PTSD is ruining my life

I suffered severe physical, sexual, and emotional abuse for the first 11 years of my life (I'm 21 now). I'm supposed to graduate in May, but my PTSD has been triggered. I'm failing classes due to absences and bad grades, I go back and forth between depression/fatigue and flashbacks/anxiety, and I only have one friend and no familial support. I do see a therapist once a week, but its a 2 hour drive to and from her. I'm taking 19 hours and I have accommodations, but I don't think I can make it through this semester and it makes me feel like a failure. I was diagnosed with ADD and PTSD when I was a teen and they gave me adderall, but coming off of it feels so bad so I stopped for several years. Recently, I've started taking it again because I just can't seem to cope and get anything done without it this semester. I'm worried about my future and I don't know what career I want. I feel worthless, lonely, and hopeless. Everything seems to be falling apart. I fear it may be too late to raise my grades. School has always been a struggle, but I was able to get high B's. Now I am in the D and F range. I don't think I could struggle through another semester if I fail this one. While I don't think I could kill myself, I imagine something else killing me to relieve my suffering. I feel stuck and I don't know what to do. Things don't seem like they will ever get better. What do I do? Do things ever get better?

You can get through this. You will. You have a mountain of worries and trauma on your shoulders, from what it sounds like. I wish there was a magic solution to your issues, but if there is one, I don't know what it is.

I can't and won't promise that things will get better or worse. I will say that life changes, some for the better, some for worse. In the meantime all you can do is focus your energy on right now. The future is unpredictable. Period. I've found that occasionally we can affect a "self fulfilling prophecy" by thinking something will happen. But it doesn't have to.

Again, focus on now. Focus on today. As much as you can. Grades are just letters. If you don't know what you want to do with your life, that is okay. Maybe you're not even on the right path. Maybe you are.

I find that when I get overwhelmed by those awful 'what-ifs', I focus on what is. What can I do now, today, tomorrow... Start small with a list of what you want to and can do. Maybe it's just one bit of homework. Then mark it off the list. It will feel good to accomplish it, regardless of your grade. Maybe you just want to get out for a walk. That's good. Do it.

The big picture of life is SO much bigger than we realize. My mother used to always tell me the old cliché, "Don't sweat the small stuff." (Which used to make me SO mad. Lol) But then she would say, "Just remember, it's all small stuff." And now that I'm at middle age, after all the trauma, hopeless feelings, failures and happiness, too, I realize she was absolutely right. Life is going to take you in directions you never saw coming, some are going to hurt like. H.E.double-hockey-sticks. Some of those moments will be so wonderful you won't believe you could ever feel so much joy. It is truly tough. No doubt about it. But this too shall pass. It will, and you will learn from it and grow, no matter what happens with your college semester.

I am sending good thoughts your way. I hope you will accept them. I messed up a few semesters myself so a bad semester is no reason to stop trying next semester. Sometimes a small problem can grow into a huge problem when we let it.

You survived your childhood and you can survive a bit more just a little longer... I promise. I really truly promise... you. It will be better some days and other days may just suck, but we will both keep trying anyway.