Amber graduated! a mental health and friends thread

Hey. So. Tenative excitedness for going into senior year and making a senior film (I'm an animation major) has quickly turned into depressive spiraling. Brain fog is thickening, self esteem has dropped immensely, general mood is significantly lowered, stress levels off the charts.

I managed to call the student center and get scheduled for counseling and stuff. I know at least last I check you can do unlimited group therapy so I should be able to get therapy. Buut appointment is October 4th so I've got a bit of waiting

I feel like I should just. Officially list the things I've noticed so far so I don't lose track of them
-fallen back into procrastination/stress spirals
-slowly becoming more difficult to find things I'm enjoying
-lots of thoughts about how I won't get a job and don't have anything to do after college
-increased comparing own work to peers (& younger kids, generally feeling like my art sucks & will never be worth anything)
-worsened mood overall
-went from excited about my senior film idea to thinking it's awful and I was dumb to do something that would stand out from other films
-lots more brain fog, really difficult to focus on things (note: I have brain fog troubles most of the time; I generally have to list out in small steps what I need to get done on habitica, take a break, and then work on it, or i'll have trouble organizing how to start doing a thing and procrastinating becomes much more difficult to stop)
-i've had like, three thoughts about death today (in a 'lol -dies from stress-' way, not in a 'i should kill myself' way, but its still. sorta alarming)
-lots of comparing myself to my sisters? like, my oldest sister already had tons of jobs during college because she's a miracle neurotypical who doesn't have executive dysfunction and had jobs lined up immediately out of college. middle sister had significant others to move in with. i have only held a state fair job previously in my life, feel with almost complete certainty that I can't get an animation job, and have never dated. If I can't get a job in my field i have a friend i want to move in with back home in minnesota, but going back to my home state, even though it's 100% the place I have the most support and friends and where I currently feel the most comfortable, feels like defeat. Also I'm not 100% sure said friend can move in with me. we've talked about it but not seriously? idk. ugh.

and. uh. yeah. so i'm freaking out and failing on all cylinders, but the march of time continues, I have an online class to keep on top of (doing alright on that, thankfully, I don't care about the class so it's easier to do), my sequential class to do work for (workload is lightish now, 2-3 hours of work between each class, but I know it'll increase), and senior film to do. mostly worried about senior film, as it's a lot of collaboration and i'm worried about my ability to get people to work on my thing when I'm in a bout of feeling like it's garbage and I don't deserve help. Which is dumb because it's impossible to do without help, I'm doing an anthology/Multi animator project thing where everyone's contributing their own idea/style do the thing, but i feel like it was a dumb idea and i should've just made a narrative piece like everyone else and inevitably blended into the crowd.

so like. tips for getting shit done through brainfog would be nice. so far my process is make really small step lists of what needs to be done on habitica and whenever I have the ability to stop and feel like i should get something done, i look at the list and do what I feel like i can. which does get some things done but can be really slow and not. get-things-done enough.

im just. idk what to say to person once i get to therapy thing either; my problems when i'm not in school are usually limited to occasional medical freakouts, some really specific social anxiety, and a lot of executive dysfunction (this summer, when I had no other obligations or responsibilities in my life at all, I struggled to manage to get 3 hours of drawing work done. was really proud of myself that i managed that many hours of work a day, but i get the feeling it's not a neurotypical amount of work ability, especially in something i legitimately really enjoy (I can work like, an hour and a half of time without a break on art if i get into it, i really like having nice artwork, it's really rewarding, it's just every time i take a break from literally anything it's like pulling teeth to get started again) (speaking of teeth, I am so bad at habit forming that I have been trying and failing to get in the habit of brushing my teeth daily for four years because it is so much effort to walk a few steps to the bathroom and brush them. dont get me started on the effort required to floss)

so. what i'm saying is i feel like I don't need medication when I'm in a next to zero stress situation, but the moment school happens I sorta fall into a pile of flail and get pretty miserable, so I have no clue if I should look into medication or not. I've gotten better at my executive dysfunction, like.. i used to do absolutely everything last minute, now I do 50-80% of everything last minute.. so like. that's three hard years of progress...
fuck idk. i know i need help i just have so much trouble being able to tell how much.
also im pathetic and unemployable and have no ambition to make a dazzling career anyways so lol, poverty here i come. im a upper middle class brat who wants to travel the world so poverty's gonna fuckin destroy me but apparently i can't be bothered to be anything better

 

K, so, having read through this twice:

talk to someone about medication. just because you don't always need it doesn't mean it won't help when you do. some people I know have medication to get them through a couple really tough times of the year if they need it, because they've been working on coping mechanisms for years. other people (myself included) currently need medication to get anywhere close to neurotypical levels of output.

seriously. medication is not a silver bullet. but it can give you the extra 10-15% of oomph that you need for your brain to kick in and go "oh hey yeah this isn't so bad". it doesn't make you NT. it lets you be closer to you, which lets you work on the other coping mechanisms/lifestyle changes/good habits that get you the rest of the way, or at least further.


that being said. you sound like you are working incredibly hard SO: major kudos. I know how hard it is to get anything at all done through brain fog. Take a step back and recognize that you are working your ass off, and your brain is getting in your way: just because you're not reaching NT output doesn't mean you're not working hard. Take a deep breath. Your brain is lying to you on a bunch of different levels ... likely because the chemicals in it are off balance.

therapy's great. it is fantastic that you have that resource; use it. also, making detailed lists in habitica is great. that is a habit that i personally cannot use for shit - hilariously, it's too many steps. but i think you ought to go talk to someone about medication, because it sounds like it could be incredibly useful to you - even if it's just to get you on your feet through this year, help you figure out the mechanisms you need, help you get into the habits you need and clearly want.

you can make it through this. you seriously can. and there is zero shame in using meds to help. as a very wise tumblr post once said, "if you don't have your own neurochemicals, storebought is fine".

 

thanks ;-; i definitely nearly cried a lot reading that, its really nice to hear,, I just feel like I'm failing by not being able to improve quick enough so much, it's weird/amazing to hear people saying i'm working hard

I managed to get a decent amount of my work done today so far!! im gonna be up late doing stuff for tomorrow but i got more done earlier than i thought i might, though it wasnt a perfect day, loots of procrastinating still happened,, but hey, i'm trying c|

 

I definitely know that feel. It is very hard to remember that progress is slow - way slower than we'd like it to be. And it's all too easy to downplay the amount of work we do get done. Based on even that little post - you aren't just trying, you're doing. You got more done than you thought you might. That is a win.

*hugs* Keep going friend, you can do it.

 

kk the assignment im working on is making me a sad so im gonna rant about it more here so i stop spamming other places

the professor has us doing like, celebrity face drawings rigth after just going over basic facial proportions and tips for drawing eyes, he hasn't even gone over the rest of the facial features and i fucking suck at humans, especially human faces, I despise everything about how I stylize human faces right now and I hate drawing faces from life because it looks like shit 100% of the time, and he has like, good examples of the homework and not only did we skip an assignment of basic head construction, that I would've been 500% more comfortable with, but the example was goddamn literally publishable amazing and i feel 10000% unworthy

and this is a goddamn sophomore class for a different major. why the hell did i go into art only people who dont know anything about drawing think my art is worth something
ughhhh

 

me: i'm gonna get things done in a well paced schedule this weekend, its gonna be great

me sunday at 9:40 pm: well I have 2 hours and 20 minutes to finish this short writing assignment, take the half hour timed test, and write a two page paper, and i have to add torso and arm muscles to ten human drawings yet tonight as well, This Is Fine

my brain: hey this is a GREAT DAY to have thick brainfog 24/7 right. thatll help you memorize the terminology for the different parts of the neurological system of the body. hell yeah.


fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. i need tuesday to come, i need to talk to an actual certified person about all of this, i feel like it shouldn't even be sunday.it should be saturday at least
guh
ugh
ughhh
sleeping right now is so tempting. like. blah.

 

I went to counseling yesterday!!! It went well, they paired me with a lady right away which is gr8 (when i went in last year my induction counselor was a dude and I'm just. more tense around dudes still. not conductive to counseling. luckily they did ask during the session if id prefer a girl so it was resolved), and she's really nice and said she had a lot of ideas of how to help w/ my problems n stuff ;w;'' she said some of the copes I had used in the past were really good and stuff.
they have a biiig survey you fill out when you start thats like, all your info and those standard questions for determining depression, anxiety, etc, and I saw her little version of the results for a sec an there were nice big red numbers in the 80s for anxiety, depression, and schoolwork pressure or whatever its called, so thats fun cx; counselor said a few times that she's really glad i came in which is part like, aw, yay, caring, and part like pfff am i really that bad off?
I guess when you admit you've started wanting to use alcohol to cope with your problems people start getting nervous about you c|. Also the occasional 'lol i should just die' thoughts are sorta alarming i guess. idk its always a jokey way, i havent seriously considered and i dont see myself getting to that point anytime in a near future >.> but yeh.
i only cried like. three times? bluhh i hate how easily i cry, im not even that upset things just have enough emotion in them that its like. whoops. there i go.
this is why i joke about all my terrible thigns, if i talk about it seriously i cry u:
anyways. yeah!! therapy get, and tho I've got a like, ten session limit to one on one things at scad I can go to group unlimitedly and i've been recc'd to a few groups, so. wheeeeee.

 

Sup. me again. Group didn't happen because the campus just finally re-opened my dorm after the hurricane hit, but because fuck living in a half-dead town that still has power lines down, i'm home in my parents' place till probably friday or saturday.
It's honestly a huuuge relief. SCAD policy is holding that none of our homework that we had is due until the second class restarting, so I've gotten some time off of doing homework to sort through my brain and stuff and been doing alright. I feel a bit less like my whole life is eternally worthless because I couldn't get good enough at art within four years, so that's nice. I think I'm gonna start trying to pull myself back together and not get into a procrastination cycle again, but I'm patently Bad At This- my main problem being that I'll feel better and be like, oh, i should do daily background studies, and work on two personal projects a day, and do homework three hours a day as well, and then i get overwhelmed and fail again
so i guess i should find like, a bare minimum of what i need to accomplish every day and try for that? bluh. the problem with productivity is whenever I fail at it it just means i have to cram more stuff in the future
and then i lose all my spoons via stress and subsequent cramming, and then i have to take a spoon recovery day, but one day always turns into two, and then I have stress from puttin things off, and the cycle continues
i do not like it. and its also really hard to believe that I can break it when I've failed to so many times

in another note, im considering emailing my counselor this thread just as like, some examples of stuff my brain's been saying? I think I mentioned most all of it in the session but idk, i really suck at remembering things so how would i know
sound like a good idea?? she gave me her email so i know its not like. inappropriate to message her about myself

 

I'm glad you're having some better times currently, and it sounds like your counselor is a good match for you for the kind of work you need to do. This is super awesome to see, and I'm full of admiration for your getting it started!

(I'd feel weird saying i'm proud of you, bc that wording doesn't really make sense to me since, like, the only thing I can be proud of here is having the good luck to know you a little bit?)

But i def know what you mean in that last post, how when you have the spoons you feel like you want to plan Lots and Lots of Things To Do, which will occupy like all of 'em, and then when you have a spoon shortage it makes everything feel so much worse. I think you are wise to consider setting up a smaller routine that will be less disrupted by spoon fluctiation. I know for me, making things habitual when i have spoon surplus can actually help them be less draining when I'm dealing with shortages; ymmv but it might be that just habituating one or two of these routines will enable you to add a few more at a later time. Idk.

 

Thanks! Tryna sleep will probly respond to other things later, but re: habits; I am incredibly bad at making habits, see my inability to make a habit of brushing my teeth despite four years of at least primal effort (and like, I think 20ish cavities filled in that timeframe? Idk man)

 

got to see counselor again!! its really weird to be taken super seriously tbh. she was talking about how they're trying to set up appointments with halved time since they're so behind because of the hurricane except in cases where they feel like they need the whole time and she said she wanted to make sure and have whole hour appointments with me and im like ?????? weird? im not that bad i just sorta fail at getting anything done, its not like i wanna die yet

anyways i also got psychiatrist referrals so i can go in and get an official eval and talk about medication
so yeah. thats weird. im stressed about that more because id have to have my sister drive me and i hate breaking into other peoples time. also about the having to call ppl and schedule a thing. guhh. but its a manageable task, plannin to do it between classes tomorrow
i also really need to print my dumb thing for financial aid blah blah, i'm so angry about that, someone in the school messes up and stops telling the loan provider that im a full time student and im the one who has to print out forms and deal with figuring out how to get them to push my payments back without any consequences?? fuck that. seriously.

 

related to nothing i just decided this is probably my vent thread:
ah yes i love how reading the week's anatomy lecture about how the urinary system works is giving me mini flashbacks to the wonders of all the pain i experienced getting yearly tests to see if my bladder still worked wrong. the best.
this is like the third time this anatomy course has bothered me a ton innocuously, i am so done

(but seriously though they had one unit where hte first page had an image of acupuncture. so many people have needle phobias, why would you make that the front page of the unit. god that sucked.)

 

yeesh, i can't imagine!

(okay actually, every time i ever saw a diagram of a compound fracture i would just about pass out; at this point i pretty much can't look at drawings or x-rays of any broken bones without feeling a little lightheaded; so i guess in my own way i can feel your pain here)

 

Gotta love when professor is like 'you've gotta have a nice neat workspace to make good work' like. Bro I don't have the energy to clean out the fridge, what makes you think I have the energy to leave my bed to do homework lol

 

Spoiler: tmi sorta gross

IM PRETTY SURE I HAVE A GODDAMN YEAST INFECTION. GOD DAMN IT WHY THIS
well i guess i get to see what the student clinic is like tomorrow lol

 

I KNOW THIS ONE. IF IT REMINDS YOU VISUALLY OF COTTAGE CHEESE AND SMELLS KIND OF LIKE... WELL... YEAST AND HURTS CONSTANTLY, IT'S A YEAST INFECTION

No need to go to a clinic you just get something in a CVS that you... put up your... wait. I just straight up forgot who I was talking to for a hot second.

You may need to go to a clinic. I don't know a solution that doesn't involve sticking what I lovingly refer to as 'medicine bullets' up your hooha. A normal CVS has those but as for vaginismus-friendly solutions.... uh.....

That's some bad luck, when you've been working so hard to get all your senior year work done ;u; It's a good thing you're so tenacious, resourceful, and good at pulling solutions out of like, literally nothing.

Senior year advice: do that one thing that matters (probably the senior film) with all you can claw away form the apathy and let the other stuff be not as good. As long as your passing, having the thing you're proud of to point to is waaaaay more important, even finding a job-wise, than straight As. I know, I was a straight A student with almost nothing physical to point to and it was kind of an 'oh shit' moment when it came to proving competency to employers. I mean, I was proud of my one completed NaNoWriMo and my drastically improved mental state, BUT.

I would do schoolwork.... almost never on school days (because insomnia brainfog was so. bad.) and maybe 6 hours max on weekends, even in my senior year, except for those dreadful times when I had to write 12 page 'you're an English major and this better be good' research papers in the span of a weekend. That was. bad. I wrote my shitty senior thesis in about two days, half on the literal bus ride to MN from IL, which was edited after a calm down glass of wine, and I must have done 12 hours of 'research' (reading Lovecraft) all told in the whole semester. A semester I spent watching every single blessed episode and movie of Neon Genesis Evangelion.

There's nothing that's a bad choice immediately after college. You don't actually have to instantly jump out at life screaming, rassle a job, and be a clear, marked success. I was told to find something that will literally help me live for the first six months and then work on it. Sometimes people don't figure it out for a long time. Life doesn't collapse if it's not figured out

 

@littlewhitemouse
WHOO ALL THE SIBLING ADVICE!!
a medicine bullet thing sounds manageable; but SCAD's got its own clinic so imma try and get in there tomorrow since it's First Yeast Infection and probably best to make sure that's indeed what it is. Doesn't hurt constantly yet! but is red and swollen and cottage cheese-y. And itchy if touched at all by anything. So yes. I'm probably going to put pants on and go to rite aid for hopefully yogurt to consume (sylvia's advice, i'm gonna assume it helps somehow) and discount halloween candy.

thank for schoolwork advice!! it does help. I don't think ive mentioned this to you actually!! but i am working on getting up the spoons to call a psych office and schedule for an eval, get diagnosed and possibly get pillz (so uh can i be reminded of your prescription and how its done for your symptoms so i can tell the psychiatrist what works in the family). And am going consistently to the school-offered mental health stuff. Counselor I'm going to is cool and takes me v seriously which is very ???? to my brain, like, cmon, i just only do my homework in the last 12 hours it's due and feel numb half the time, im not that bad u: but yeah. things are happening!!
I'mma try and focus in on my senior film a bit better; luckily I did go for doing it MAP style and im workin on much better people's senior films to pad my reel so im actually hopefully gonna get good work in. and soon all my MAP part people will be totally set to start doin serious work and stuff will start happening and itll be awesome

and yeah. im actually working on being less flail in my life. hopefully somethingll come of it
fuckin better, i signed up for a ton of class next term @.@ but i neeed all the knowledgeee

 

hearing this type of stuff especially helps c| I really shouldnt be freaking out so bad about graduation because I literally have two people in the twin cities totally gung ho to take me in??? like kelsey has excitedly offered to house me, i will be so fine even if i dont do anything the next six months but idk, my brain is scream at me

 

making replies in a conversation because Sensitive Information

 

@amberybydreams i'm glad you are getting good results with mental health support there, and they are taking you seriously. It sounds like you are doing good things for yourself rn despite your brain screaming and your having stuff to struggle with. You are working so hard and deserve recognition!

I'm also glad you have a cool sister you can count on for support too, that's pretty awesome ^_^