<p>This is copy-pasted from another forum I posted it on. I need help desperately. Excuse the language and wording, I originally posted it in the life advice section of a brony forum that allows swearing. Anyway...</p>
<p>So...</p>
<p>It looks like my years of half-assery, short sightedness, and lack of communication is finally culminating in what will likely derail my life completely. If anyone on here has been wondering why I've been so quiet lately - especially all my Skype friends - this is the reason. </p>
<p>I've *<strong><em>ed up. ROYALLY *</em></strong>ed up. All the doors are closing around me, and I'll likely have to give up all my dreams. But I am powerless, all I can do is stand by and watch. In the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald "The loneliest moment in someone's life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly." Thats me. Right now.</p>
<p>But enough of this melodrama. You're probably here to hear about my problem, right? Well, sit back.</p>
<p>I'm 20, a sophomore in college (I took a year off after high school...why I will explain in a few moments). Ever since I was in like 6th grade, I knew I wanted to be a pilot. I counted on it. I was strong willed. It was the only thing I ever wanted to do. In hindsight, that was stupid on my part, to put all my eggs in one basket, but I was a stupid ****ing kid, what was I supposed to know?</p>
<p>So there we go, **** up #1) Putting all my eggs in one basket.</p>
<p>Moving onto high school...</p>
<p>High school is when our most important developmental years are. But I...well, I pretty much wasted them. But again, with my shortsightedness, I didn't know I was ACTUALLY wasting my time. I wasn't social, I didn't do extracurriculars - other than two years of rocketry club, but I quite because the teacher handling it became too angry to deal with (her anger issues eventually got her fired, actually) - and I didn't do any sports. I didn't realize just how many growth opportunities, and even more important, scholarship opportunities, I was missing. I did the bare minimum to get a good GPA, and that was it. I thought that was all that mattered, because...well, I knew already what I wanted to do with my life, so all I had to do was just scurry through 4 years of HS and head to flight school. I saw high school as less of an opportunity and more of a state-sactioned ritual, nothing more.</p>
<p>Oddly though, when junior/senior year came, I didn't even bother with the college search process, even though one would think that with what I just said, I would be jumping at the chance to finally go to college and fly, right? Well, I didn't. My family was going through some financial trouble (I'll elaborate below), so I just kinda...didn't do it. I didn't think about scholarships or financial aid, I just rationalized that it would be best to just take a year off and wait for us to get on a more settled footing.</p>
<p>And for future reference, that's generally how I (and pretty much my entire family...probably where I learned it from) handle problems. This image pretty much describes the problem-solving strategy of my family...</p>
<p>[Meme picture from Shawn of the Dead with the saying "Stay inside. Grab a pint. And wait for all of this to blow over."]</p>
<p>I'm prone to adjustment disorder, meaning I don't handle unexpected change well, and I tend to seize up and just stand by frozen when unexpected things pop up. It's always kinda worked. Well...until now. Because only I can solve this problem.</p>
<p>ANYWAY...</p>
<p>Well, you might be tempted to ask me, "Well, a lot of people in financial trouble make school work, why didn't you look for financial aid, scholarships, etc?" Well, on top of my shortsightedness and adjustment disorder issues, I also think I have dysthymia, or long-term, low-grade depression. I was simply too depressed to look. It became a vicious cycle. My adjustment disorder fed my depression, which made the situation worse as time passed, which made the adjustment disorder worse, etc.</p>
<p>But I didn't actually feel anything was wrong, so I kept doing nothing. That's the funny thing about dysthymia, you don't actually realize you're doing something wrong WHILE you're doing something wrong. It saps you of emotion. I didn't feel a sense of urgency as everyone around me started wearing college gear, I didn't feel bad when I never talked to the guidance counselor, and I didn't feel shame when honors day came and I was the only person who didn't get announced. Hell, I slept through the ceremony. </p>
<p>My parents didn't push me either. Why? I don't know. Aren't parents supposed to help? I think I convinced them to let me take a year off somehow. How? I don't know. I think they're who I inherited my short sightedness from. Though sometimes I think it's more than just shortsightedness and is an actual Executive Function Disorder. They have a history of excess spending, making snap decisions (like impulse buying a CAR for ****s sake!!), and even my dad quitting his job to start his own company (which, in the span of a decade, resulted in the loss of my college fund, $50,000+ in credit card debt, and a foreclosure). I think I inherited it - The adjustment disorder from mom (when I ask her now what I should do, she just kinda blankly says "I don't know" and tries to avoid the subject), and the executive function disorder from dad.</p>
<p>Anyway, enough of that.</p>
<p>****up #2) Wasting my high school experience.</p>
<p>My gap year could be summed up in two words: Xbox 360. I pretty much spent a year of my life at home playing video games, too depressed to do anything else. Most people use their gap years to study independently, or get a job, or travel. I spent it playing Black Ops.</p>
<p>Anyway, fast forward past that shameful year and lets get to where I am now: university. I got into a university that had a flight program, thanks to some generous financial aid, a few state and school scholarships, and some help from my parents. However, this is where my eggshell house that is my life began to show cracks. The flight program is extra money beyond basic tuition, money we didn't have. But I took the advice of my parents and just put off the flying portion of my education for a semester, which I did. In second semester I got some flight experience, but I was severely behind the curve compared to the rest of the class.</p>
<p>Now that I'm in my third semester, and I'm in the same position as first semester last year, I'm once again grounded, and the cold touch of adjustment disorder is slowly creeping back in. If I don't get my pilots license by next semester, I am automatically kicked out of the program, and it looks like I won't indeed make that deadline. </p>
<p>So remember that basked full of eggs I mentioned before? Yeah, it just got run over by a semi. And I have no plan B. My singular dream of earning my wings just went up in smoke. I have nothing else in the world that I want to do, I never used my high school career to explore alternatives. I'm back to square one. I'm literally swinging between art, engineering, and law right now, and everything in between. It would be ok if I was just some undecided high school junior, but I'm 20 ****ing years old. I have no idea what I'm doing with this life, or if I even have a way to pay for school. I have no extracurricular or sports record to offer to earn them. I've been out of high school for two years, and my grades this semester have been "meh" at best (again, all these issues are distracting me from my school work and driving me into depression).</p>
<p>So...yeah. My dreams just got shattered. If I were a pony, it would be as if my cutie mark just got burned off my ass. I'm a blank flank again. A 20 year old blank flank. With no idea where to go from here, and a family that is just as clueless, while probably battling 1) dysthymia 2) adjustment disorder and 3) executive function disorder).</p>
<p>What do I do?</p>