Can I bounce back from a terrible terrible first year of college?

If you put your mind to it

i can tell you my story, but i don't know if you'd be able to relate in anyway.

My first two years of university were terrible. It started off somewhat bad but as time progressed, i found myself deteriorating cognitively. I didn't really know what was happening to me. I sought help but was misdiagnosed with depression. They put me on antidepressants, which only made it worse. The entire time i thought that I was just a terrible person, after all, even on medication, i was going downhill.

For those two years i only passed two courses, and those were during my first semester under a full course load. I downsided to a half one- but it didn't make a difference. I was going downhill mentally, and I alone couldn't stop it.

But eventually I got hospitalized, and diagnosed with manic depression (bipolar II) and put on an anti-psychotic and mood stabilizer. I got alot better. It wasn't completely right away, but soon I was ready to go back to school.

Unfortunately by that time I had failed too many credits and found out I was kicked out. But I had a medical reason for what happened, and I filed a petition. It was nerve wrecking and I felt like I finally had a chance, but like it was taken away.

The petition went through after a few months. They even took all my failed courses off my transcript. I went back on a half course load. Passed easily. Then I took on a full course load - no where as great - but still passed.

Right now my goal is to get a part-time job. All I want in life is to have the same opportunities and be on the same achievement level as everyone else. And it's possible. It's possible to bounce back.

Anyways, I think there has to be something out there that can help you. you gotta shake things up and try to find what helps it improve. Albert Einstein once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results...

You seem to have already rationalized your future failure. You have decided that your mental health concerns and your family background are sufficient reason for you not to complete your class requirements, and that doesn't bode well for your future performance. This year, you didn't have last year's failure to compound those feelings, so I can't be too optimistic about how next year is going to go for you.

Advice part A: Do not enroll next semester. With very few exceptions, the people who are successful at college WANT to be in college. I think it's fair to say that you don't want to be there, at least not regularly enough to pass your courses. This isn't anything to be ashamed of. For many of us (myself included), it takes a year or two of working a crappy job and struggling through the drudgery of trying to pay too many bills with not enough money to realize that college is by far the better alternative. Trying to learn how to be a college student while trying to learn how to be an adult is a challenging combination. Go to work, pay your bills, and just settle out for a while while you make the transition to looking after yourself. There is no shame in this.

Dumping money into a university, when you know in advance that you may or may not see any benefit from it, just doesn't make sense. Wait until you're sure you want to go. Whatever benefit that your mom gets from you being a full-time student is not your problem, frankly. In any case, I doubt that whatever monetary benefit exists is greater than the cost of your tuition, which you would likely be throwing away.

Advice part B: Get the idea of, "I can't, because of my depression/anxiety" out of your head, right now. When you allow yourself to justify failure that way, you have zero incentive to try at anything. That will poison every last aspect of your life.

I'm not saying depression and anxiety aren't obstacles; they are. They're real, and they're a force to be reckoned with. They are not impassible roadblocks, though, and you need to stop treating them like they are. Mental health issues are not a blank check to drop any standards that you have for yourself.

It is fully understandable that getting a degree that takes two or four years of school seems like a daunting prospect. Of course it is, when you look at it from an all-at-once perspective. But the individual steps in getting that degree are not difficult. You know that, but it's easy to forget--and depression and anxiety make it hard to remember sometimes.

You've gotten through 12 years of school already, and you did it well enough that a college would accept you. Every one of those years was a 5 days a week/8 hours a day workload. College is not nearly that intense. You go to class for, what, 12 or 15 hours a week? Maybe you don't even have classes on certain weekdays. You already know the work isn't any harder. Plus, aside from your core classes, all the things you'll be learning are things which you chose. That makes it a lot easier to handle.

You need some coping skills for your depression or anxiety. Medications can help, but they should not be your first line of defense. Meds aren't smart bombs, and they can't selectively choose which situations to make you feel better about, and which situations should be naturally stressful or depressing. They work in one of two ways. Either they squeeze your mood (good and bad) toward a more neutral baseline, which can make you feel generally numb, or they elevate your mood across the board, which makes sad or scary things less sad or scary, but amplifies anything neutral or better to unreasonably happy levels. This can cause you to not give a sh*t about things that should genuinely concern you.

Start with some basic coping skills, and some counseling if you can get it. When you have the "I can't get out of bed" feeling, it's because you're looking at way too long a timeline, and getting stressed by all the things that need to be accomplished. The only thing that you really need to do, is the stuff that's 10 seconds in front of you. Sit up. Put your feet on the floor. Then, look at the next 10 seconds. Stand up, go to the bathroom--or whatever your routine is.

Even in your most depressed state, you would have a hard time reasoning that sitting up in bed is beyond your ability. That's how you fight the depression and the anxiety. Break stuff up into small, manageable pieces. It works.

You won't have to go through your whole life like this, of course. As you get in the mindset of reining yourself in, and only looking at what's right in front of you, it will get easier. You're building your mental fortitude. Think of it like going to the gym to work out. You can't put 1,000 pounds on a barbell and start lifting--and that's what you're doing mentally when you stress yourself out. You need to lift something much lighter, and you'll get stronger as you go. Start VERY small--smaller than you think you need to--and go in baby steps. Sit up. Put your feet on the floor.

You are conditioned to think through the lens of your anxiety and depression. You've been doing it your whole life, so it will be a difficult habit to break. By the time you get to "stand up," you're probably already thinking, "Alright, this is stupid. I'm out of bed, so I'll just go from here." Don't. Make yourself consciously identify each step. You can't lift 5 pounds once and suddenly be stronger. Do your baby steps all the way out of the house, into the car, and to your job.

Once you get the hang of this, you can let yourself auto-pilot a little. Get out of bed. Take a shower. Get dressed. You can stretch your focus to, say the next 5 or 10 minutes in front of you. If you try to go too fast, you'll run back into old habits. Just slow down, break it down a bit smaller, and go again. It is NOT A RACE to get to the next level. Some days will be easier than others, and some days you'll need to scale things down a bit.

You have a lot going on in your life such as dealing with your anxiety and depression and other family circumstances. Winston Churchill was the prime minister of Great Britain (England) during the second world war (1939-1945), he was a person who had to battle depression and still managed to lead Great Britain successfully during the war. Churchill once gave some great advice : Failure is not fatal, Success is not final, it's the courage to continue that matters. You have that courage to deal with the challenges you're facing, but do remember to reach out and get help so as to better manage your life. You're attending counselling which is good and this demonstrates great courage on your part to reach out and seek help. Consider writing down on paper all the immediate challenges you're facing and that are causing you increased anxiety. Show them to your counsellor who should be able to offer you support and signpost you to other organisations who'll be able to help you. wish you well.