h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I am in the process of completely fecking-up this course.

Maybe I shouldn't have come off of sertraline. It may have done little for my depression, but it seems it was doing more for my anxiety than I was aware.
Anxiety and lack of self-discipline and control over my sleep pattern and other symptoms of my general lameness are putting me behind and making it seem doubtful that I can pass the course...
To fail because I'm intellectually incapable is one thing to fail because I'm a loser is another.

Explain to me how having an imbalance in your brain chemistry causes you to be a loser?


***Note: did not mean this in a negative way. Was trying to explain that I don't think you're a loser because you happen to take medicine. I am in the process of fecking-up my own courses, and I have been losing control over my own sleeping patterns by staying up half the blinking night working on this stupid presentation due Thursday, so if things are lost in translation, blame my lack of sleep.

... why don't you start your sertraline again then?... I take my citalopram always, 'cos if I don't I wallow in self pity. I've tried stopping, when I feel OK, but within 3 weeks I am boring myself to bits, and my husband always thinks he's the problem, and that is a sure way to arguments...

Be well, dear friend, and take care of yourself rather than blaming yourself.

"I am in the process of completely fecking-up this course."

Congratulations!

It's hard to face not doing well when you have the intelligence to do better; but don't forget that your intelligence level isn't the only measure of your limits, and that if something is holding you back, then it *still* means you are working to the best of your ability. Your intelligence is actually a bonus in this respect: imagine how you'd be doing if you were dim as well as stressed.

If you want to talk about fecking up... how about this, we had a take home exam in Spanish... I FAILED it!!! A take home exam! So anyway, that was me trying to make you feel better. I agree with Snailrind, you are intelligent, and maybe what you're taking now just isn't your thing.... one day you'll find whatever it is you're meant to do and it'll all just click

Don't be too hard on yourself, spaz. Every single take-home exam I've had has been damn near impossible.

I've never heard of take-home exams. How do they work?

Well, you usually have a set of questions that would be impossible to answer within a class time limit, and you take these home and either work out the problems, or look things up. Every single take-home exam I've had, I've had to supply references for.

That actually sounds kinda fun. But then, I'm perverse in a lot of ways.

I've admitted defeat. Next week I'll make it formal and begin searching for alternative directions.

Right on. Are you pleased you gave it a go?

Just popping by to see if you're okay. Have you been away over the weekend?

Haven't made it to the library.
I'm guess I am glad that I tried the course, but that is at the edges of sentimments. At the moment I am increasingly disappointed in myself... The brief sense of relief at not having a panic inducing backlog past very quickly.

I'm one of those people who clings to things I've started way past the time when I should have cut my losses. Sorry to hear you're disappointed in yourself, as I don't think you need to be at all. You were doing the course for yourself; found it detrimental to your stress levels; stopped doing it. Presto. It doesn't mean you will never be able to do another course in the future.

I got ill with that virus right when the pace of the course was stepped up. It was trying to get through the catch up work that gave me anxiety attacks, ruined my sleep and put under more strain than i thought I could take, but as those experience become more distant the more I feel as though I ran away and betrayed myself, gave-up too easy... etc.

Gave up too easy?

On top of everything else, you got sick! This is not your fault.

College is hard enough without all the crap you've gone through. Don't be too hard on yourself, especially when you can give it another shot next semester.

I never really liked social sciences. I always needed something a bit more discrete to start from. Is there another class you'd be interested in, like an earth science or survey of art history? You might benefit from a composition class as well- you seem to be good at expressing feelings in poetry already, and you've said in other journals you wanted to get better at it.

The charity I'm working for is great; it's a shame it's only in Wales. They run a variety of courses based on what people have asked for; nobody has to turn up unless they feel like it; nobody gets homework unless they want some. Some people use it as a stress-free way of breaking into college life at their own pace. I wonder if there's anything similar in your area.

You did not give up too easy... I look at it this way, if college were supposed to be easy, everyone would have a degree. You tried, that's one of the most admirable things to do, is pick yourself up after you've fallen and try to do it again.