I’m a college senior, sort of on track to graduate in May, but having a really tough time dealing with mental illness stuff, possible learning disability, and stress from tough course load.
My grades were really good all throughout college, until last Spring(2015) when I started getting treatment for depression and anxiety. At first, it was just due to the usual issues of side effects from meds, having to switch until I found one that worked, etc. But for the last 6 months I’ve been on Prozac, and it’s helped me a bunch with my mental health stuff and I feel mostly satisfied, confident enough, am able to do a better job at work and stuff.
However, my attention span and ability to focus has dropped to the point where I can’t even read a book/documentation – if I try to read an assignment, I tend to “skim” the page multiple times unintentionally and have a really difficult time slogging through the text. When I have long assignments to do, with multiple steps, I kind of let myself give up easily rather than making the effort.
This is a huge difference from the person I was two years ago; if I wasn’t happy with a project, I’d stay up all night to get it working perfectly. If I couldn’t work out a feature for an assignment, I’d freak out like I would never be able to pass the class.
Now, I put off homework assignments until it’s unrealistically late for me to be able to do them.
I spoke with my DR about it, and she thinks that perhaps ADD was underneath the anxiety and depression (I have other bad symptoms, like impulsivity issues and overspending and stuff).
We decided that I should look into testing in Nov. By the time I was able to get an appointment for an eval, it was the end of January. I’m finally getting the results back on Wednesday (UGH!) but in the meantime, I’ve missed multiple big grade projects for my courses (about one 8-10% worth assignment per each of my courses).
I’m not sure if I should just drop all of the classes and try again next semester, thus delaying my graduation and complicate everything for myself. (To complicate matters, I’m 29, also getting married in Sept which is 100% not stressing me out because it’s going to be really low-key but ugh I really don’t want to have to go back to classes after getting married lol). Or if it’s worth trying to talk to my professors about my situation and see if they’ll let me make it up.
Spring break just ended for me, and I had planned to get all caught up on my work but was pretty depressed and mostly unable to function and it really screwed me up.
I love programming and software design (and games!) so much, but I’m just getting really frustrated because of this inability to get anything done, which is making me more depressed, which is making it impossible for me to get anything done, etc.
I really don’t know what to do. Sorry for such a long post, but I don’t really have anyone in my life that would really understand how tough this is (people around me are weird about mental health things and just tell me to “cheer up” or “just focus until you finish” etc, like eh thanks but you’re not really getting this)
I can relate. I don’t know that I’m add so much as lazy, though. Maybe talk to your dr about switching prescriptions? It’s not ideal since it takes time to see the difference, but it may help long term. When I was in college, I would procrastinate til I had enough time to get things done, leaving in some time for panic attacks. I have trouble focusing during reading as well. I think for me, it was just the outcome that would motivate me to get whatever it was done. I knew I had to make the grade or get this project done by this time so I won’t get fired. I’m not sure any of this was helpful, but I wish you luck.
If your concentration issues started after you started using Prozac and you’re still using Prozac, I would strongly recommend you see a doctor about it. If there is something physiological going on that is preventing you from concentrating as much as you’d like, then there is nothing you can do on your own. If you tell your doctor about your issues, they might be able to suggest a remedy, or given you an alternate dosage or medicine.