And how it tricks you…
If any of you have come here from Threads, then you will know, in a fair amount of detail, the struggles that I have had with my mental health.
It’s been so all over the place, that I almost wish that I could just be down all the time, because then at least I would know what I was dealing with.
But as it is, I think I am getting better and then something completely inconsequential happens and I am launched back down into the hole that I have convinced myself that I have crawled out of.
What I am starting to realise, is that this hole is a hell of a lot deeper than I first thought, and it has false ‘summits’. So me thinking that I have climbed out is just me climbing to the next ledge. Which yes, is progress, but not when it means that it’s one step up and two steps back down. That isn’t progression.
I am back at uni tomorrow, after 3 weeks off – two Easter break weeks and one week off sick – and I do not want to go. I haven’t managed to complete a single assignment, I don’t ant to speak to any teachers or mentors or lecturers and tell them that I am no better off than I was pre-break. I don’t want to keep pretending that I am managing, and showing up when I simply feel like I should just quit.
I have been getting help and support for months. And the guilt that I feel when each week, I have to tell yet another person that I have not achieved is just piled on. I have a skills mentor, a mental health mentor, my lecturer, a senior support person, and the therapist that I pay for myself. And week after week I’m there telling them how badly I am doing and absolutely wasting their time. Because why am I unable to get shit done?
It also stops me doing other things though. Like I can’t let myself do anything fun or leisurely because I know that I should be working on assignments, yet I will sit at my computer/desk, hour after hour, day after day, and do nothing but make plans and lists to try and break down my work into the minutest, easiest way of getting things done.
I am excellent at plans now, at making the lists, it’s become the most common form of procrastination for me. Like, it doesn’t work X way and I can’t start, so I’ll design Y and maybe that will get me going.
It doesn’t.
What’s worse, is that I can sit and write this with absolutely no issues. So it’s not like I can’t write. But I can’t write the important things. And I can’t figure out why.
Yes I have ADHD, but I had it in my first year and I didn’t struggle anywhere near as much as I am now. I had it when I did my Access course and I fucking smashed that. So why now? Why am I writing all around the assignment(s) but not the actual bulk of it? I do not understand my own brain.
I want to just get rid of all the support people because they make me feel so bad.
Wait, no, that’s not true. They’re all bloody lovely and supportive and helpful, and they do not do anything even close to make me feel bad, that’s on me. But I want to stop wasting their time by seeing them weekly and still not getting anywhere.
But what will actually happen, is that I will go to uni, I will put on a bright, happy face and I will lie and I will tell them that I am doing better. I will pretend that I am not a complete and utter failure in the hope that I can convince myself that it is true.
I will sit in lectures and I will pay attention and I will make notes and ask questions, like the perfect illusion of a uni student, knowing full well that inside I am failing hard.
Don’t worry, this isn’t going to turn into a big woe-is-me type blog, I just needed to get that off my chest (again) so it isn’t sitting in my brain whilst I attempt to work.
Who knows, maybe this will be my saviour? Maybe writing this and getting it out will bring me some sort of epiphany.
Unlikely, but a girl can dream.