Failed out of college once... now for round two

Parents Forum
41

Maybe I missed it in the thread, but are you male or female? It helps to tailor the advice I offer.

For now I will offer the neutral version that applies to either. You might not be saving as much money but it is a commitment to building a better self. Sorry if this seems preachy.

First, join a gym and exercise every day. Humans are an endurance animal so don’t do it just for strength. It releases endorphins and you will feel better and more energetic. One thing most CEOs have in common is they wake up early and exercise. You will feel good about your physical gains and that feeling is important.

First and a half (it’s the other part of the diet/exercise connection), get a diet plan and stick to it. There is a ton of research on feeling better from a better diet. Plan what you eat. Drink only water. My oldest does all his planning and meal preps on Wednesday and Sunday nights, packages it up into meal-size portions and knows exactly what he is eating each day.

Second, go dark on the internet for six months. It wastes time and does not make people happier. Delete all social media accounts. Keep email but check it only twice a day on a schedule. No tv, no internet unless you are going to finish your classes. Turn off all electronics at least an hour before bedtime, and make your bedtime so that you get at least 8 hours of sleep.

Third, think seriously about getting out of your parents’ house and make it a goal. For whatever reason, it does not seem to be working for you. You are self-sabotaging your academics. Moving to your sister and establishing residency seems like the most reasonable choice. A change of setting can help a change of character.

Fourth, break out the library card and commit to a personal growth phase. Read self-help books. Read about organizational skills. Read philosophy. If you like languages, join Duo Lingo and work on that 10 minutes a day. Finishing a book is a positive step, as is learning something interesting or gaining a skill. Each positive step is a slightly better you.

Fifth, surround yourself with the types of people you aspire to be. You are an excellent writer and are committed to making the change. Learn by osmosis and mimicry. Allow them to mentor.

A note about healthcare: under ACA every medical plan must offer one no-cost physical per year. There will be some charges for blood tests. Establish with an office in case you get sick or injured and need it.

We’re all pulling for you @chileb . Tune up that good intellect and turn it into good performance. You’ve got this.

42

This… does not seem like good advice for someone with an executive function problem (speaking here as someone with an executive function problem). Those of us who have trouble keeping up with routine tasks do not need to add more routine planning tasks to our life.

43

@Magnetron Thank you for the detailed reply! I’ll address what comes to my mind as I read it.

I’ve never been one to exercise. It’s only now that I’ve had problems with my weight, probably because I’m older. (Well, I’m not old, but I’m not a spry teenager either.) My plan for exercising has consisted of doing Just Dance for thirty minutes. I’m so out of shape everything hurts when I try to go harder than usual.

Meal planning is difficult because I live with my family and I normally eat what my parents cook because it’s convenient for everyone involved, because less food gets wasted and no one gets offended. But I’ve thought of planning my meals before because for someone who supposedly can’t stay organized, I crave structure.

I don’t have any social media except for Tumblr, which I rarely log into. I do use a forum that I’m kind of addicted to checking, and I learn languages through the Internet. I suppose I could reduce my consumption of the posts on that forum. Oh, and I have Reddit, too, which is just as bad as Facebook. I forgot about that. I should probably delete my account, honestly.

The only way I could see moving out would be to work many hours a week, which means quitting school. School provides structure and a goal, and it’s also something my parents guilt me with, so I’m hesitant to drop it (even if I’m not doing well, even intentionally, as we’ve seen here). I’ve mentioned trying to move out to my parents and even my counselor, hoping either party would agree it’s time or could be time soon for me to move on, but it’s always met with resistance.

I’ve read many self-help articles, starting when I was fourteen. I don’t know how much it’s helped. All it did mostly was get me obsessed with narcissistic personality disorder, convinced I was mentally unwell and my family had contributed to it. So any comment about me being smart can be thrown out the window. And I’m sure I’d be judged for reading books because it wasn’t my homework. Anything that doesn’t relate directly to my studies is looked down upon, though perhaps they think it’s because I can get carried away and not do my actual work. I’m all for actually learning something useful and applying it, though. That hasn’t happened to me in years.

Surrounding myself with people I’d like to be is hard, since you have to have certain qualities yourself to get your foot in the door. For instance, getting a job where you could show skills you have and would like to grow by observation.

And I have Cigna. I’m working on scheduling doctor’s, dentist’s, and psychologist’s appointments. I neither have good intellect nor maturity enough to deal with most things in life, and it shows by how messy my life is this early in the game. If I write well, it’s by chance. Most times I can barely form a coherent thought, as evidenced by how poor of grades I get on essays.

@“Cardinal Fang” Working on trying to get myself tested. Every time I bring it up to my parents they just say, “There’s nothing wrong with you. Don’t worry about it. Just stop being lazy.” But meal planning does appeal to me, for whatever reason - learning difficulties or not.

Sorry for all these long posts. I can be quite verbose, but with no real purpose. It’s my specialty.

44

OP, your parents have fallen prey to the misguided notion that a college degree – in anything, from anywhere – must be acquired before anyone can begin doing anything else with their lives. Yes, it is true that people with degrees tend to have higher earning potential than people without – but there’s no law that says that you have to get that degree in your early 20’s, before you’ve done anything else. Also I understand they don’t want you to be like your sister, but having a kid disrupts everyone’s plans, so unless you’re about to have a kid yourself, the situations are not comparable.

I agree with those who have said that you’re not really going to succeed at anything until you actually WANT to do it. It’s your own lack of interest that’s standing in your way. You’re trying to follow other people’s plans instead of your own.

This country is full of people who went and got their degrees (sometimes taking out huge loans to do so) and are working exactly the same types of jobs you are. They’re just where you are, except they’re massively in debt. A degree is not a magic talisman that will fix your life.

I can’t tell you how to find your way in life, because you have to find that yourself. All I can say is that there are a lot of paths to happiness and success, and you have as much chance to find your way as anyone else. Best of luck to you. Also, you are NOT dumb and worthless, although telling yourself that make end up making you believe it, so I’d advise you not to keep doing it.

45

“Just stop being lazy” is one of the most useless things that a person can say. Obviously, you want to get more organized and start achieving goals. But so far, you have been unsuccessful at it. “Just stop being lazy” doesn’t tell you how. It’s like saying, “Just solve that math problem” when you don’t know how to solve it.

This is why we have suggested a therapist or coach: they can help you figure out how to get done what you want to get done.

I also suggest setting up short-term goals. Break up what you want into short-term goals. Really short-term. That way, your task doesn’t seem so overwhelming you don’t know where to start. I’m talking about little goals like, Every day this week I will go for a one-hour hike. Or even daily goals like, Today I will do a one-hour hike and clean out my top drawer. Sometimes when I’m having trouble I even make a super-detailed list like, Bring the laundry upstairs, Unload the dishwasher, Delete 50 emails… Then when I do each thing I can cross it off and I get a good feeling.

Oftentimes people like you and me are attracted to structure, but we can’t maintain it ourselves. External supports are key. That could be another person who helps you, or a computer program that helps you, or a group like Weight Watchers, or anything that helps you set up and keep to a plan.

Among people with ADHD, “Just stop being lazy” is an in-joke. We all hear it, and it’s as useful as if someone said to us, “Just stop being short.” We don’t tell someone to stop being short: we tell them where the ladder is, and we move the things they most need onto lower shelves.

46

It does sound like ADD. I can’t diagnose but I can relate. You need to learn the skills to resist the ADD over-thinking, which is evident here. To resist the distractibility and the fear things won’t be perfect. And other hiccups. No one here can prescribe what sort of new routine will work better. It’s discovery and practice. With a qualified counselor.

Lots of smart people are challenged by ADD.

47

OP, we are pulling for you. So glad you came to this forum! I just have to comment, though, about these statements you made in post #42:

“I neither have good intellect nor maturity enough to deal with most things in life, and it shows by how messy my life is this early in the game. If I write well, it’s by chance. Most times I can barely form a coherent thought, as evidenced by how poor of grades I get on essays.”

I’m not sure why you said this. You clearly are a strong writer. I don’t think it is possible to be a strong writer without “good intellect.” I don’t think it is possible to write well “by chance.” Perhaps you didn’t do well on some essays because you were not interested in the material. This does not make you unintelligent or a bad writer.

I think you must agree with what I’m saying, on some level. I will join the chorus of recommending being screened for depression and ADD. Cognitive behavioral therapy is also something you may want to read about, if you haven’t already. It is a therapeutic technique that can be very helpful in confronting and dismantling certain thought patterns and actions that are not helpful to the person engaging in them.

48

So my anecdote. My brother failed out of comm collrge twice. In between he had a fun installer job. After the 2nd time, he worked a trade (no, not sufficiently trained. Hated it.) He needed to leave home, attend a residential 4 year college, restarting as a freshman, where he caught fire.

Your needs may be different. Your finances different (college was cheaper then.)Your long time habits may be different. But IF you do want an empowered life, you need to free yourself from the roadblocks.

Have all your college classes been online? That’s tougher than it sounds.

49

@dustypig Thank you for the reply. I have tried having discussions with my parents about taking breaks, using everyone’s advice from this thread as a guide, but they keep coming back at me with, “You’ll have to work hard. Do you know how hard? Unbelievably hard. Harder than you’ve ever imagined. And you’ll get no respect. With a degree, you’ll get respect. You’ll get jobs. Your sister…” And I’m nearly pulling my hair out from having had the same conversation for the 100th time with no resolution or change of attitude from their end. I’m trying to be open to different alternatives, but they’re not. Not your problem, but something I’m struggling with. It’s my problem, and I can’t solve it.

@“Cardinal Fang” Thank you for the reply. I have looked into getting help different from what I already receive.

My main issue, which I think you’ve already broken down, is that once I complete a small goal, I don’t want to stop there. I want to eat the whole hog. So if I delete 50 emails, I want to read old emails in old folders and reminisce or contact those old friends and then when I realize they don’t want to talk to me, I get sad and lay on the couch. Or then I find another activity to distract myself from the bad feelings and the process repeats. I say I’ll watch one video of a language course, but then I realize I don’t want to deal with my actual responsibilities, so I keep watching more until all my allotted time is up. I’ve tried going forward in time through the semester and working backward on assignments and doing them in one fell swoop, but then that feeling of not wanting to do it sweeps in and it’s overdue by another week. I’ve tried planners, but by the end of my senior year of high school I wasn’t using a planner and was just remembering all the assignments in my head because I hated writing things down. It was only after I graduated that it all went downhill.

@lookingforward I’m either told I over-analyze things or that I’m analytical, in a good way (but perhaps it’s tongue-in-cheek). I don’t think I analyze things enough. But yes, working on trying to either get testing or find a better counselor.

I took my first two semesters at a big state school, the only one I applied to. I opted out of being in honors classes, because I didn’t think I could handle them and I didn’t want to have the attitude I did in high school where I thought I was better than everyone else for taking AP classes. Truth is, I struggled in some, so it didn’t make sense to be stuck-up. So I went the “normal” route. The summer after graduation, I tried to enlist my friends in helping me get away from my parents because I felt they had too strong a hold on me, and I felt it could be abusive at times, but I was pretty ignorant of actual abusive situations unless they were obviously such. So I made a big drama in my campus mental health office and they didn’t take me seriously.

It was the middle of August of 2015 where I first started to have issues. I was failing all of my courses. I couldn’t keep up, for whatever reason. Maybe it was because I had no friends. Maybe it was because I had the wrong major. I thought it was because the classes were too challenging for me, and I didn’t have time to run around campus getting help because my parents were always concerned about how long I was there and wanted me home by a certain time. The professors said, “too bad” when I told them I was having issues, because “this is college now” - basically. The counselor there told me to take a semester off, but I thought I could handle it because I just wanted to be a normal college student. So I failed another semester. I wasn’t doing my homework, but watching YouTube videos 'til 3 AM without really knowing why I was doing it. My professors gave me extended deadlines when they found out I ended up in a mental health hospital, but I didn’t do the work. I think about this time in my life all the time, to the extent I can. Oftentimes it’s too painful to think about the details, and sometimes I can’t remember them. Maybe because I blocked them out. Now I take solely online classes and it’s the same story. I have two Ds and one C- from that whole ordeal - the rest are Fs.

@pickledginger Now it feels like ego-stroking. But I find it’s better to insult myself lest I get too cocky. It’s what helps keep me honest, even if it’s not the most efficient or logical way to go about it.

The problem here is I don’t know what I want. And I don’t want to drift through life not knowing until I figure it out, but I especially don’t want to follow my dad’s idea of “go to college anyway and figure it out there”. That’s a lot of money to waste if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Sorry for being so dramatic, guys. I’m like the epitome of know-nothing young person.

50

My son has someone working with him who helps him make a daily schedule, and checks in with him every day by text to make sure he achieved each day’s goal, and meets with him from time to time to review the schedule and add items. Do you think that would help you?

51

@“Cardinal Fang” No. My mom asks me if I’ve completed my homework or if I’m doing it and I just lie. I’m not a good person, but then again I never said I was. I’ve tried writing down all the assignments I have left for the semester to break it down (kind of like what you mentioned), which helped at first, but then I realized it was too much because there was still a lot. I didn’t know where I’d find the time to do the more difficult stuff, because it would take significantly longer than blasting through the joke assignments like “course review”.

I just looked at the wall of text I have to read to complete my essay in a science class and logged back onto this forum to avoid it.

I have an unidentifiable problem. I think I can do this. I just don’t know what’s making me not do it.

52

A mentor is a non family member.

Get off this forum to do the work. We can’t be your enablers.

53

Right. You look at your work, and it seems like an overwhelming task so you don’t start. And then you lie. That is why you need someone else to help you break it down into little tiny pieces.

54

@lookingforward I stayed off the forum for a good while. When you put it that way, it sounds horrible. Though, I’ll probably just find a way that doesn’t involve people so no one is an enabler. But I’ll leave.

@“Cardinal Fang” That could be the issue, or maybe my parents are just right. I should just do the work. Forget why I can’t, just do it.

55

Let me clarify. I meant please don’t use the forum to delay your work.
Check in after the work is done. Don’t use this conversation to delay what you really need to do.

Weve given advice. We know the challenges. But the more we talk, the less you get to tonight’s work

56

@lookingforward So I completed last night’s work in the nick of time.

Sorry if I was short with you. I read a certain tone from your post, so I responded accordingly.

I posted a thread with details about my GPA situation in the “Chances” subforum. If anyone wants to look, that’d be great.

I have an interview tomorrow for a higher paying job that has a more traditional schedule than the one I have now, but one that has maybe more responsibility than I have now.

I’ll stop posting anytime y’all want me to.

57

Good about the job interview.

I added a post because that one was curt. Sorry. But the point is, put CC chat after you do your best to focus on the real tasks you face. I can’t diagnose, but hope you’ll recognize the rush that comes from “in the nick of time” and find replacement satisfaction with schoolwork and life. Eg, getting it done 24 hours before. (Try it.) That’s a better feel-good.

I sincerely doubt you’re dumb or lazy. Just not focused in the right ways. If this is something like ADD, good counseling and support can go miles to turn this around. But you have to have a moment when you acknowledge and get that help. You’d be surprised how you can still turn things around.in the right ways.

No over analyzing. Trust us.

58

The main problem with plans like this is they don’t work unless you are top 1% in motivation. If you have a plan that won’t work, scrap it and try something better. That’s why I recommend joining a gym, preferably something more interactive and socially supportive like Cross Fit or spin class. You need to use large muscles with lots of effort. It takes at least 3 weeks to form a habit which is why I recommend going every single day, no excuses. Give up sleep but don’t skip the gym.

Again, this doesn’t work. The main way we interact with the physical world is based on what we put into our bodies. This is too important to skip. Talk to your parents. It dictates your waist size more than exercise. It controls your energy level and your moods, your cravings for sugar and starches. For example, I got rid of my arthritis by going to a low-carb, low-dairy diet. Last night’s dinner was ahi tuna, romaine lettuce with balsamic vinegar, steamed broccoli with olive oil, and a little amaranth. The only expensive thing is the tuna which could be replaced by canned tuna or sardines.

Maybe an easy, quick, but temporary way to try it would be to order 3 cases of Soylent on Amazon. These are super-popular among the programmers around here. They come in 300 calorie bottles so you can define your calorie intake easily. If you have a caffeine habit they have “breakfast” versions with caffeine. No caffeine past noon so you sleep well. Give it a week, nothing but these, maybe a pre/probiotic, and water, and see if you feel any better.

Reddit has some good stuff you can use like r/getdisciplined. Stay off Tumblr and any of the black hole politics or memes wars places on Reddit.

This is more self-sabotage. It is obvious neither is true. Permit yourself to be normal and smart. There will always be justifications for allowing yourself to have low performance.

Again, make it a goal to get out of your parents’ house but not until you have the tools to thrive. Finish your education and save your money if you can.

Another good habit I failed to mention, and one it appears you avoid is “work fresh.” I found I was way more efficient with school work during daylight hours. Leave the reading for when you are tired.

I know plenty of really high-performance ADHD people. It’s not a sentence. Seattle is full of them. Get the right help, get the right structure, and get in the right mental frame.

59

I think it’s too late to turn my semester around in regards to one of my classes. I’m still going to get an F. That particular teacher isn’t responding to my emails about when modules reopen, and I emailed him two weeks ago. He probably thinks I’m just trying to get things out of him, which I kind of am, but I’m not asking right now for him to open modules that he intended on closing for everybody else. Just to clarify his email. It’s pretty frustrating. I have almost all the credits for an Associate’s degree. But I won’t be able to keep in the CC Honor Society. I feel a little bad, but being in the honor society isn’t a motivator like it once was. I just don’t care if I’m in it or not, but it would suck to be kicked out. However I don’t think I’d care as much as I should if I did get booted. I’ve sent in my transcripts to my CC to get evaluated for credit, but it will be two weeks from now and probably too late to sign up for classes next semester. My mom will be angry that I’m not doing anything. And what frustrates me is when I tell my dad I’m probably going to fail and I need to see professional help that’s not my current counselor, he just says, “Let’s wait and see what you do. There’s still time.” No, there’s not. It’s over. I don’t care for your positivity.

@Magnetron I have tried not drinking Diet Coke. I think I’ve only drank one or two this past week. I think my relationship with food is complicated and could use some unwinding by someone who knows what they’re doing. And I’m not “high performance”, just me. I’m pretty lazy. Thank you for the advice.

60

I’ve been parent to a kid having trouble getting traction, so I feel bad for your parents as well as you.

Do you still have time to withdraw in that one class? If so, do so. Either way, please work as hard as you can to salvage the other grades. It will give you more options going forward.