getting school work done while struggling with mental health

[troubledjason]

As I have described in my other posts I struggle with gender dsyphoria, childhood abuse, and the deppression, anxiety and self harm urges that come from both.I feel like I'm struggling to just survive most of the time. As a college student this makes it pretty hard to get my work done. I'm in finals week right now and hoping I don't fail anything. and my parents still tell me I'm not trying hard enough...... I'm hoping that asking my proffessors to use my right name and pronouns helps some next semester. Does anyone have any advice on how to manage getting your schoolwork done when you are struggling with your mental health?

[Always *]

Honestly, it's hard - when I was in first and second year I was dealing with pretty serious depression and anxiety, I'd have break downs probably at least 1 or 2 times a week which could cause me to shut down for the rest of the day. It's hard to work when you're feeling that way. In my case, I just couldn't do anything, so sometimes I'd set a timer or alarm and after 30 minutes or at 4:15 I'd have to get up to do something, even if it took me a while to get up I'd really try. Then I'd set another timer for like 30 minutes or 45 minutes or 1 hour or what ever and force myself to do work for that much time, even if I didn't work really well at least I was trying, then I'd take a break for a bit and come back for another period of time, which I'd put onto a timer.... I also felt like it helped to work at the time of day which works best for me, so I am NOT a morning person and wouldn't even waste my time trying to study super early, it meant I had less time to do my work but it also meant that I was being realistic and it was easier for my system because I could curl up on my couch early in the day and allow myself to feel like shit, before trying to transition around noon.

Also have you considered counselling or medication for the depression or anxiety? Most colleges have free counselling and I'd encourage you to take advantage of that. I never found counselling helpful personally, but I know most people do find it very helpful.

A last thing I found helped was exercising and eating right - that always helped me a lot, I think it's a key factor that helped me keep my anxiety and depression from being so severe, in fact I haven't really been depressed since my 3rd year when I started exercising/ eating right. It helped a lot. I still have problems with anxiety, but I'm also not curling up on a couch cause I had a serious melt down multiple times a week any more.