I wasn’t sure where else to ask this question, and this seems like a good community. I’m sorry, this post is incredibly long because I wanted to explain my situation in detail, but you (reader) can skip the part sandwiched between the lines below to save some time if you choose.
I’m currently a junior at Brown University majoring in physics. However, for the last few years things have been going downhill for me. I got into Brown because I was a member of the debate team in high school and took tons of higher math classes outside of my school. I took 14 AP tests throughout high school, getting mostly 5s, and in my spare time I learned to program and made some simple games (which I never published).
Looking back, I think a lot of that studying was done to mask my insecurities and a pretty significant level of depression. I had only two people I considered good friends – a controlling neighbor, and a girl I had serious unvoiced feelings for who did not return those feelings (and who I’ve learned probably hung out with me partly out of pity). I never drank, tried drugs or went to parties. There were a few scattered weeks throughout high school where my frustration and loneliness got the better of me, and I made it through classes by pressing pencils into my arm under my desk. I never talked to anyone about these feelings, partly because I didn’t understand how serious they were and partly because these feelings had been a part of my existence since I was 9 years old, when I suffered my first depressive episode.
Fast forward to freshman year of college. I got lucky and found a group of friends who shared my interests and treated me as an equal. However, I didn’t feel meaningfully close to any of them until very recently, so I felt pretty friendless. For the first semester my workload was manageable, but my insecurity was not: I felt directionless and lost most of the time and felt I had no one to talk to about it. There were no clubs I wanted to dedicate myself to and I had no serious hobbies. Also around this time, both my parents lost their jobs within three weeks of each other (while we saw no increase in financial aid for two years) and my sister suffered increasingly from a chronic pain condition accompanied by severe addiction to and abuse of the painkillers prescribed to her. Couple this with my genetic predisposition for depression around early college age and my loss of contact with my few high school friends, and you are left with a good picture of the end of my first semester of college.
Long story short, I felt that nothing was going well for me except my classes in math and computer science classes. The next semester I took all the hardest classes available to me in those departments – most of them intended for non-freshmen – while also TAing an introductory computer science class for pay and working another job to help pay my suddenly steep tuition. I burned out so badly in the middle of the semester that there came a point where I was unable to stomach food for several days, and at that point I thought for the first time about suicide.
It is two years later. While I've managed to scrape by, I still feel like I haven't fully recovered from the breakdown I just described. I managed to pass all the classes I've needed to pass -- a decent number with As -- but I'm still solidly a B student, and last year I failed a class for stupid reasons. Over time, my problems have morphed from insecurity and depression to focus issues, general loss of motivation, and (occasionally) some alcohol abuse. Lately I've been suffering panic attacks -- never because of schoolwork, but instead because of inane and random triggers like driving a car or feeling hungry. I struggle to go to class on a daily basis simply because I can't motivate myself to do the basic things like showering, eating and getting dressed required to do so. I don't feel cripplingly sad about things anymore, but I never feel excited or motivated about anything either. When I can focus well, it is for spurts of several hours every few days. I'm on a medication that's mitigating these issues, but I'm afraid it's only a patch that isn't helping me deal with more fundamental problems.
Summary: I suffered a serious depression that has left me unable to give college (or anything) my all for several years. So I’m considering taking some time off school to help me deal with it. I would love your advice on this, because I am incredibly nervous about doing it and my situation is a bit complex.
Basically, I’m not sure what I would do if I took a semester or two off. Going home is out of the question, since it would bring me close to my sister’s substance abuse problems and away from any support network. So I’m looking to travel somewhere else. I would have to work in order to afford this, since my family is pretty short on money. But I don’t know if I could handle a strenuous work environment now. I also want my work to take me away from my major (physics) for a while. I’m open to lots of things, but I don’t know where to find a job outside my field that a) would pay for me to live somewhere else for a while, and b) would allow me recover my mental health. I’m a pretty timid person, but willing to reach outside of my boundaries (to a point!)
Where should I start looking? Did anyone do anything with their time off that helped them in a situation like mine?
Thanks so much for your time