[mn136]

It's been nearing 2 years, and it seems like everyone on here is a war veteran when it comes to depression. I just want to be happy. I want to succeed. I want to get good grades and make myself proud. But I can't.

My life is a cycle of making a goal, not doing it, getting more depressed, losing hope, crying, feeling better, and so on. No matter how much I want something, I find it so ****ing impossible to do, studying for a test, doing homework, is so hard.

It just keeps happening over and over again, and I'm starting to think it's better to give up now before getting my hopes squashed down over and over again. I'm going turn out as a failure anyway, looking at the way things are going. Why not just accept it and make everything a little easier?

I've given up on the hope that I will change and one day I'll start becoming a hardworking student like I once was. Im so ****ing done with that hopeless ****. I don't want to delude myself anymore.

[Rohag]

Hello, Mn136. Just a thought - please discard if it doesn't do anything for you: Developing an ability to work hard is a real achievement; "good" grades are laudable and perhaps indicators of potential, but they are at best a symbolic achievement. The artificial goals of student life are seductive. But, they only dimly reflect - and sometimes distort - the substantive needs of adult life.

A person suffering from depression has too little spare energy and focus to spend on goals that will not sustain them in the long term.

[mountainstream]

[eyesclosed]

I wouldn't judge yourself on school grades it's who you are that's important.

[mn136]

Originally Posted by Rohag

Hello, Mn136. Just a thought - please discard if it doesn't do anything for you: Developing an ability to work hard is a real achievement; "good" grades are laudable and perhaps indicators of potential, but they are at best a symbolic achievement. The artificial goals of student life are seductive. But, they only dimly reflect - and sometimes distort - the substantive needs of adult life.

A person suffering from depression has too little spare energy and focus to spend on goals that will not sustain them in the long term.

That is very true.

[mn136]

Originally Posted by eyesclosed

I wouldn't judge yourself on school grades it's who you are that's important.

That actually made me feel better.

[kathryn369]

I don't know whether this is helpful, but it's my experience. A few years ago, I was doing very well in graduate school when I had a bad mental episode that lasted for months. I did everything I could to stay in school, but I was just too sick. At the time, I was devastated.

Yet today I have a job that suits me much better than the career I was studying for would have. My life is more manageable and more enjoyable than it would have been. Now when I have severe depression, I lower my expectations of myself and just do the best I can in the moment. Oddly, the more I accept my limitations, the less they hold me back.

[Fuzzybear]

[Sunflower123]

My first semester of college I had straight A's in the middle of the semester and fell into a deep depression...stopped going to class and made straight F's. Once I got back on my feet, I repeated those classes and made A's.

It can turn around. Hang in there.