde jokes or Nazi jokes or sexist jokes. But I was terribly lonely as a kid, because who likes the buzzkill? I realized that too late, and now I have to fight the wiring in my head every day. I want so desperately to just let go and not care, but how can I? I've seen the results of racism at my high school, so how can I laugh at race in jokes? I've seen firsthand the sexual violence that stems from a lifetime of subtly absorbed sex and gender roles, so how can I laugh at "go make me a sandwich"? I've been to Auschwitz, so how can I laugh at Hitler? But here at MIT, everyone seems to go with the flow and let themselves laugh. So tell me, dear reader, where do you draw the line?"
#734
"Sometimes facebook makes me depressed, like when all of my friends upload tons of pictures of them having fun or announce all of their job offers."
#733
"I would totally have a threesome with my gay friend and a man of either of our choosing."
#732
"I'm a prefrosh, Class of 2017. And I'm scared.
Not of the workload at MIT, or my ability to meet new people, or any of the things that you'd expect me to be scared of--at least, not exactly. No, what I'm really scared of is myself.
You see, this past year, partly due to some (relatively minor) events outside of my control, I experienced a period of depression for the first time in my life. I was lonely, I was confused, I was stressed, and I had no idea of how to handle any of it. I lost my appetite, I lost sleep, I felt anxious and I felt afraid--afraid that I'd fail at something important, that I would never understand people, and that I couldn't trust my own thoughts and emotions. I even saw a therapist for a time, but there wasn't anything helpful that could come out of that, I realized eventually.
Over the months and towards the summer, though, I've become better. I've stopped being as aggressive to my friends and family, and outwardly I expect most would say I'm back to normal. But late at night, or when I'm alone, I can still feel the empty sick feeling in my chest, like there's something missing or wrong with me, something broken that can't be put back right.
I'm scared that when things become tough at MIT, as they inevitably will, that this whatever-it-is inside of me will resurface, and I won't have the mental fortitude to deal with it. And I'm scared this will hurt my ability to deal with my work and with other people, as it did this year. Does this make me weak? Does this mean I'm not as capable as I always thought I was? I don't know. I wish I could understand this, understand myself better. Maybe then I could deal with things in a more healthy manner, and fix whatever it was that's wrong with me, for good."
#731
"I miss my girlfriend but I am sick of the constant clinginess. I want a break but don't want to break her heart."
#729
"I feel like MIT made a mistake in accepting me. I’m a graduate student, working in one of the most prominent labs on campus yet nothing seems to work. My classmates are pumping out papers in highly respected journals like Science or Nature. It seems like every undergrad is better than me: several of my students started up companies, gave TED talks, founded charitable organizations and several won some really prestigious awards. I feel embarrassed talking to my mentor because I feel like I’m letting him down, a black mark on a lab which has produced so many outstanding scientists. I don’t say anything to my friends because it is embarrassing. And I avoid my parents because they will ask about lab work and I don’t want them to know that I’ve made zero progress. So what do I do? I work even harder and have cut out partying just to try to get better but it isn’t quite working. Maybe MIT made a mistake on me."