Health Depression

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See someone, talk to them before its too late.

I went through something similar not long out of school. I did quite well in my HSC, and very well in my first year at university where I was working fulltime and taking close to a fulltime study load as well. About halfway through my second year I started to crack from the pressure. Constant stressing about possible failure, dissatisfaction with where I was at, second guessing my choices since school, lack of pleasure from activities I previously enjoyed. I was still functioning but it was just day-to-day existence. I stopped socialising, and HDs became Ds became Cs and Ps.

I ignored the signs for too long, kept plugging away and it eventually just all fell apart. End of my third year I had a complete breakdown, wound up in hospital for a month. Looking back, I should have done something at least 12 months earlier - quit my job, taken a semester off, I don't know. Something to renergise, refocus and get back to enjoying life. As it was I ended up severely burnt out and it took me years to recover properly.
 
Hi Vonn,

As Caesar said, go and see someone. You're a smart girl who will do well with hearing a few strategies to keep you on a happier path.

Also yoga and meditation are incredibly fantastic for stabilising a happier state.

:)
 
Caesar said:
See someone, talk to them before its too late.

I went through something similar not long out of school. I did quite well in my HSC, and very well in my first year at university where I was working fulltime and taking close to a fulltime study load as well. About halfway through my second year I started to crack from the pressure. Constant stressing about possible failure, dissatisfaction with where I was at, second guessing my choices since school, lack of pleasure from activities I previously enjoyed. I was still functioning but it was just day-to-day existence. I stopped socialising, and HDs became Ds became Cs and Ps.

I ignored the signs for too long, kept plugging away and it eventually just all fell apart. End of my third year I had a complete breakdown, wound up in hospital for a month. Looking back, I should have done something at least 12 months earlier - quit my job, taken a semester off, I don't know. Something to renergise, refocus and get back to enjoying life. As it was I ended up severely burnt out and it took me years to recover properly.
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This is kind of what I feel. I did well in my HSC, then I got arrogant about my intelligence. First semester I did awful for my standards and it was so maths based. I kept thinking how can anyone want to ever employ me, how will I ever do anything? My second term and now second year is a bit better but I feel overwhelmed. I can't see the end of a five year degree, and even if I take a semester off I would already feel worthless for quitting and be a semester behind. I just don't know what the hell I'm doing. I put so much pressure on myself - how do you cope with that? I just feel so stupid and embarrassed.
 

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nicky said:
Hi Vonn,

As Caesar said, go and see someone. You're a smart girl who will do well with hearing a few strategies to keep you on a happier path.

Also yoga and meditation are incredibly fantastic for stabilising a happier state.

:)
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Thank you.
Haven't tried yoga but I'd probably go insane without Gym.
 
It's much easier to say to someone else to just "go see someone" than it actually is to do it yourself. I'm not going to tell you that that has all the answers (or any) as I've never done it myself, and there were probably times when I should have.

There are things you can do yourself, like setting challenges for yourself to achieve (uni related or otherwise), a new part time job, something sport related if you're into that, a hobby, whatever. Things can turn around pretty quickly, and it doesn't always take some big event or moment, it can be a bit more of a gradual change to your mindset.
 
vonn said:
This is kind of what I feel. I did well in my HSC, then I got arrogant about my intelligence. First semester I did awful for my standards and it was so maths based. I kept thinking how can anyone want to ever employ me, how will I ever do anything? My second term and now second year is a bit better but I feel overwhelmed. I can't see the end of a five year degree, and even if I take a semester off I would already feel worthless for quitting and be a semester behind. I just don't know what the hell I'm doing. I put so much pressure on myself - how do you cope with that? I just feel so stupid and embarrassed.
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The biggest part is just adjusting expectations. A five year degree - you're talking Law? No wonder you feel like you're underperforming. Everybody does. You bust a gut to get a UAI of 98.5 or whatever it is they're asking these days, which means you're one of the top students in your school. Then you get dumped into a course with a couple of hundred other students who are just as smart as you are, and then take subjects that have anything between a 20% and 40% fail rate. It's a brutal ****ing course, the finish is a long way in the distance, and it will eat your soul at times. People who do other degrees have no idea and no sympathy for what it's like. I worked twice as hard for my Law subjects as I did for my other degree and I still consistently scored 10 points less per subject.

It's even harder to adjust if you come from a private school background because the difference in the way learning is structured is even more pronounced. It took me quite a while to get used to it, get self-motivated, put in the effort that was necessary and feel satisfied with my own performance. I was lucky because I got involved with mock trial and the law society, and made friends with senior students who gave me a lot of support.

There's no need to necessarily go running straight to a doctor or psychologist, but talking to someone who's been there and done that is a massive help in terms of sorting your own headspace and getting some reassurance for what you're thinking. If you're at USYD, the faculty runs (or used to run) a LUCY mentoring programme for female students. I have heard good things.
 
Caesar said:
The biggest part is just adjusting expectations. A five year degree - you're talking Law? No wonder you feel like you're underperforming. Everybody does. You bust a gut to get a UAI of 98.5 or whatever it is they're asking these days, which means you're one of the top students in your school. Then you get dumped into a course with a couple of hundred other students who are just as smart as you are, and then take subjects that have anything between a 20% and 40% fail rate. It's a brutal ******* course, the finish is a long way in the distance, and it will eat your soul at times. People who do other degrees have no idea and no sympathy for what it's like. I worked twice as hard for my Law subjects as I did for my other degree and I still consistently scored 10 points less per subject.

It's even harder to adjust if you come from a private school background because the difference in the way learning is structured is even more pronounced. It took me quite a while to get used to it, get self-motivated, put in the effort that was necessary and feel satisfied with my own performance. I was lucky because I got involved with mock trial and the law society, and made friends with senior students who gave me a lot of support.

If you're at USYD, the faculty runs (or used to run) a LUCY mentoring programme for female students. I have heard good things.
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Yes, USYD.
I'd love to do law but no - Commerce (Finance) and Arts (Economics) so it's just both pure maths and it's not even a cruisey arts course. The most frustrating thing was I wanted to transfer to law but my Uni marks weren't high enough.
I came from a public selective school, so I was always surrounded by extremely intelligent people and had done better than them then, but now some have 'overtaken' me I guess is the word. So I'm frustrated I've gone backwards. I just know this isn't the right course for me, I was always analytical, but I'm stuck. Can't transfer. I just feel stupid.
 
Ahh, I did Commerce (Accounting) as well. The Commerce faculty runs a mentoring programme as well.

Have you spoken to your programme coordinator? Maybe they can rejig your Arts schedule to get you doing more humanities based stuff. Gives you a break from the maths you're doing in your other degree, and if you do well in it then it provides a stronger case to get a transfer across to Law. Don't get too disheartened. Your chances to get into Law will improve over time because it's a course with a high dropout rate.

It's difficult but there are options. Hardest part is revising your own expectations. When I finished school I had pretty fixed ideas about how long uni was going to take, what path I was going to follow, what I was going to do when I finished. When things changed I had a lot of trouble accepting that my previous plans weren't going to happen, and it just ended up holding me back more.
 
vonn said:
Yes, USYD.
I'd love to do law but no - Commerce (Finance) and Arts (Economics) so it's just both pure maths and it's not even a cruisey arts course. The most frustrating thing was I wanted to transfer to law but my Uni marks weren't high enough.
I came from a public selective school, so I was always surrounded by extremely intelligent people and had done better than them then, but now some have 'overtaken' me I guess is the word. So I'm frustrated I've gone backwards. I just know this isn't the right course for me, I was always analytical, but I'm stuck. Can't transfer. I just feel stupid.
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Forget about comparisons with anyone else. Just focus on what you want to do, and what you want to achieve out of it. I hated my studies for my degree, not so much the content but just everything around it. Was very cynical about it all, so I just decided that I'd do the degree, finish it, and then I'd never have to worry about it again. Worked out OK in the end.
 
Caesar said:
Ahh, I did Commerce (Accounting) as well. The Commerce faculty runs a mentoring programme as well.

Have you spoken to your programme coordinator? Maybe they can rejig your Arts schedule to get you doing more humanities based stuff. Gives you a break from the maths you're doing in your other degree, and if you do well in it then it provides a stronger case to get a transfer across to Law. Don't get too disheartened. Your chances to get into Law will improve over time because it's a course with a high dropout rate.

It's difficult but there are options. Hardest part is revising your own expectations. When I finished school I had pretty fixed ideas about how long uni was going to take, what path I was going to follow, what I was going to do when I finished. When things changed I had a lot of trouble accepting that my previous plans weren't going to happen, and it just ended up holding me back more.
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You've helped me out a lot Caesar, thanks. It's good to even share a few posts with someone who's been here before.
 
neroblack said:
Forget about comparisons with anyone else. Just focus on what you want to do, and what you want to achieve out of it. I hated my studies for my degree, not so much the content but just everything around it. Was very cynical about it all, so I just decided that I'd do the degree, finish it, and then I'd never have to worry about it again. Worked out OK in the end.
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How long was your degree if you don't mind me asking?
It's hard for me personally, 5 years and that is not including post grad. It just seems never-ending.
 
vonn said:
How long was your degree if you don't mind me asking?
It's hard for me personally, 5 years and that is not including post grad. It just seems never-ending.
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Was 5 years in the end, due to me making some changes part way through. Ended up being sort of half a year out of whack, and the last year was more of less part time and I was working 3 or 4 days a week. I knew what I wanted to do workwise (more or less) so I just stuck at it for that, and did a lot of things outside of uni (mostly sportwise) that I was able to take pretty seriously so it was a good distraction, or outlet.

At the end of the day, you're only there because you want to be. Is it not what you expected it to be? To me, and I'm sure it differs between degrees, Uni is set up for academics and not so much for people wanting to move into a profession. But I know for a fact that I'd get a lot more out of my uni studies if I were to do them now than I did at the time. You can still work hard there without making it the whole focus of your life though.
 
vonn said:
Thank you.
Haven't tried yoga but I'd probably go insane without Gym.
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Yeah my younger cousin is similar to you in that regard, which i totally admire because when i was your age i just went insane. :p

Thanks for sharing vonn. As you can see by the responses your post has elicited, people you don't even know are cheering for you. Caesar seems like he has a lot of wisdom to impart in regards to where you're at, as it appears you guys share some commonalities.

Good luck.

Eckart Tolle is great to listen to during your introverted times as well.
 

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I wanted to update this because what you said Caesar about changing things before it's too late resonated with me.
I know it's not exactly getting in contact with the business school psychologist or anything drastic but I've decided to only take on 3 units next semester, instead of 4, and dropping down to two if I can't handle that, with the focus on getting more enjoyment back into my life by seeing friends, spending more time with my partner and whatnot and getting back a healthier balance.
I know that sounds really normal, but it was huge for me because it changed my whole degree structure and for someone as rigid and organised as me who likes to think I have my life planned out and at what age I want to do what - it was a pretty big step so thank you.
 
vonn said:
I wanted to update this because what you said Caesar about changing things before it's too late resonated with me.
I know it's not exactly getting in contact with the business school psychologist or anything drastic but I've decided to only take on 3 units next semester, instead of 4, and dropping down to two if I can't handle that, with the focus on getting more enjoyment back into my life by seeing friends, spending more time with my partner and whatnot and getting back a healthier balance.
I know that sounds really normal, but it was huge for me because it changed my whole degree structure and for someone as rigid and organised as me who likes to think I have my life planned out and at what age I want to do what - it was a pretty big step so thank you.
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Good to hear, sounds like a great decision. :thumbsu:
 
vonn said:
I wanted to update this because what you said Caesar about changing things before it's too late resonated with me.
I know it's not exactly getting in contact with the business school psychologist or anything drastic but I've decided to only take on 3 units next semester, instead of 4, and dropping down to two if I can't handle that, with the focus on getting more enjoyment back into my life by seeing friends, spending more time with my partner and whatnot and getting back a healthier balance.
I know that sounds really normal, but it was huge for me because it changed my whole degree structure and for someone as rigid and organised as me who likes to think I have my life planned out and at what age I want to do what - it was a pretty big step so thank you.
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I have sometimes questioned the usefulness of this thread. I stand corrected. Good advice from someone who understands and actually cares can be invaluable. It also helps if those giving advice are not idiots, as appears to be mostly the case in this thread. A girlfriend I used to have reckoned the onset of the popularity of the 'talking professions' was because the extended family ceased to exist, and any community, with whom people could discuss their problems, had become fragmented, to the extent that it was no longer identifiable. BigFooty as useful.
 
Got a bad msg yesterday saying a guy i knew who battled depression and gambling addiction took his life on Monday night. Spent some time with the guy the other month over a beer talking about our depression and issues. He picked me up when i was really down giving advice and now this? feel so flat. Not sure if im angry or not, just shocked i guess.
 
Primetime Pricey said:
Got a bad msg yesterday saying a guy i knew who battled depression and gambling addiction took his life on Monday night. Spent some time with the guy the other month over a beer talking about our depression and issues. He picked me up when i was really down giving advice and now this? feel so flat. Not sure if im angry or not, just shocked i guess.
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I'm sorry to hear about your loss price. Recently a friend of mine took her life and I'm still unsure how i sit with it. It's just shit.
 
nicky said:
I'm sorry to hear about your loss price. Recently a friend of mine took her life and I'm still unsure how i sit with it. It's just shit.
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Yeah, its tough. I can understand why as ive been there many times but then the thought of family and mates stopped me so it must have been really bad for him.
 
After the news coming out on Harry O's personal problems, the thread on the main board is making me absolutely sick.

Goes to show that there still is a long way to go with raising awareness about depression.
 
Correct. I've dropped out of that thread as most of the comments now just piss me off.
 
Yep I have, Fluoxetine or something like that.

These were the first ones that were prescribed to me, so obviously haven't had any troubles with finding the right one for me.

Took me about 2 weeks to get over the side effects and for them to start working.
 

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