I'm at university, so of course there's a lot of work. I'm struggling with my mental health at the moment and self injury urges.
Have you ever had to deal with deadlines and self injury urges/mental health issues (at university or in another context)?
How did you cope?
Did you get the work/tasks/assignment/etc completed in the end?
What helped?
Grateful for any suggestions/advice, I feel swamped...
If you spoke to other people the way you speak to yourself, how many friends would you have?
Do you have any MH support at Uni? If not it might be an idea to see what is available.
Try taking each assignment in bitesize chunks - work on each assignment a little at a time - say a certain amount of words each day/week etc.
Have you ever looked into getting mitigating circumstances for assignments?
x x x
♥It's the ups and downs of living life this way. Promise me you'll never go away. Just stay with me through one more night because it's always darkest before the light and now I promise you I'll never turn away. I won't let you give us one less heart to break...♥
I did see a counsellor at the uni once, but she left. I will probably go and try to find someone else when I have the time.
I do try to take that approach with assignments but I just feel like I'm getting no where with anything and like I get near to the due date and haven't done much. I feel like I worry about assignments more than I work on them. And it's hard to concentrate because I keep thinking about self harming.
I'm not sure about mitigating circumstances, I don't know if they would apply. I think you have to have everything organised before the due date (documentation wise) which is hard when you have to see a professional to prove your situation is legitimate (which sucks).
If you spoke to other people the way you speak to yourself, how many friends would you have?
Have you tried speaking to a tutor at the university, they might be able to help you more. It might also be worth seeing if you can apply for extenstions without mitigation circumstances.
I'm not sure I trust the tutors, I don't really know them on a personal level.
I checked and I can't apply for an extension without 'academic consideration' (mitigating circumstances). So now it's just a matter of trying to concentrate I suppose, which is so much easier said than done.
If you spoke to other people the way you speak to yourself, how many friends would you have?
i just really try to focus on getting schoolwork done, which really for me means just getting going... because once i get going it tends to keep going pretty easily... often the mental health stress from the assignments comes from my fear that i won't get them done, so making progress on the assignments leads to my mental health being better...
this is my magical medicine cabinet. Left to right they contain: courage, hope, calmness, and strength.
The magical part: They NEVER run out, so borrow some any time you want.
I know every uni is different, but after talking to a counselor and disability adviser at mine, they gave me a form I can give to tutors. It says I have a disability (without saying what) and that I may often need extensions.
Hey, i know how stressful uni work and deadlines can be especially when dealing with MH/SH things.
I would really suggest putting it a priority to go speak to another counselor at your uni.
That was basically how I have gotten some time off and been able to apply for an extension once because my counselor wrote a letter.
Also your tutors will be used to hearing about this stuff because plenty of students have experienced problems and MH problems and if you worried to talk about it to them maybe you can give a brief/vague explanation rather then going into details?
As for assignment, it was just breaking it down into chunks, setting it in small manageable sections (although often i did just end up doing it because of the last minute pressure) and focus more on just getting it done, rather then it being the best piece of work. When i looked at it like that it seemed a lot more manageable, and once its done its much easier and less stressful to change about and edit.
♥ .I'm going to fall like I don't need saving. ♥
...My smile's just the armour I built when I was alone...
There was some part of me that hurt so badly, that I wouldn't ever be able to forget it.
It faded but the memories could bring it back any second, keeping me in the moment.
It would never fully heal. I could never really be free. I could never really be fixed. Now I just have to work out how to live whilst being broken.
I feel like I'm dying.
Hey :)
At my uni, we have disability advisors who are really great. All I needed was a letter from my doctor saying I had a medical condition affecting my studies (I got a letter saying I had migraines, but it also said I have depression on it), and they took this as being evidence of me having a mental health condition and used it as evidence to get me support in class. I am now allowed extensions whenever I need them, and allowances for being absent more than other students. Plus, the disability advisor is always there to talk to if I need extra support.
When I have work due, I generally work on it in sections and take a break when my concentration starts to wander, because I know that I won't be doing my best work if I'm not thinking straight and that will just frustrate me and I will never get it finished. If it's an essay, I start with by reading everything I have and putting all the facts/quotes etc. onto it, then making a new mind map which outlines the arguments/paragraphs I will write. I include all of the information from the texts I have read on this, so I can just copy and paste it into my essay while I write (I always use online mind mapping tools). This way, it's easy to see what I'm going to write, and I have all the information I need in front of me in order to do so. Then it's just a matter of linking everything together in a coherent manner.
Thank you everyone for your responses, I really appreciate it.
I've slowly been trying to work on things, doing things bit by bit. I think maybe I'll make an appointment with a disability adviser as well as the counsellor though because I just can't ease the anxiety or the urges. Just getting started isn't enough for me to get things done, I keep losing concentration. I think if I can get some support to manage it maybe I'll get things done on time and with less stress.
Thank you all again, I really needed the reassurance tonight that I'm not the only one who struggles with these things. xx
If you spoke to other people the way you speak to yourself, how many friends would you have?
How is the essay going? I think making an appointment is a good idea, and it would be a good idea to talk to the both of them. Being isolated can make problems seem so much worse.
Could you try doing it in little bits, half an hour at a time, then a ten minute break?
It doesn't matter where you come from; it matters where you go.
No-one gets remembered for the things they didn't do.
We won't all be here this time next year,
so while you can take a picture of us.
We're definitely going to hell,
but we'll have all the best stories to tell.
I have a couple of essays, a blog, and a writing assignment. They just keep piling up.
Isolation is a big problem for me, because I live by myself.
Honestly sometimes I wish I could just go home, I feel like I can't keep doing this. But I don't want to let everyone down, so I'm stuck.
I am trying to do things bit by bit. I just feel like I get no where with them.
If you spoke to other people the way you speak to yourself, how many friends would you have?
I can relate. I'm still trying to finish my thesis and even taking it in little bite-size pieces, it just seems like I'll never finish. Do you have anyone to encourage you? My ADHD doctor has been making me email her everyday with updates about my progress as well as how I'm feeling. It helps that she understands that I'm not lazy or procrastinating- that it just takes me longer to do things. If you don't have someone, we can be lets-finish-this buddies if you want? Feel free to PM me :)
Isolation gets to me too, especially since I can't study with normal people right now. Since it's finals week, people are just hunkering down and studying for hours on end. It's frustrating to me because I can't even think about sitting still for that long without getting antsy. Have you tried studying in common areas? For example, I've become a bit of a nomad. Thus far, I have studied at the shopping mall, the local library, several parks, the subway, a few coffeeshops, empty classrooms, dining halls, and random corridors all over campus. Some of them are empty, while others are so crowded that I prefer to focus on my work than on people-watching.
"Absoloodle!"
"He was a fierce hunter, but he was small and easily squished."
I don't really talk to anyone around here, so I mainly have to motivate myself. Let's-finish-this buddies actually sounds like a good idea, even if just for encouragement/positivity. :)
I love the idea of studying in other places! I can't study in a group setting with others either, I get really anxious and can't concentrate because I worry about what they're doing and what I should be doing (there's too much pressure). I love going to cosy coffee shops and libraries though.
If you spoke to other people the way you speak to yourself, how many friends would you have?
I've only just read the end of this thread so sorry if some of this has already been said or not relevant. It always helped me to set up little rewards for myself while I was studying or working on papers, like if I finished reading a certain chapter, I would take a break for tea or if got through a certain section of a paper I would go for a walk, etc. It will be even worse if get stressed out and then don't give yourself any sort of break. It is important to take breaks and reward yourself for the work you have done, rather than looking only at what you haven't yet done.
Also, I color-coordinated all of my deadlines in my planner. Each class got a different color highlighter so I knew exactly when each assignment was due and could gauge how much work would have to go into them. I knew ahead of time that way when I would be busy so I wasn't so surprised by it. Good planning may not make the workload any less but it can decrease the stress of it if you know to expect it.
Oh! Forgot this, it is a bit silly but always made finals week much more pleasant. I lived a cooperative house at my university and one of our traditions for finals weeks was to blow up a balloon for each final exam or major project, write the class or the assignment on each one and tape them up outside of our rooms. After the final or the project was finished we would pop it with a pair of scissors. Getting to pop a balloon after finishing a big a test or assignment is just such an awesome feeling. You get to relieve all the stress of it and get it out of your mind. And in the mean time, you can to have all sorts of colorful balloons on your wall. The awesome thing specifically about where I was living, everyone knew about it so if someone heard your balloon pop from down the hall, they would cheer. In any case, some variation of this might be good motivation for when you have a lot of major exams or assignments.
Last edited by Aquifolia : 03-06-2013 at 05:50 PM.
Reason: balloons!!!
How much do you have left? I'd love to be your Lets-finish-this buddy!
I hope the nomadic studying works for you- it's one of the only things that kept me going this semester. The suggestions above sound great too. For my attention span, I did similar things in my planner but using blank labels to make stickers! That way I could break large projects down into several stickers and get a better idea of how to distribute my workload. Maybe I'll upload a picture later.
Anyways, keep your chin up! You *can* finish! ^^
"Absoloodle!"
"He was a fierce hunter, but he was small and easily squished."
I had the same problems in uni, I lived in a house with a family the first two years which reduced the rent, but I had to babysit the kids for some times when their mum went out. That caused some problems with deadlines, and caused me stress and urges. Most of the time I managed to force my way though it. We were a small group in our uni so we organised study nights/days at people's homes when we could get out - I found going to someone else's pad with my work and doing it as a group was great. We were also in a lovely place in south west Wales so we went out to other places and studied outside in the summer.
I also liked to get out of the house on my own too. There were plenty of places at the uni to sit and study, not just the library, and I found that doing that made me feel less isolated and I could ignore the urges - I've not harmed in public and was not going to start then.
My issue that still haunts me today, is I get bored easily and leave things when I'm bored with it, even if it's half done. I had to force myself to finish it, and my mum helped a lot with that one. There weren't any mobile phones at that point - well, they were the size of a brick and really expensive, so we would make a pact. I would go to the public phone box and the end of the road and chat to her on the phone for about 20 minutes about the work, she would help me set deadlines and, since she's my mum, I really hated to miss them. Can you do something like that?
Good luck!
You don't have to be a monkey to recognize a banana!
