Help What habits got you through college?

[uncat_]

~~this is my first post, orginally posted in suicide discussion thread~~

To those in college, or those who have already graduated college, what has helped you?

I'm barely through my first quarter at university, and i'm already starting to fall back into my old habits. CBTing is starting to feel like more and more of an option, but im trying my best to keep those thoughts under control. i'm really struggling with forming better study habits, i've never been too good at motivating myself.
My only goal right now is to graduate, hopefully pursuing a degree/career in astrophysics. i know it might be delusional, especially with my struggle with jsut keeping myself alive. but i genuinely want to live to see myself achieve those goals. i know it's possible, i just need help.

So, again, how can i do better in college without wanting to end my life every 5 minutes?

 

[AloeGarten]

maybe not the best advice but weed and adderall got me through it, weed helped me relax and not feel depressed for few hours and adderall made the work easier

 

[uncat_]

maybe not the best advice but weed and adderall got me through it, weed helped me relax and not feel depressed for few hours and adderall made the work easier

haha, yeah honestly

 

[torturedmind]

The fact that you are in college and making the attempt is amazing and very admirable, it is not easy to do these things while dealing with depression and suicidal thoughts. I know I don't know you, but I'm proud of you for trying. I'm sure you can do it, just remember that your mental health is more important than your degree. Just try to remind yourself that the struggle of earning the degree won't last forever, you will be proud that you stuck through when you finally earn that degree. But don't be too hard on yourself, try your best but take breaks when you need to. If you have friends or family that you're close to, maybe try to interact with them often to keep yourself from getting in a really dark place.

 

[rosenwasser]

Hej, I'm in my second year at uni (I'm already 24 but well) and have been struggling in a similar way. I'm so impressed with your degree - I'm a law student with focus on environmental law and have been looking into how new reasearch in the field of physics can influence the way climate litigation goes and am amazed by the subject and the people in the field. Astrophysics are of course different than what research I work with but I do think that physics is a beautiful subject in its raw logic.

The advice that I can give is than uni is a marathon and short-term struggle doesn't have to mean failure. I had an incredibly bad time this February and March and everything in my mid-terms was a *catastrophe*. I still managed to finish the year and get a scholarship, props to my therapist for getting me there. I'm so used to fucking up and failure that I was ready to just give up on the spot at that time because I was so convinced that I'm just going to keep fucking up. As hard as it is, you have to keep going. Even if you find the right habits, even if you have a productive period, chances are that you're going to experience struggles too and you can't give up then.

I deal with my executive dysfunction and constantly missing learning days because of suicidal thoughts through tools. I use RemNote for flashcards and Obsidian for my database where I put my notes, court rulings, whatever (both of these are free). Sometimes it's terribly disorganised but I have a plugin there that is able to find literally everything (it's called Omnisearch), so I can put stuff in, forget it in my next crisis and still find it the week after. My RemNote flashcards know when I have to repeat them and it is a small walk of shame to repeat 300 of them after I was unable to learn for a week but I have this to help me and don't feel so overwhelmed with the situation.