Is/was college difficult for you?

[Hahem]

I have social anxiety and have been depressed for many years now. Uni just started I am feeling so pressured and exhausted to keep up. I feel I have no energy left.
Has anyone else suffered a similar problem?

 

[Grumble]

My college experience was both very good as well as awful.

Unfortunately, the "very good" was early on, and the "awful" came later. So I didn't finish it. Dropping out was an extremely difficult thing to do, but as I look back on it, I know it was the right decision at the time.

I never checked into this myself, but you could look into mental health support services at your school? Part of your tuition will go towards these services. Some teachers and colleges will make concessions for mental health reasons. Some teachers and institutions will be more accommodating than others in this respect, so there's no predicting what you'd get out of doing that.

I wish I had something to say that would be more helpful or encouraging. I am very familiar with the struggle.

 

[ThatStateOfMind]

I have social anxiety and depression, but I weirdly thrive in college. I haven't been to uni yet, I'm in a community college right now so maybe the tiny size of it helps. Though I will say, I've dealt with some stress surrounding school, it's always been better than a job to me, and I haven't dealt with what you have.

Definitely try to look into therapy at your uni, my community college and future university both offer mental health services free of charge. Also, what is your course load like? Maybe you're doing too many courses at one time. I can do 5-6 courses a semester, but I have a friend who struggles with anything more than 3 or so and if I remember correctly, she's only taking 2 this semester, so course load could very well be an issue if it's too much for you.

 

[RosebyAnyName]

From an educational standpoint: it heavily depends on which program you enter, some are a lot more stressful than others. I completely failed my first degree because it was too stressful, but I excelled once I switched majors. It was still stressful, but the material was more familiar to my skill sets so I felt more prepared. I didn't have a lot of spare time aside from studying and I wouldn't do it again, but I don't regret getting my degree.

As for the social portion: it's completely what you make of it. I think it heavily depends on if you're in residence or not. If you're living in residence you're forced to get exposure to others, which can be great or it can be hell depending on who you're stuck with. If you're not living in residence, you have to make more of an effort to put yourself out there but with the silver lining that if things turn south you're not forced to deal with it, which can be especially great if you're an introvert. Some people don't mature after highschool and some of the worst people I've ever met were from college / university. I'm glad I wasn't in residence and forced to live with some of these people, I think I would have actually CtBed during university if that were the case.

 

[LaVieEnRose]

Considering I dropped out three times for psychosocial reasons, yes.

 

[LaughingGoat]

For people like us, I found graduate school to be far simpler in this sense since we all were working in our careers and living our own lives.

 

[Ash]

I had, to probably misquote as it's been a long time, the best of days and the worst of days. I'd your bed support, as for it and don't look for it at the bottom of a glass/bottle as I can tell you with hindsight that it ain't there and there's nothing shameful about the former. Otherwise skip forward a few decades and you might be in my position. And trust me, you want college to be a mixed bag because nothing is perfect but to be able to look back and know that's when you grew up and sorted yourself out and started to heal. Xx

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

It got easier once I got a Chegg account and realized that certain upper division classes will literally bend over backwards to curve my grade into passing just so they can maintain a positive graduation rate.

 

[Lady Laudanum]

I got good grades but still dropped out for mental health reasons.

 

[Aloneandinpain]

I graduated, although the last year was hard work. I didn't really fit in socially anywhere, so I mostly failed that part. In hindsight, finding friends would have been just as useful as graduating, perhaps more so and I'm extremely lonely.

 

[SnakesButNoLadder]

Guessing your from UK if you don't use college and university interchangeably.

College was shit, teachers kept bringing their arguments into the classroom it was low-quality slideshows for every lesson.

College also covered up my abuse, took a apprenticeship and was exploited, bullied, and sexually harassed into panic attacks, told the principle and he started a investigation on a Friday and closed it on a Monday (and didn't tell me). I'm a guy, but hell, no one cares.