In an interview with the New York Post, Nayla Kidd, a 19-year-old Columbia University student who was found after disappearing earlier this month, explains why she vanished, skipped finals, disconnected her phone and deleted her Facebook page near the end of her sophomore year.

Kidd, a native of Louisville, Ky., where her mom, LaCreis, worked as a cancer research scientist at the University of Louisville, says she “needed to break from my old life of high pressure and unreasonable expectations,” writes the news outlet.

The student at the university’s School of Engineering and Applied Science says she felt as if she were “living two lives at once, and it was so surreal,” writes the Post:

I had been waking up every day for months with a feeling of dread and doom. I couldn’t keep putting my all into something I cared nothing about.

On a rainy day in early April, I couldn’t take it anymore. I broke down hysterically crying on campus while I was trying to study for a test in Lerner Hall. Completely overwhelmed, I didn’t stop sobbing for all 10 blocks to my apartment on 124th Street and Broadway.

[…]

I started plotting my escape, jotting down my plan on the college rule lines. I knew one thing for sure: I wasn’t going to tell anyone.

She moved from Manhattan to arty Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where she settled with two young artists. She says she has no plans to return to school any time soon.

What do you think about the situation? Sound off in comments.

Click here to read the entire interview.

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