I’m a junior at a university, I don’t know how I even made it this far. I also took 2 leave of absences in the process. Every day I stare at my work for hours on end panicking and not starting it. I do this with everything except for readings and small assignments. But essays, exams, etc (especially essays are the worst! and my major is quite writing intensive) I end up staring at and never starting. I often end up never starting my essays and never turning them in, which has taken a huge toll on my gpa. Sometimes I don’t turn in final/term papers that are near 20 pages and about half of my grade.
I stay up all night every night and often stay up 3 or 4 days in a row staring at my work and panicking. I’m really not a lazy person, I spend a significant amount of time “doing” my essays and “studying” for exams but really I just stare and panic. This is making me want to drop out again after this semester, as school is so not worth the sleepless nights and endless panic. I have a therapist and she’s understanding (plenty of other therapists I’ve had haven’t been but this one is), but I still don’t find therapy helpful and never have. I am on medication, so I no longer actively have outward panic attacks…but my fear inside is just as strong. It’s like a passive panic attacking…I’m internally panicking but I can’t “chemically” feel panic, which is just as bad as full blown panicking.
Have your tried cognitive behavioral therapy for practical solutions? And maybe you are not yet on the right meds. I’m surprised you didn’t try for solutions during your leaves. But seems you are passing classes so congrats on that.
I suggest breaking down what needs to be done into smaller manageable tasks and set up a reward system for yourself. Like if I needed to cook and I don’t want to, I will do all the peripheral things…get out the pots. set ingredients out, preheat oven. Then when everything is out, chop the things…prepare the mise en place. I will tell myself I get a break when that is set up. Then I take break or not, but i see that now it is just a small step to fry everything up.
So get your mise en place ready. Do your reading and notes. Make an outline if it helps. Tell yourself that the draft can be very rough. Don’t worry about perfectionism, that may be part or all of your problem. Just remember that everything is in the rewrite. The only way to write is to get something down on paper and shape as you go and then rewrite it after. Just don’t worry and assume the first draft will be crap and that is perfectly okay. Then when you have a load of writing that is crap, you have something to work with to edit, and editing is a lot easier.
I would do timed exercises. Do freewriting of part of the draft for 20 minutes at a time then break. Set a timer.
Do not stay up all night. Get on a schedule. Take breaks, walks. Go to bed the same time each night and get up each morning. Exercise.
Of course I tried looking for solutions. That’s why I’m doing better now than I was, but I am not any less afraid and I don’t really hate school any less than I did. And yes I have done/am doing CBT, I never found it helpful and I’m not sure how it has the potential to help anyone. I work hard at being okay, I’m not lazy about these things.
I’m on lithium only, not on any anxiety meds. I am an ex xanax/klonopin addict though. Lithium slows down my thoughts and my heart rate and I no longer have any anxiety over anything other than school, and again I can’t physically panic on it only internally.
Ya, I have a 3.3 right now. I’ve been getting 3.8+ on the past 2 semesters which raised my 3.0. I don’t really know how I manage. It’s not worth the trouble though. I have no problem taking on the challenge of actual classes or challenging coursework, but I actually don’t find my classes hard. the material itself isn’t hard, I just can’t start things.
I do exercise and it helps my mood and chronic pain considerably.
I stay up all night because I end up not doing anything because of fear and having to do things last minute, so it’s kind of out of my control right now.
I mean, obviously my psychiatrist and therapist both know these things. But what can they even do? not sure if I should just drop out, it’s seriously just not worth the panic and sleepless nights. I love working, I’m a part time teller and I do sales. I could just be a full time teller and continue my sales job evenings and weekends, as I need the money anyway.
But then if I’m JUST working and doing nothing else, I feel like I’m just stuck and not working towards anything.
They can give you drugs that are actually anti-anxiety, they can give you methods to minimize anxiety, whatever. That’s their JOB. If they can’t do anything, what can high school students on the Internet do?
^have to second bodangles here. This is beyond the scope of this forum. You need to tell them that the therapies you are receiving aren’t working, and that you need to try something new. If you’re still in the trial period of this medication, then just wait it out and hope for the best, but it sounds like you’ve given it enough time for it to have started working. If your medication hasn’t fixed ALL of your anxiety, then it might as well not be fixing anything.
But most of all, you need to be telling the MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS in your life about these things. The internet cannot help you.
I get more help from internet strangers than with people who have degrees for this stuff. That’s why I asked. You guys apparently don’t realize how incompetent medical professionals are.
My medication is magic. I’m never getting off lithium. It does what it does well, I don’t take it for anxiety.
I was asking about school, my problems are larger than that but I was only asking about school advice.
Brownparent in #2 has suggestions that have worked for me.
Another that might work, when you just can’t start a big task, is do things out of order by starting in the middle.
Like for a paper, literally start writing a random middle paragraph. Or do the bibliography.
Med or psych professionals aren’t necessarily incompetent- but they can focus on their niche, not everything we always need. If we were having a casual convo, I’d say what you need to add is a good life coach, someone who works with finding actual behavioral or procedural solutions. And that can take time, as you experiment.
Lots of us delay some things, btw. What we do, though, is find the work-arounds, as some here suggest. And we find that there is no one pattern- I mean, maybe you delay on papers, but not on actions for other events. We try to learn from that.
We can’t comment on the Lithium, nor the appropriateness of your current therapy. What I can tell you, however, is that these delay issues can be attributed to several causes, not just panic or anxiety. Sorry to say this, but sometimes folks actually get a rush from the last minute work. If so, one needs to break that cycle.
And, as you go along, Rx revaluations are always needed. You may not be on Lithium forever. Over time, many people need tweaks.
Btw, my D2 didn’t find therapy helpful…until she found the right therapist, one who specialized in college age kids and their performance hurdles.
At the risk of sounding a bit presumptuous, have you tried just simply starting? The hardest part in an assignment is sometimes just starting it. It’s better to turn in a horrible essay than no essay at all. A 50% on an assignment is going to take a toll on your grade, but not as much as a 0% on the same assignment. If you’re staying up for multiple days just “staring at an assignment” without starting it at all…then there is a serious issue here that is not being addressed.
If you look at an assignment as “Oh no, I have to write a 20 page essay” it’s going to seem much larger than it really is. If you think “I need to write a rough draft for my introduction tonight” it’s a more manageable task.
Is college the right thing for you? Would another path serve you better? If you get a degree and go into a field, it’s going to be assumed that you know how to get the job done and that you will be able to get it done effectively. A future employer won’t like the idea of you needing to stare at a job for days before starting it.
I mean, if I had another path then I’d do it. I don’t have to go to college, but I go because I have nothing else to do or be in life. I’m also studying what I love: philosophy/economics, my two favorite things in the world. I’m pretty bright, but extremely dysfunctional.
I don’t have these issues at work. Ya I’m young and I haven’t worked the most professional of jobs, but I’ve worked in clinical research, medical assisting, project management, and interpreting. I do well in everything I do. Just, writing a damn paper is impossible. I think “in the real world” I’m quite alright.
“just starting” IS how I end up doing it if I ever do. But it never start papers until 30 minutes before the deadline, even if 12 pages+. I never get to proofread them either. No I don’t really get a rush or at least not an enjoyable one. It’s miserable, and the days I stay up leading up to it? even more miserable:/
But seriously, if there was another path I’d do it. Trade? sure. 2 year degree? uhh well I may as well finish as I have less than two years left in my actual program. Some sort of certificate? Or a job that just needs a high school diploma? That’s quite alright too. But none of it appeals to me. And I’m scared to take more time off because nothing really improves. I’m 19 so I have time, I graduated high school super early so I’ve gotten a lot of life and college and dropping out in for my age.
Sometimes for me, what helps is if I make a commitment to someone else for each task. So then I can tell myself, ok, I really don’t want to do this yet but I promised X I woukd do this piece of it today and I don’t want to let her/him down. It has to be someone you trust who you won’t be tempted to lie to.
A suggestion I’ve given some of my homeroom kids when they complain about essay writing: (I’m a HS math teacher.)
Don’t worry about “starting” your essay. Instead, dive right into the middle. Get right to the gist of what you want to say.
The intro and conclusion can come later.
OK, now to the core of the issue:
Are your parents aware of all this? Email them this thread. They need to be in the loop.
Do the same with your therapist (you can edit out your comments on her.) The odds are good that you haven’t articulated your issues with her as precisely as you have here.