<p>My high school experience was awful, and so far, my college experience has been nothing but an extension of it . Since I was 15, I have suffered from severe social anxiety and depression. I've always thought that eventually I would get better and be able to succeed, but this never happened. I floated through high school as a hermit, almost entirely disconnected from school and life. 90% of my free time I spent gaming in my room. Since high school, I've always known that my calling was to do research in the field of mathematics, yet I never accomplished anything that made me standout or displayed my knowledge. To my teachers and classmates, I was just "that smart, quiet kid." I graduated with a 2200 SAT and a 5 on the Calc BC exam without any effort, but this to me was a failure. I had self studied tons of college math in high school like linear algebra and differential equations, yet I did nothing to show for it. According to the statistics I was just "average smart" based on my scores. I was a nobody. I never did any research, competitions, or stuff like that. Right now I am enrolled in a state college, because I couldn't travel away from home due to my depression, but I hate it. I am still a nobody and feel like such a failure for not going away to a prestigious school. This just eats at me and torments me constantly. I study almost all day, but I'm still so depressed. I feel like my life is over and have to constantly search for reasons to go on. I was given so much potential, but I wasted it. In my mind, I have failed myself, my family, and I've failed God. Is there anyone who has been in this kind situation in their life? Is it still possible for me to become successful at anything? I am not looking for pity, just advice about what to do to improve my life... Thanks.</p>
<p>You need to go see a doctor. </p>
<p>There are medications that can help you. Talk therapy and social coaching can help you as well. </p>
<p>Truly, you can get help for this. Please call health services and get an appointment. Tell them it is urgent!</p>
<p>You can’t help what has happened in your past, but you can help what happens now. I know how it feels to work so hard and do so much only for your efforts to be labeled of “average” quality. I think that the statistics are wrong in your case though. A 5 on the AP BC Calc exam is no easy feat. I know students who fought tooth and nail to get a 3. You might not have been recognized for your achievements earlier, but it is obvious that you have a real talent when it comes to mathematics. The best way to go from a nobody to a somebody is do something, but you have to take the first step. I would suggest looking at the clubs at your school to see if there is mathematics club or other such club. I’m sure the members and the advisors of such clubs will help you out a lot iin putting your talents to good use. I would also look into meeting with a therapist about your depression.</p>
<p>First you need to treat this like the medical problem that it is and get some help. It is terrible to live life looking backwards. It isn’t necessary to go to a prestigious undergraduate school, it is just a luxury if you can manage it. Any state school will have decent opportunities and research opportunities so you need to seek those out and participate. That and good grades will get you into excellent grad schools. Look for summer research and REU’s too. </p>
<p>If you get well you will be able to do more, so go to the doctor, take meds, see a therapist and get trained on not dwelling on the past things you can’t change. This type of thinking impedes your progress. If you don’t want everything to be like this years from now, do something, do whatever it takes.</p>
<p>When you are able maybe you can travel for a semester abroad I can recommend Budapest Semesters in Math. It is an excellent and highly regarded program where you can take a bunch of topics in math with like minded people. My kid was a math/cs major but most were math majors. One of the grad school profs where she was accepted commented favorably that she did this program. Look it up and see the offerings.</p>
<p>okay im sort of like you. but what helped me was making friends on the internet and reading forums and stuff. before that i thought of myself as sort of smart but with nothing to show for it. what potential i may have had in some areas of academics was counterbalanced by how much i struggled in others. if school had been easier all around life would have been simpler. i wasn’t so depressed like you so if there was something holding me back from the paths of success i saw bright students at my school on it was that. that despite any effort i couldn’t get the grades i needed to, to be admitted anywhere prestigious for college (what i saw, at the time, as something that could get my life going in a positive direction that would end the years of what felt to me like stagnation. that it was prestigious was important. i didn’t see an average state school as affording me that chance, for my life to take a turn for the better… no, for that to happen i needed to go to a school where there were smart kids. this is what i thought). my academic inconstancy aside, i got a pretty good SAT score. in my mind this really did put my academic inconsistency to the side. maybe it was okay that i was deficient in english, i thought. say, you have an academic shortcomings or weaknesses? good scores on tests like that are GREAT as ammunition to dismiss those. and when you have social anxiety on the severe side that’s left you with no friends and a poor sense of your relative abilities it really can work like that. you may not have the perspective to see the score is masking your issues, not affirming that they don’t really matter like you want to think.</p>
<p>but then i changed my thinking once i visited more places on the internet. i was like, wait a second, im not very smart at all! but the people who are? THEY’RE AMAZING. then, since my grades were already not so hot i just let them slip even more. that wasn’t that hard. school was getting harder anyway and to maintain my performance would have requires more effort. i didn’t bother to put anymore effort in. if anything i took school less seriously. suddenly, it was way more important to try to recreate myself in the image of these kids on the internet then pay attention to school. there was another route to salvation. if i could be more like these people… if i could become their friends… then that was an alternative to academic excellence. maybe it was unlikely but i was already proving myself to not be very well suited for school, so i changed gears and went in that direction. what did i have to lose.</p>
<p>and things are better… i may be failing out of my average state school, i may have ruined friendships that meant a lot to me so when i messed them up i spiraled into deeper depressions then anything i had every experienced from being a loner, that may not have worked out so well for me either, but i have changed for the better. i became a person who could make friends, who could be funny, who could (on occasion) impress people, who didn’t agonize over writing like he used to. this was important. without this i would have had no chance of ever making it in - not in the way i wanted to make it in life in. and if i couldn’t make it in life the way i wanted i think i might have died. at any rate it would have been perpetual misery. and still, i might not have a good chance of making it in a way i want to, but it’s improved, the chances of that are definitely improved.</p>
<p>i also recommend medications and therapy if that’s possible for you. there’s probably no quicker way for the socially anxious depressed person to jump start changes in his life (for the better!) than with a therapist he likes and medication that works.</p>
<p>Hey pal. I was one of those kids who spent all their time in their room in high school playing video games. </p>
<p>I’ve always considered myself as a pretty smart guy with a terrible work ethic as well as terrible study skills. The guy who finally starts doing problems and his homework before the final exam to save his behind and pass the class by knocking the final out of the ballpark. I always thought high school was a joke and never studied and it has been that way mostly up to right now as a senior in college. I ended up going to an average state school, but that was mostly a financial decision. </p>
<p>You don’t have to be as smart as the people around you, you just need to be doing your absolute best you can for yourself. I don’t think of other people when trying to get an A in a class. At times too I kick myself for not going to a more prestigious school. Hell, my friend who is at UCLA right now asks me constantly for help in mathematics and he’s a physics student there who got in with a 3.0. This kid got an F and a D in our Physics 211 class tests in community college and he was seriously trying. Thankfully for him though the largest portion apparently of our grade was the labs and that was a team effort so he pulled away with an A or B. Guy dropped out of Linear Algebra because he was getting a C and ended up getting a D in it at UCLA. Do I at times feel more qualified than him and feel that I should’ve applied there? Yes, but you gotta just deal with the cards you’re dealt, though. If you’re a sophomore, maybe you might be at the wrong school and could transfer.
People will graduate from more prestigious schools but so what? As long as you’re doing pretty good people from “average state schools” can get into prestigious graduate schools.</p>
<p>Get help, period
It will only be better for u</p>
<p>Does your school have counselors you can talk to?</p>
<p>I know what depression feels like. I know what social anxiety feels like. I’d say what’s helped me the most is doing the things I enjoy and finding an outlet to get all those negative feelings out. For example, i really like art and music so I draw and listen to music and feel A TON better after. So you like math right? If you find it fun, just do math problems or something related to math. Do things that make you happy, don’t worry so much about making friends and stuff, but do talk to people. It’s said that 80% of a person’s happiness is their relationships with other people. And if you’re upset about being “average,” then do the things that’ll propel you to be more than average. I know it’s easier said than done, but every day do something little to help you towards the person you want to be. You’ll get better if you just keep trying at life. Maybe join a math group or something?</p>