<p>I have a very similar problem; you're not alone. I was once very responsible about school-work and grades and everything, but I basically stopped doing my work ever since my OCD worsened in 2006. I went to a summer program at MIT which only made it worse. My main compulsion was making lists constantly of every thought, idea, task, and everything. My OCD is relatively under control now, with the help of a couple of medications (also for ADD) but the obsessive mentality and a few other compulsions are still there. I truly believe the symptoms you have could be a form of OCD or Pure Obsessional OCD (compulsions are purely mental), because I am the same way in terms of not wanting to start something unless I can do it error-free so I spend a lot of time preparing to do it and staying organized about doing it, but never get down to the meat of it. It's rough. I ended up doing poorly my senior year of high school (2006-2007) and not getting into the college of my choice solely because of senior year grades. I currently go to RPI which isn't too hard of a school, but any large assignment overwhelms me so much and I fall behind very easily. I am transferring to UConn next year to be closer to home for clinical help, for a little break in terms of workload, to save money, and various other reasons. But the idea is the same. The thought of being organized about doing the work and knowing what I have to do is comforting, but actually starting gives me a very anxious feeling inside and it takes a lot of pressure and motivation for me to get down to doing it.</p>
<p>OCD is an anxiety disorder and you obviously have anxiety and a mentality of someone with the disorder, so consider the possibility and if you want to know more about it from a personal perspective feel free to send me a message on here or AIM or anything. My info is in my CC profile.</p>
<p>Bipolar II is commonly associated and confused with generalized anxiety disorder. It seems as though one mood stabilizer and one sleep enhancer that doesnt affect virility (i.e. trazodone--beware the opposite!)
might be sufficient. Exercise and sufficient sleep anda healthy diet are essential also. Wish you luck--PS: there are excellent psychiatrists on the faculty at Brown.</p>
<p>I second the warning about trazadone. It helped me short term but has serious long term side effects they're only recently discovering....as I found out after taking at a steadily increasing dosage for two years.
For the most part I don't like to advocate medication though, and as I haven't had much luck with it myself, for sleep I can only say... try hard to maintain good sleep habits. I have both a physical fatigue disorder and the obvious anxiety and combined I've really let them take over. By good sleep habits I mean, try and stay out of your bed for anything other than sleeping(most important), try and exercise but not after 3pm, try not to drink any caffeine after this time either, try and limit the amount of light you see if you tend to wake up, and don't view any of these things as cures, they might be able to make sleep easier but they will help it from becoming much much more difficult.
If thats not working for you theres always the herbal supplement melatonin, which is produced naturally in the body and the same reason you don't want to see the sun while trying to sleep, and tylonol simply sleep, which unlike tylonol pm doesn't have painkillers that damage your liver. I had trouble taking melatonin alone, and it varies by brand, but some people swear by it. Just be aware that you will build a tolerance to simply sleep very very quickly, so try and avoid becoming too dependent so that you can give your body "holidays" so that you are able to keep your dose low. By dependent I also mean psychologically. Its very very reassuring to be able to take something to prevent trouble sleeping, and at the same time, hard to take something that lasts 6-8 hours if you've already been trying to sleep for hours.Taking something long term may seem wonderful but there's actually only one medication approved to take longer than 3-6 months, and from my own experience it's mostly a placebo aimed at the psychological need for a sleep aid .</p>
<p>You sound exactly like me. I absolutely love to read, write, and learn in general but when it comes time to do it for school it all just feels so forced and trite. I have tried almost every medication known to man and nothing seems to work. After working with both a psychiatrist and counselor, I have been diagnosed with clinical depression, anxiety, and bipolar. </p>
<p>The anxiety aspect of my mental illness forced me to avoid...everything. This, of course, included schoolwork. I couldn't read assigned texts, couldn't write (and I'm a writer!), couldn't do a single math problem. Everything just seemed so pointless and the anxiety this created was insurmountable. I wanted so badly to be able to do what I used to so enjoy, what I still loved but simply could not do. </p>
<p>Now, instead of avoiding, and besides the help of my 4 medications, I alternate between doing tasks for fun and for school. This has really worked for me, and I hope it works for you too. Seriously, to get over the anxiety, it really helps to just do it. (People kept telling me this, and I didn't believe them - I would try, really, I would, to do my homework, but it just didn't feel right; something in my brain was off. I couldn't concentrate on anything, couldn't recollect facts, I just felt like I had gotten stupider. Actually, I feel like some medications can have averse cognitive effects that negatively impact academics.) But then, with the help of my medicine, the anxiety wore off a bit and, little by little, I could accomplish something. I would sit down for 20 minutes, no more, and crank out whatever I possibly could. Then I would move on to something not-so-anxiety-inducing and do that for another 20 minutes. And so on and so forth. </p>
<p>I really hope this strategy can be of some help to you.</p>