[insert party horn sound effect here]
In all seriousness though, these past few years I've been struggling heavily with ADHD, anxiety, and depression. It's caused a huge dent in my academic career and has even made it difficult for me to work on personal projects. But it's not all doom and gloom, because this past semester has shown me making a major recovery, and I'm even in a good enough mental state to start looking for a real job.
In my case, there are two main factors that were causing me trouble: One is the bad habits I had learned in high school due to my ADHD, the other being my anxiety causing me to be afraid to show myself when I've made a mistake.
You see, I have this really terrible combination of ADHD pushing me to procrastinate while also technically being "academically gifted." What this means is that throughout all of high school I was able to get by with putting everything off until the last minute, because I was one of the few students who was able to do that and still get a good grade on the homework anyway... if by any chance you're a high schooler reading this and that sounds like you... for the love of God, STOP! Trust me when I say that will not last. Your responsibilities will build up and become unmanageable if you let that continue into your college and adult life.
So those bad habits may have been the seeds, but they unfortunately were not the worst of it. No, once I started down that road and got a few assignments or essays late, I would get this little bug in my ear telling me that I couldn't show my face to any of my professors until I "fixed everything", until I got all my late work turned in. Only then could I allow myself to continue attending class. So I would let that mindset fester, while also continuing to put off the late assignment, and then that class would show up again I still don't have the thing done, and I think you're beginning to see how this can quickly get out of hand.
So I would sit in my dark little dorm room for weeks at a time, never really talking to anybody or doing anything productive. I couldn't even find the motivation to work on my own projects, either because I was too glum to do anything but pursue mindless escapism, or perhaps I just subconsciously believed that if I couldn't even do my crucial responsibilities, what hope would I have of completing a substantial project of my own making? Whatever the case may be... it was bad. Wallowing in self-pity while you have a pile of unfinished tasks behind you is an absolutely awful way to live.
But enough of the sob-stories. Let's share some good news. My path to recovery started when my older brother (who runs the much more successful blog, Hidden Des Moines) decided to suddenly rent a car and drive to my dorm so he could knock on my door and ask me what the hell I was doing... I didn't have a good answer.
After that happened, we immediately started working on a plan to get me back on track. I started by emailing my professors to let them know where I had been and why I was struggling. I also forwarded most of these emails to my brother in order to keep him in the loop. From there, I started talking with my mother every night so that she's always up to date on my progress. And to keep myself honest, I would send her photos of the classroom upon my arrival alongside turn-in screens for my completed assignments. Later on, I also found out that there was an office for accessibility services that could help me stay on track for next year. I've had a number of discussions with her, and she's planning to give me some light accommodations for my ADHD under the requirement that she meets with me every week in order to keep me accountable.
Right now, given the stage that I'm at, accountability is the key word. While it might seem childish to have to call my mom every night just to say "Yeah Mom, I'm doin' my homework, it's all good", it's worth mentioning that this person could be anybody. If you're in a position where you're still learning to hold yourself accountable, it is a very good idea to find someone you trust and ask them to keep in touch with your progress. It's just easy to give that job to your parent because most moms or dads would be willing to do that for their kids, and I imagine most people care about their parent's opinion of them. Besides, the plan (at least according to my therapist) is to do this for long enough that these systems of accountability come naturally to me, and I will eventually to expect myself to behave proactively. Right now I expect to not be able to do something unless I'm told to prove it's finished later. But hopefully, if I keep this up long enough, I will eventually expect myself to act responsibly because that's just what I've gotten used to.
Anyway, that's been my situation these past couple years. It was painful, it made a huge dent in my GPA, and delayed my graduation by a few years, but things are finally looking up. I'm feeling more genuinely optimistic about my future than I have in years. If you happen to have any similar struggles, I hope something I mentioned here can help.
Funny anecdote: My brother actually had no idea which dorm room I lived in, he only knew the building. But he was able to blindly guess which one I was in because I had this cat taped to my door.
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