Right now, I’m a 2nd year student in university doing Computer Science.
In my later years of high school and first few years in university, my parents (especially my dad), have been very much forcing me to study and getting yelling at me over a single bad mark. While it did give me good marks, it made me so stressed out that one day I just decided that I couldn’t handle it anymore and resisted. At the time I also thought that if my parents kept on managing me like that, then I’ll never really learn how to be truly independent and take control of myself.
After that, they did leave me alone. However, the next semester after that, I failed a course - something which has never happened before. I told myself that it was just a hard course at the time.
This semester, I have lowered my course load from 5 courses to 3. However, I’m always missing or being late to my classes (either it’s because of bad time management, having to rely on the bus, or I just don’t bother to show up, or I just woke up too late because of my sleep problems) and have a lot of missing quizzes/assignments. I also have never managed to pay attention during lectures and get myself to study as much as I need to and do my assignments on time (and no, I’ve found that rewarding myself doesn’t really work). I just got my 1st midterm mark back and it was a 50%. I fear that this semester may go the same as the last one.
Over the last few semesters, because my dad has stopped forcing me to wake up at 7 AM, my sleep schedule has gone terrible. For example, yesterday I got to bed at 5 AM and get up at 2 PM and if I need to be at school by 11 AM, I get to bed only at around 2 - 3 AM and wake up at 9 - 10 AM and am usually late. Despite my efforts to force myself to go to bed earlier, I’ve failed. I believe the only thing that can make me go to bed and wake up on time is if either someone else was forcing me to or I had a completely unavoidable and super important reason to which I’d even be willing to sacrifice sleep for (and most days I just don’t feel like that). I’ve tried melatonin and setting an alarm clock far away from my bed and it didn’t really help.
I just feel like I really suck and am ashamed of what I’ve become. Any advice?
I mean you can say you fail to get to bed on time but the beds there. Set an alarm so you don’t have a bs I did not relize it was so late excuse. Set two. one to get ready for bed (brush teeth etc) and once to be in bed. then do it. have an alarm for waking up to. again maybe two. one for waking and one for you have to leave now. also do your assignments. you have to take agency and simply not allow yourself any games or media or anything else until assignments are done.
Theres a lot of symptoms of adhd and possibly depression (surprise, anxiety and depression are co-morbities to adhd). Your uni experience rings very familiar to mine. But most of the answers I would give you or anyone else here is based on our own guesses and maybe experiences. I would suggest talking to a professional about it. Because honestly, knowing what the issue is and bring aware of how to try to mitigate it might change your life the way it did mine.
I also went into computer science. It took me 7 years to graduate. Once I graduated I spent 10 years doing strictly IT stuff because I just thought I was too stupid or lazy and feared trying to program again as my main job. I went through cognitive behavioral therapy, I got diagnosed with adhd and depression/anxiety as well. Flash forward today, I’m a senior developer that never stops trying to learn things. Don’t give up even if it looks bleak. Strive to find what works for you. If you need any help or have questions you can DM me.
Make an appointment with a mental health doc. In the mean time, start a journal of every time you go to sleep, every time you wake up, and every time you have any kind of incident like being late or not being able to focus + if you can identify any causes or contributing factors to those incidents.
Having that data on hand for your first appointment will be solid gold for your doc.
Our brains are a computer made of meat - the occasional glitch is expected, but that doesn’t mean you need to just suffer through it your entire life: seriously, make that appointment.
Its adhd, I had/have it didnt get diagnosed, you could force yourself to learn the hard way (I got disqualified and had to get reinstated took me z6 years instead of 4 for my Bs and I swapped to information systems, which I regret, I gaslighted myself into not liking programming when I just needed to start my work earlier) For me, a mix of getting older, and failing enough times, plus the disqualification, is what got me to goto class and do my work, I wouldn’t have done it otherwise, which is why getting diagnosed is necessary.
I used my sisters adderal sparingly the last two years and I mightve not got through without it, some days I would wake up just not caring about anything, super lazy, demotivated, etc. It was pure luck when id do well a semester because I just happened to not wake up feeling bad or oversleep a final that semester. And it’s not a choice, why would anyone choose to not do what they want to do when they have the time, just never have energy or have too much.
