Let me preface this with how stupid I know this is. I have access to an education, a roof over my head, I'm debt free, which is an absolute miracle for a college student, and am generally stable financially. I know that my life is good regardless.
But one thing about me is that I've used the few things I'm good at as a crutch for my mental health. I'm mildly crippled, I can't jump without extreme pain and running is hard, I can't make any kind of art, reading literature feels like driving a nail through my head, physics is incomprehensible to me, and I have social anxiety issues. So I always found solace in the things that I actually am good at and am passionate about. I love biology and math, and there is a small but growing niche there for biological data processing with computers and the like, and I've been able to find a Uni that lets me explore that niche, and for the most part, I've been loving it. I don't consider myself very intelligent but have managed to get some success by sticking to my strengths. I say this because I want to clearly show that there isn't much else for me as far as careers go, and there are some hurdles I can't avoid.
Enter organic chemistry.
I need three semester long classes worth of it: two of lecture and one of lab. Lab was great, easy, and useful. First semester of lecture was difficult, but ultimately okay: the principles taught there were consistent and made sense.
Second semester of lecture wasn't just difficult, it was difficult in a way that made me question my sanity and basic adherence to reason. The reactions taught follow just enough universal rules to make the course seem like problem solving, but each case is an exception to such a degree that it makes the course memorization. But when you memorize things that are close, but no cigar, connections, crossovers, and memory tricks happen without you wanting or realizing it, and that illusion of rationality supercedes what is actually happening in that case. I would study 4-5 hours a day thriughout the semster for Ds and Fs on tests. I seemd to be never learning anything- everything in my head was transient and confused, a web of failed connections between reactions that seem related but occur in completely different ways.
I failed the course in the spring and retook it this fall. I expected things to be different. They weren't. Same study hours. Same failed attempts at problem solving. Same inability to memorize things so closely related. I thought I had a learning disability for a while. Sure, other people thought it was a hard course, but this felt contrary to the fundamental nature of how I think. I thought I was going insane. Things I thought I had studied and knew with 100% confidence would be wrong on tests. Check back to my notes, and they agree with the test, but somewhere my mind had made some false memory from some other similar reaction mechanism and made me wrong. I felt like I couldnt trust my memories for anything, and that mentality leeched into other aspects of my life slowly, making me spacey, irritatable, and rambly. I wasn't sleeping, and started vomitting from stress. I lost appetite or forgot meals because I couldnt stop thinking about that stupid class.
I went into the final with what I would call a 50/50 chance of passing based on what grade I could reasonably expect. After that, it was a torturous week and a half before semester grades release, where I made the decision in the title. I would kill myself on Christmas eve because I couldn't bear to see my family on Christmas in the state I would be in if I failed. I coudlnt imagine going through it all again. It would be too much.
Grades released Saturday. I got the exact lowest passing grade. Still passing, though. My GPA will have to deal with it. I've had a couple days to cool off and have been trying to look at what happened as removed from myself as possible. This post is part of that. I felt empty at first but overwhelmingly relieved now. Its over. Right now, thats all that matters.
The second part of this post is that I know how messed up this is, how much of an overreaction this is, I know this isn't a normal reaction, so much so that I've reached out for help before when a similar thing happened in high school. But my experiences with mental healthcare got me to a hospital that held me against my will, a pyschiatrist who refused to alter my drug dose when I was experiencing horrible side effects, and eventually, multiple suicide attempts. I know that was likely an isolated case of one bad circuit, but I'm terrified, very irrationally, of going for help.
I don't have a plan for my mental health going forward. I didn't think I would need one. If I can find someone who is a therapist, not a pyschiatrist, and avoid talking about suicide with them, then I will talk to them. But I'm still scared, because the person who referred me to the hospital wasn't a pyschiatrist, and I ended up worse than I started. I'm going to try something, but that doesn't stop me from feeling like I'm stepping into a minefield.
Submitted December 25, 2018 at 08:31AM by ThrowawayFuntime54 http://bit.ly/2TcmQEK
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