One of the most difficult things I've ever had to do.

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Even though I get extra support at university (a mentor, exam in quiet room, help with taking notes etc) I'm pretty much failing because of all my problems. The depression, all the anxiety and not being able to focus are the worst things. Even the people who work with supporting students with neuropsychiatric and psychiatric disorders say my situation's quite serious. It's difficult to explain the situation since the school system's different here than in the US etc but besides me feeling like a complete failure and not being able to study what I really want I will basically be in a lot of financial trouble if I fail.

The whole situation makes me so incredibly scared and anxious that I almost cry when thinking about it. I need to fix this. I need to make it through this year. I need to find a way to focus, study and pass my courses. It feels like this might be one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do (besides dealing with my mental issues). I'm not kidding when I say I think things like "maybe I'd be better off dead" after having physics lectures because I get so anxious because I think I will fail. It's so sad because I know I'm smart enough to study. It's just that what I'm going through makes it extremely difficult. I need to somehow find the strength to pull myself together, "forget" about the fact that I'm feeling like sh*t and get through this. Have you got any advice on how to do so? Any at all?

I'm sympathetic toward your situation. I can relate, on a more mild level. I can only suggest doing your best one day at a time. Trying to keep a positive attitude just within the next hour, within the rest of the morning/evening, and it might help you gain some traction. Thinking about the whole year and then your whole life as they relate to one lecture or one test is simply out of proportion. Yes, there is a relation, you can't lie to yourself about that, but you have to look at the breadth of your control. You have control over right now, but not really over a cumulative month or several months. Keep doing your best "right now" and hopefully those "good right nows" will start adding up.

Try to write all your problems both emotional, financial, regarding school work down on a sheet of paper and have some time to think about your problems. Since you are intelligent you have to focus your mind on your problems and try to figure out how to solve them. Once you do find a way to solve them write the solutions down and ask some people for help with the problems you are not able to solve your self.

People have trouble dealing with problems for two main reasons.

1) Not being aware the problems exist. Means ignoring the whole problem.
2) Underestimating the problem and not looking for a correct solution.


Too many problems at one time are always a big deal for all people. The only solution is to define your priorities.

Experiencing more or less the same difficulties myself lately. I'm counting on you, you can do it!

So how are you dealing with it?

Running away so far, but if I keep at it, it will be too late. Not dealing with it very well to say the least.

I know the feeling. Lots of anxiety will feed on itself and make it worse. The point of anxiety (and worry and really any sort of fear) is to get you to notice the problem, so you can deal with it. Any time the anxiety starts feeding on itself and getting worse, that's too much. The excess anxiety isn't making you more likely to do something about it, it's just making you miserable.


In my experience, finding strength doesn't work. There isn't a magic pill that will fix your problems (although, if it's depression, there may be a non-magical pill that can make the part of your problems that comes from brain chemistry go away). When I was failing out of college (the first time I went) I kept telling myself that I needed to find strength, that I needed to pull myself together with sheer willpower, that I needed to find a perfect bit of advice that would make everything suddenly clear and make all my problems vanish in a puff of logic.

Well I failed out and none of that helped. About a decade later, I went back to school, and now I'm doing fine. The difference is not that I now have lots of willpower and all my problems went away. The difference is that I don't let myself spiral into self-reinforcing despair when I mess up or problems appear. I'm still not strong, and I still have problems, and I don't always deal with them very effectively, but when I mess up, I don't beat myself up over it. And I make little bits of progress on things, and when I do, I let myself feel good about them.

I have noticed that several times when I was in an out-of-control spiral of despair, I would try really hard to fix things, but what I was really doing was just straining myself trying to force myself to shape up. That sort of trying isn't really trying, it's beating yourself up over not getting it right. Real trying is about making steps that will improve things, no matter how small or easy. Just make some progress if you can, and don't let yourself feel bad when (not if) you fail or mess up on something. Don't beat yourself up when you mess up, just dust yourself off and try again (like the song says).

In general, every time I've worried a lot about something, even when it turned out to actually happen it wasn't as bad as the worrying about it before it happened. Frequently I'll worry a lot about something, get miserable about it, and then it doesn't even happen. Whether or not the things actually happen, worrying about them is not useful and certainly not fun.

A few other things that might help related to taking care of your body: get enough sleep, eat regularly, bathe regularly, and exercise at least sometimes. I'm still not good at exercising regularly (or even at all most of the time), but the others I'm pretty good at and it's been an improvement over when I was having excessive worry and anxiety problems. When I do exercise, it does have a definite positive effect on my mood, so I definitely recommend you try it. It doesn't have to be anything strenuous or a particular workout or anything, just take a walk if nothing else, whatever gets your heart pumping and your body moving.

I'm trying to improve things. I'm seeking help from professionals which is good. I'm not in therapy or on any medication yet (I'm in the process of getting assessed for things I guess).

I feel so miserable. I really want to study and I actually really like learning and things like that. Makes me very sad that my problems keep me from functioning properly. I seriously hate myself for it. I'm starting to doubt my intelligence and I'm starting to think that other people think I'm stupid. I'm disappointed in myself for not reaching my goals. I know it's all because of depression, anxiety and other things so I guess it's not really my fault but that doesn't keep me from thinking I'm stupid. I really want to try to get through this but I have no idea how to. I'm a bit scared that I'll get some sort of burnout or something.

True.


It sounds kind of like inertia (in the emotional/psychological sense, rather than the physics sense). I had a good link to a site about that from some thread on WP that I bookmarked, but I can't find it. What's worked for me is doing small things just to get started, and trying to get 'stuck' doing the thing that I want to be doing instead of stuck not doing it. Even tiny progress is still progress, and is better than no progress and feeling bad about making no progress.