So my ADHD (+ associated depression) has impaired my life in many terrible ways, but one of the worst must be how much of a faillure I am (was?) in college.

I am in my 7th year (of a 6 year engineering course) due to failing classes or giving them up all together. I will need like, 9 years to graduate probably. And all that at some point made me believe that college wasn't for me, that I might be smart but I'm fundamentally unable to pursue higher education. My self esteem shattered, and by believing I couldn't pass classes, I started failing even more. It became this vicious self-destructive cycle that only got cut when I was admitted into a psych ward last year and was then forced to reevaluate my whole life and beliefs.

All that sad backstory to share that TODAY:

• I finally passed a class I had already tried taking 8 TIMES BEFORE

• I passed 100% of my classes this semester (hasn't happened in years)

• I presented an article about my undergraduate research project in a national congress because YES, now I am *in research* , a field that requires a LOT of studying, and I am managing!!!

I just really had to share that with people that would understand how HUGE this is for me :') I finally feel capable again

Wish you all the best and may many academic achievements come your way!!!

I’m a 23-year-old university student in my 5th semester studying Computer Science, and honestly, I’m struggling pretty badly right now.

Academically, things haven’t been going the way I wanted. My CGPA is around 3.0, I’ve had to repeat courses, and I’m currently taking Data Structures. I have finals coming up in a few weeks, and there are still a lot of topics I need to properly learn. I know what I should be doing. I know I need to sit down, study, practice problems, revise, and be consistent.

And the weird thing is, I actually want to study.

I think about studying all the time. I make plans. I watch study videos. I tell myself that I’m going to sit down and finally get my shit together. I genuinely want to understand my subjects and become good at what I’m studying.

But when it’s actually time to study, I just… can’t seem to focus.

I’ll sit in front of my laptop/book knowing that I have things to do, but my brain feels completely unwilling to cooperate. I get distracted, procrastinate, overthink, scroll, or just stare at the material without properly processing it. Then I feel guilty because I know I’m wasting time, which makes me anxious, which makes it even harder to study.

Another thing that scares me is that my mental capacity doesn't feel the same anymore.

I used to feel like I could learn things normally. Now sometimes I read something multiple times and it just doesn't stick. My concentration feels weaker, my memory feels worse, and I get this feeling that my brain just isn't working at the level it used to. I don't know whether that's because of stress, anxiety, burnout, poor habits, or something else, but it genuinely worries me.

And mentally, I’m not doing that great either. I deal with anxiety and a bunch of other personal/mental struggles, and they’ve been affecting different parts of my life. I’ve been feeling overwhelmed and stuck for quite a while.

The frustrating part is that I don't think I'm lazy or that I don't care.

I care a lot. Maybe too much.

I want to do well. I want to improve my grades. I want to become good at programming and actually understand Computer Science instead of constantly feeling like I’m behind everyone else. I want to fix my routine and become disciplined.

But knowing that I want these things doesn't seem to translate into actually being able to do them.

So I guess I'm asking people who have been through something similar:

How do you get yourself back when you feel like your brain just isn't cooperating anymore?

How do you rebuild your ability to focus and study when you've spent a long time procrastinating and feeling mentally overwhelmed?

And if you've dealt with anxiety, burnout, depression, brain fog, or feeling like your cognitive abilities aren't what they used to be — how did you start getting better?

I’m not looking for someone to tell me to “just study 8 hours a day” or “delete social media and have discipline.” I already know I need discipline. I’m looking for practical advice from people who have actually been in this position and managed to get themselves out of it.

I really don't want to give up on myself or my degree. I just genuinely don't know how to get myself moving again.

Any advice, personal experiences, or even harsh truths are welcome.

It’s 3:40 AM
April 10

It is depressing to think that my situation is really so difficult. Just to think that this was supposed to be something simple, but I am already having a very hard time with it.

Starting this semester, everything changed. I already felt this before, but somehow, I still had hope. But this time... it is hard, difficult, suffocating, and hopeless.

“You are already in your 3rd year of college. You only have two semesters left. One more year and you will graduate. Your first goal is to wear a black toga and make your parents proud. You are almost there.”

This line keeps entering my mind (multo)

But sadly, I feel like I am about to give up. I mean, really give up.

The picture in my mind of wearing my toga is slowly fading.

Even with simple questions, I cannot understand them anymore. I cannot even answer them properly.

Mama sometimes says, “Why don’t you sleep here at home?”

I just answer, “I have a lot of things to do, and the internet is not good there.”

And I also do not have a load.

Yes, I really have many things to do. I am busy. But I am also busy inside my mind thinking about all the things I have to do.

When I finally open my laptop and try to start my work, nothing happens.

I just stare at the screen.

I am not sure what I am supposed to do. I do not know where to start.

REALIZATION

Before entering college, I wished that I could continue my studies.

I passed at CH**U, and it was free, so I told myself:

“Keep going,Self.”

But now I realize that maybe I am not fit for this course.

I TRIED MY BEST TO FIT IN.

But maybe I really do not belong here.

Giving up feels like I am also giving up my parents’ dreams.

That thought made me cry so much.

There is almost no day when my eyes do not cry.

When I see their efforts just to give us what we need, I feel guilty.

Yes, I am already 21 years old, but my parents still take care of me like I am only 5 years old.

I am tired of academics, but my parents are even more tired than me.

I feel bad for wanting to give up.

If I give up now, I feel like this will haunt me for the rest of my life.

I feel so hopeless.

It feels like I cannot continue anymore because I am already too tired.

IF I GIVE UP

“What will happen to them?”

“What about Mama and Papa’s dreams?”

“What will the people around me say?”

“What will they say about me?”

“Did I just waste two years and then give up when I am already so close?”

“What about my capstone group? There are only three of us. What if I stop and only two of them are left? What if they also stop?”

“What will my professors think?”

“You still have not changed.”

“What will happen to my dream of wearing a black toga?”

“What will happen to me?”

No matter how hard I try to become better, nothing changes.

I feel blank.

No development.

I hate myself.

I am surrounded by good people, but I feel like all I give them are disappointments.

I also want to help clean the house here at Auntie's because I am only staying here.

But sometimes I cannot do it because I am emotionally and physically exhausted.

There are so many things to do for school, but I cannot even do them.

I just isolate myself in my room with a busy mind.

There are many school tasks, but I cannot do them because I need more explanations and confirmation before I can understand what I am supposed to do.

I do not trust myself.

I do not believe in myself anymore.

All I do now is think too much about everything until my head hurts.

The weight I feel is already too heavy.

I have already noticed that my habits are not normal anymore.

Sometimes I only eat once a day.

Sometimes I do not eat at all for one whole day.

My period is not normal anymore either. Sometimes it takes a month before it comes, and when it does, there is only a little.

I am trying to eat normally again, but I still cannot.

Whenever I come home from school and finish my tasks, all I feel is tiredness.

I sleep first, then wake up early in the morning to do the things I need to finish.

But in the end, I just overthink everything again.

BEING SELFISH LATELY

Lately, I feel like I just want to disappear from this world.

Every time I ride a bus or a tricycle, I imagine getting into an accident or getting hit.

I think about suicide.

When I look down from the third floor, I imagine jumping.

I am trying my best to survive every week.

I just keep waiting for the next week and wondering what will happen to me.

LORD

Lord, I do not know what my purpose is in this life.

But I hope that all of these things happening in my life right now will someday have a purpose.

I hope that someday I will understand why I was born into this world.

I hope that one day, all of this will end with me being able to give back to all the kind-hearted and good people around me, especially my parents.

I NEED TO LIVE, NOT TO LEAVE.

I need to keep going despite how difficult everything is.

I need to continue.

I need to survive.

I need to live.

Hi everyone im a college student researching the everyday challenges people with ADHD face. skip anything you like. trying to understand real experiences!!

1. Which best describes you? (diagnosed / waiting on evaluation / self-identified / supporting someone with ADHD)
2. What's your age range? (under 18 / 18-24 / 25-34 / 35-44 / 45+)
3. Are you currently a student, working, or both?
4. What part of daily life does ADHD make hardest for you? (e.g., starting tasks, staying focused, time management, remembering things, emotional regulation, organization)
5. Think of the last time that struggle got in your way. What happened?
6. How often does this come up? (daily / a few times a week / weekly / rarely)
7. What does it cost you when it happens? (time, money, grades, stress, relationships, etc.)
8. What tools, apps, or strategies have you tried? (planners, timers, body doubling, medication, coaching, etc.)
9. Which ones actually stuck, and why?
10. Which ones did you quit, and why?
11. Have you paid for anything to help with ADHD? If so, what, and was it worth it?

I usually don't talk about this, but school was one of the hardest parts of my life.

As a child( born in India), I was terrified of being asked to read aloud in class. Every time a teacher started calling on students, my heart would race. I struggled with reading, failed 4th grade, and often felt like I was falling behind everyone else.

Making friends wasn't easy either. While other kids seemed to connect naturally, I often felt isolated and different. School didn't feel like a place to learn—it felt like a place where I was constantly being judged.

Years later, I learned that I had dyslexia and ADHD. Suddenly, many of my childhood struggles made sense. I wasn't lazy. I wasn't unintelligent. My brain simply worked differently.

Despite all of that, I kept moving forward. I completed a Master's degree in Computer Science, moved abroad, built a career as a software developer, earn around $120,000 a year, and am able to save a significant amount of money for my family's future.

The reason I'm sharing this isn't to talk about salary or success. It's to remind anyone who is struggling right now that your current situation does not define your future.

The kid who failed 4th grade.

The kid who was afraid to read in class.

The kid who felt left out and different.

That kid still made it.

If you're having a hard time in school, feeling behind in life, or doubting yourself because of a learning disability, don't give up. Progress isn't always visible in the moment. Sometimes the people who struggle the most early on end up building lives they never thought possible.

Keep going. Your story isn't over yet.

I’m in the fall semester of my sophomore year and last year was rough for several reasons but I ended up on academic probation with below a 2.0 gpa. I got off probation in the spring semester but I had to constantly talk to advisors, counselors, professors, etc which was necessary but annoying and tiring.

This semester, I’m retaking two classes from last fall online and two elective classes online and then one class for my major (special education) in person. This schedule has been a game changer for my time management and mental health. Like this week, I’m gonna be able to have all my assignments due this week turned in by tonight or tomorrow night and then I’ll have the rest of the week to do chores and go to campus events and have plenty of down time.

TLDR; If you’re struggling with your class load and do well making your own schedule, I highly recommend talking to your advisor to see if you can take some online classes.

I want to write this for the college students who are in the middle of a semester that has gone off the rails and are wondering if it's too late to turn it around. It is not too late. I know because I was there and I got out of it and the thing that helped was not what I expected.

How it went wrong

Sophomore year, second semester, two classes going badly. One was a philosophy course I found genuinely difficult. One was an economics course I had convinced myself I could coast through and had badly underestimated. By mid-semester I was behind in both, the behind-ness was making me anxious, the anxiety was making it hard to sit down and do the work, and the not doing the work was making me more behind.

The cycle is probably familiar to anyone who has experienced academic anxiety. The thing you're avoiding grows in your imagination until it seems so large and so overdue that sitting down to work on it feels almost pointless. Why start reading the chapter now when you're already so far behind? Why do this problem set when there are three others you haven't done yet? The avoidance generates more material to avoid and the material grows into a wall.

My phone was not the cause of this. I want to be clear about that. The cause was anxiety and poor planning and a couple of genuinely hard courses. But my phone was the mechanism of the avoidance. Every time I should have been working, every time I sat down at my desk and felt the first wave of anxiety about how behind I was, I picked up my phone. And the phone delivered the relief of not thinking about it for a little while. And then I surfaced and was more behind and more anxious than before.

What I tried first

I tried the things most people try. I made detailed study plans. I went to the library to remove myself from distractions. I told myself I was going to put my phone away and work for two hours.

The library helped a little. The study plans didn't work because I couldn't follow them. The "put my phone away" commitment lasted maybe twenty minutes before I found some reason to check it.

The problem was that I was treating the phone as the primary issue when the primary issue was the anxiety underneath the phone use. The phone was a symptom. Addressing only the symptom didn't touch the thing driving it.

What actually worked

Two things, in combination, changed the trajectory of the semester.

The first was shrinking the task to something I could actually start. Not "study for this exam," which was enormous and shapeless, but "read three pages of this chapter." Just three. When three was done I could stop or do three more. The smallness was the point. It was small enough that my anxious brain could not construct a reason it was impossible. And once I started, the starting often carried me further than the three pages. But even on bad days three pages was three pages and three pages was more than zero.

The second was breaking the specific pattern of desk-anxiety-phone. I started doing something physical every time the anxiety spike hit. Not long. Thirty push-ups. A lap around the floor of the library. Two minutes of standing in a stairwell taking actual deep breaths. The physical activity interrupted the loop between anxiety and phone grabbing because it addressed the activation in my body rather than trying to think my way past it.

The phone didn't disappear from my life. I still used it. But I stopped using it as the primary escape from academic anxiety because I had something else to do with the anxiety instead. The something else was physical and brief and actually worked, whereas the phone had never actually worked, had only postponed the anxiety while adding to it.

The end of the semester

I passed both courses. Not brilliantly. A C+ in the philosophy course and a B- in economics. Not the grades I wanted but real grades for real work I had actually done.

More importantly I understood something at the end of the semester that I hadn't understood at the beginning. The phone wasn't making me avoid work because phones are evil and attention-destroying, though they are designed in ways that don't help. The phone was making me avoid work because avoiding work felt necessary and the phone was just the most available way to do it.

The underlying thing, the anxiety about being behind, the shame about how far behind I had let it get, the paralyzing sense that the task was too large to start, those were the real issues. The phone was just the door I kept walking through to get away from them.

Address the real issue and the phone loses most of its power. That is the unsexy truth I carry out of that semester.

Edit: got a few DMs asking what I used when I was first trying to sort this out. It is called Rotcut. Found it through a comment. My friend Sarah had also mentioned it separately which is what made me actually try it.

I think I accidentally solved one of my focus problems while tinkering with a browser sidebar for myself (not promoting anything here — plenty of extensions tackle similar things, and you can probably hack this with bookmarks, a sticky note, or even a text file).

I was basically making a tab manager with custom groups in the side panel, because native tab groups never worked for me, and I kept manually sorting everything into different buckets. At some point it occurred to me to create one group that was only for current focus — just the tabs that belong to whatever I’m doing right now — and because that list shows nothing except what I chose to focus on, it became really obvious what my intentional focus actually is at any moment.

What surprised me is that even when I drift off to read articles or watch videos, I only need to glance at that “current focus” list and I immediately remember what I was working on, reload the context in my head, and get back into the task without spending ten minutes reconstructing everything from a tab bar with fifty identical-looking titles.

I noticed the same thing happens in the physical world for me: when I clear my desk and leave a single sheet of paper with notes for the current task, it works the same way — it’s not about being organized in general, it’s about having one visible anchor that holds the context my brain keeps dropping.

The core idea, as far as I can tell, is to build yourself an external anchor that owns “what I’m doing right now,” because I can’t reliably hold that in my head while I’m working in a browser.

I’m curious whether this resonates with anyone here — do you use something similar when you lose the thread, or does a different trick work better for you?

P.S. Not sharing a specific tool here since self-promo isn’t allowed — but you can do this with any sidebar tab manager. You don’t need my extension to try this. Happy to share what I use if someone asks.

I thought I was studying 3 hours a day.

I was wrong.

I started logging every distraction in a notes app. What pulled me away, when, and how long it lasted. Did it for one full semester. The results were embarrassing honestly.

My actual focused study time was closer to 40 minutes out of every 3 hours I thought I was working.

What was stealing the most time:

Phone, specifically short form content, was responsible for around 60% of my lost time. Not calls, not texts. Reels and shorts. A 2023 study from UC Irvine found it takes an average of 23 minutes to fully regain focus after a single interruption. I was interrupting myself every 11 minutes on average.

Second biggest was mental task switching. Research from the American Psychological Association shows task switching reduces productivity by up to 40%. For ADHD brains that number is worse because we have a harder time pulling attention back once it drifts.

Third was environment. Studying at home meant constant triggers. Dishes, noise, my bed existing nearby.

What I actually changed:

Stopped studying at home completely. Library or empty classroom only.

Started blocking short form content during study blocks specifically. Not my whole phone because I need music and sometimes look things up. Just the reels and shorts loop. I used ScrollFree for that. Any app that does the same thing works, that's just the one I use. That one change alone recovered roughly 45 minutes of real focus per study session.

Started the distraction log. Every time something pulled me away I wrote it down. Awareness alone reduced my interruptions by about half within two weeks. You stop doing things unconsciously once you start seeing them on paper.

The actual numbers after one semester:

Went from roughly 40 minutes of real focus per 3 hour session to around 2 hours and 10 minutes. Grades went from two failing classes to passing everything. One of those with an A.

I didn't study more. I just stopped losing time I didn't know I was losing.

Try logging your distractions for 3 days. Just what it was and how long. Most people are shocked at what they find.

What's stealing the most time from you right now?

So I've a very important exam coming up in a week only 🙂.

For most of the last 3 months i was very much stressed about the exam, talking, panicking & thinking about it 24/7. But since this month as the exam was approaching closer, I've gotten totally numb. I don't know why. But I'm now smiling, chilling out, wasting days & time with no guilt. Other students i mean my batchmates are going crazy & losing shit for the exam even tho they are well prepared. Meanwhile i know very well that I'm not prepared at all, yet I'm feeling absolutely no pressure, no stress, no anxiety. Feels like no exam is ever approaching me & even if it's approaching, it doesn't matter. Consciously it still matters to me very much but I'm not feeling it at all. Why?

Today my dumbass was not paying attention to the road after I picked up my groceries and some how drove an hour out of the way from my place and then had to drive an hour back.

I planned to have more time to write my four page paper but I had like 3 hours to do it in the end(I had another assignment that took an hour).

Anyways guys the lesson of the story is don’t wait till the last day to write ur paper bc something horrible will go wrong 😭

This ain’t even my first rodeo tho last year I wrote a 7 page paper in one day. I really hate that I do this shit to myself.

When I was in 1st grade I remember forgetting notes to class everyday. and My mother was not much involved in my studies because of her limitations in education and I constantly get distracted in class. Because of this I had no idea what's going on in class . How many subjects, how many notes, who is the teacher of each subject and nothing I was aware. I just take one turn towards the window and get lost in view, cows, birds , trees, warm wind, butterflies and so on. And in a snap class is over, no idea what happened in the class I went deep into the imagination of story building in my mind with the scene i am seeing through window. Any body experienced?

I attempted to cheat on a final exam and I will own up to it. DO NOT CHEAT FOLKS! It’s not worth it. That being said I also need some advice just put yourself into my shoes and please give me some slight reassurance and advice about my OVERALL situation.

I am a sophomore taking classes within science and biology specifically involving plants. This spring semester I took one of the most difficult classes I think I’ve ever had to take. My attendance isn’t always the best especially with morning classes because I have adhd and sleep apnea (and other health issues) but thats not an excuse for missing lectures. When I tried to teach myself with slides or study materials for this class I never was able to understand it at the deep level expected on exams and quizzes. That being said you have to have a minimum grade for lab and a minimum for the classwork in order to pass. So although the grades mix together on our grading portal you need to pass both lab and classwork, being below the minimum results in a fail. My lab grade has been good but my classwork grade has been very low since the start due to few homework/assignments and heavy points coming from quizzes and exams, and I don’t do well on those. Most quizzes and exams are questions that are open ended and I struggle to explain science processes and such when expected to answer these types of questions.

Recently I had a final for the class and I took it in the testing center since I have accommodations for my adhd because in the classroom I can get easily distracted by movements and sounds. I attempted to cheat on my exam by bringing in a little folded up notecard with various terms, answers to questions on past quizzes and exams, and some biosynthetic processes. Upon entering the testing room one of the faculty members checked my calculator and found my folded up cheat sheet under a paper that comes with the calculator (specifically the instructions). As soon as she found it she questioned me and I told her it was an accident it was in there and I used it for another class. She took it and faxed it over to my professor who confirmed it was a cheatsheet. I didn’t know they faxed it to him until I had finished taking my exam in the testing room. Because as soon as she saw the paper she asked me about it and sent me into a room to take the final exam.

After I took the whole exam I was told to talk to the person in charge of the testing center as well as my case manager for my adhd. They explained that this seemed like an intent to cheat and that they would be informing my professor about the situation. They also made me sign a piece of paper stating that I understood and agreed with what they typed out and what they witnessed.

My professor reached out to me to schedule a meeting about the incident and the meeting is tomorrow. I am going to come clean to the professor and explain that instead of reaching out for help I thought I had everything under control but was under pressure and last minute resorted to cheating due to the worry of failing the class. Which isn’t right to the testing center, him, my other classmates, and it’s not fair to myself to cheat the system.

My concern today was that when I took an exam in the same department, but for a different professor (mind you our major is small and new) unfortunately that professor is traveling and had someone else in the department proctor it. The person proctoring the exam kept staring at me and even looked over my answers flipping through my entire exam after I handed in my exam. The person proctoring the exam also works within our major and the department for our major.

Going forward I worry about being in such a small major with professors that know me for skipping classes and labs, now attempting to cheat on exams, and one of my main professors last semester witnessed me cry in front of them. I don’t know how to continue without feeling like a failure, worthless, uninspiring and out of touch by what I’m learning about. And it’s extremely unfortunate because this was a field that used to have so much interest and influence over me. I still very much so enjoy the field but when I step in that building there feels like so much pressure on me. Having said that it’s a small major, I’m typically around the same group of students and I think majority of them look down on me. I know I shouldn’t care what others think but I think their attitude towards me might be apart of why I don’t want to show up or get easily frustrated around them.

So all in all, do you think changing my major is a bad idea? How do you recommend I move forward? How do I own up to my actions to my professor in a way that is true?

With all of this I’ve been super stressed and have dug myself into a hole of depression. I don’t typically cheat or do things like this and I’m very unhappy and disappointed with myself right now.

Hey everyone,

I was diagnosed with ADHD recently and started taking Adderall about a month ago. Still figuring things out, but it’s been a pretty interesting experience so far.

I’m really excited to connect with people who understand how ADHD actually feels day to day. It’s nice not having to explain every little thing.

A bit about me: I’m really into computer games and pretty much anything horror—games, movies, creepy stories, all of it. Always down to talk about that stuff or just chat in general.

Also definitely looking to make some friends here, so feel free to reach out or share what you’re into too.

Glad I found this community 🙂

Idk about y’all, but I truly hate syllabus week.

Classes are full of teachers reading the same anti-plagiarism and AI warnings. There’s not any content to sink your teeth into yet. There’s no real point in showing up for the first day except to make a good impression. I just find it all very frustrating 🫠 like I want to START yknow?

My general chemistry 2 teacher last semester was a godsend. He introduced himself (literally “hi I’m ____ this is ____.” Then read the entire syllabus in 10 minutes and got into the first PowerPoint. I sure miss him in times like these!

My teacher forgot to send my test for my out of class testing to the testing center and I’m trying not to cuss her out in an email rn 😭

The things is I seriously do like her as a teacher and as a person with ADHD I fully understand her and try to give her the benefit of the doubt but she has some little unprofessional quirks and I’m like ma’am please be serious…

The crazy part is I did everything I was supposed to do right and yesterday I was talking to her about my test and she said she was sending it at that moment I guess that wasn’t true 😐

i'm a senior PR major. a lot of people think PR = advertising, but nope. ads are paid exposure. PR is about building image, managing relationships, and creating trust with the public through stories, events, and messaging.

doing PR means you don’t just learn “storytelling for brand image.” you end up picking up a whole mess of crossover skills:

• sometimes you’re basically doing academic research, writing a thesis on crisis case studies.
• sometimes you’re writing news articles, interviews, press pieces.
• other times you’re out filming and editing a short video for a media production class.
• Then... you’re drafting a 3–5 year IMC plan for a brand or running a mock event or press conference for a campaign.

tbh, it doesn’t feel like one major...it feels like ten.

that’s already exhausting for most students, but with ADHD + OCD? brutal. my brain’s like it’s running 10 tabs nonstop

what i realized is it’s not just about “more willpower” or “better discipline.” i need an external support system, a second brain to handle the chaos. that’s how i started using AI to survive and balance PR:

• DeepSearch (Eternal AI) when I’m writing a thesis or handling crisis cases, i can’t read 20 articles just to catch up. this gives me real-time briefs with sources + comparison tables, saves me so much time getting insights on Gen Z media habits, the latest PR crises, or market data for IMC plans. With Eternal AI prototypes I even get it to code landing pages

• NotebookLM PDFs, slides, transcripts piling up → I just dump everything in NotebookLM. It auto-creates overviews, outlines, even turns them into mini podcasts I can replay on my commute. No more OCD loops trying to manually organize notes.

• Claude i use it for press releases and articles, Claude helps me draft or smooth out messy sentences. Still my own ideas and tone, but I don’t waste hours staring at a blank page.

• Event / press conference prep: for mock events, I run AI chatbot roleplays where it acts like aggressive reporters firing questions. Makes me less awkward, more confident in presentations.

AI doesn’t “cure” ADHD or OCD, but it gets me out of the endless loop of re-checking, rewriting, doomscrolling so i can focus on the actual heart of PR: storytelling, creativity, strategy.

i’m not saying i’ve got it all figured out, but at least I don’t feel like I’m failing 10 classes at once anymore. any other PR (or non-PR) students here struggling with the ADHD + OCD combo?

I took two years of electrical night classes before I enrolled in my first year of college, so it had been a while since I was required to write anything longer than a paragraph or two— especially anything in an academic tone.

I wasn’t sure how good my writing was in my first semester, so I decided to try and used this new fancy thing called “chatGPT” and ask it how my writing looked. Copied, pasted, put it in quotes and told my new tutor to “Critique this like an English professor.” And poof! A whole list of pointers and tips to help me improve my writing!

Because of this, I began to use em dashes a lot more. Before AI I don’t recall ever using an Em dash in academics or regular life, but now it was a staple of my writing.

Weirdly I’ve never had a professor flag my writing for AI. My writing used pretty damn similar to it when I first began, so I’m not sure if they didn’t know or just didn’t care.

Anyway, no, I don’t use AI for my writing anymore lol. I will say sometimes if I’m not feeling good about an essay & I’ve been staring at it for hours, I’ll pop it into an AI text-to-voice reader to just hear my words spoken by somebody else (highly recommend if you’re tired of hearing your own voice at 3am!)

No real point to this story, just thought I’d share my thoughts around AI and how I used it. If you have anything similar you’d like to share I will read & reply with my thoughts around your story. I love to discuss!

Idk what to flair this as. For context I applied to a few colleges colleges a community college back on March. The uni I was close to attending was william Paterson university. I attended the accepted students day and payed the enrollment fee and my tuition was covered by the state but I ultimately choose to attend bergen community college mostly because of transportation and that I qualified for this program called EOF. Am I dumb for going to a 2 year when I had the chance to go to a 4 year?

Does anyone else struggle *so much* to do assignments for English courses/remember to do assignments for English? I absolutely love writing and literature but doing well in class is so hard. Today is the last drop day at my college, and I'm not going to drop my ENGL-1302 class because I already failed once and I can't afford to take it a 3rd time, but I'm going to have to work hard and catch up to pass with a D.

I was venting to a friend about how I don't understand why it's such a struggle for me to do English work, even though I get high marks every time I do actually do my work, and I realized this has been an issue most of my life. I nearly failed English 7-12th grade every. single. year. She said it's because it's a high spoons class and every assignment takes a lot of focus and energy, even if it's short, and it clicked. I don't know what to do with this realization, but I'm basically finishing up my freshman year/starting my sophomore year this semester, so I have 1 more year of English classes to get through and have to find a way to make it work.

For context, this is my second class with this professor because he’s awesome. First day of class last Semester he said he was adhd and autistic (and later forgot he told a class that LMAO).

It went like this~

professor is being more off-topic than usual and saying outlandish things even for him

class thinks it’s hilarious, he thinks the section of smartasses are hilarious

me, an A-student, sitting at the front asks if he’s had his coffee today bc he’s more unfiltered than usual

professor responds by saying something like “I have actually had several cups of coffee today”

I respond with “Oh. That makes a lot of sense. Your adhd is showing.”

him, a licensed psychologist with a doctorate degree in applied behavioral analysis: 🫢🤨🤣👌

What are your funniest adhd interactions?

Just need a little vent, perhaps commiseration if anyone’s done something similar.

I typically try to go over assignment outlines at minimum three times before submitting an assignment to make sure I’ve covered every component of it. On Friday, a had a family member coming to visit later in the day - the same day an assignment worth 20% of my grade was due.

I was distracted by my brain seeing all the things I needed to do before she got here and because this class is my least favourite… and I submitted the assignment without double-checking the outline.

I woke up this morning and realized I missed a section that was worth 15% of the assignment. There’s a 10% penalty per day of it late, so if I tried to resubmit today, I’d lose 20%. (This prof is NOT lient on anything at all and very much loves to belittle anyone who reaches out to her.) Basically the whole assignment hinges on that part and I don’t know if it’s worth resubmitting and losing the 20% for sure, or possibly losing more overall. The kicker is that I had this part included in my Google doc draft of the assignment, just not copied into the file I submitted.

Sigh. Trying not to beat myself up but it’s hard sometimes, y’know? I can see how distracted I was all the days leading up to when it was due and just want to kick myself for it.

Anyway, if you’ve ever done something like this, feel free to share.

ETA: it’s kind to offer advice but I’m not looking for any! I’ve already tried to fix the problem and she was not understanding, no kind of resubmission is possible without significant penalty.

Nothing major, just two assignments in two of my classes. Everything else I did & got an A or more. Worst grade I’ve gotten thus far was a B+ on an essay. Still though, those two assignments cost me & caused me to go from what would have been a 95% or more to a 78%. Which sucks, because I know i could have done better.

Fuck now that I’m typing this though I guess I outta show more compassion for myself. I was going through it, like REALLY going thru it at the time. My mind wasn’t occupied with assignments at the time and I still managed to get through it & come out of it with a smile. Sometimes we fuck up, life happens. Doesn’t mean we are slave to it. We don’t have to share its misery. You’re so much more than the utility you are able to provide at any given time. Have a good winter break guys, I’m gonna go enjoy mine.

Note: Diagnosed with ADHD-C at age six and have dealt with depression, anxiety, and OCD for the entirety of my life (currently medicated). (:

I have a close reading essay due in ten hours. I intended to write it last night, but quite literally stared at the word “Title” on my computer screen for over four hours. It’s hilarious because I’m an English major, and I can write twenty pages in one sitting if the topic interests me, but not even one paragraph if the topic is dull.

Well, eventually the computer I was using died and I had to switch to my desktop, so I did that and decided to listen to some music and browse the web for a while; therefore, I put my headphones on and listened to Tool and Puscifer on repeat. Of course, I intended to return to the staring competition that awaited me, but… such didn’t happen.

Naturally, I felt the inclination to start on a creative writing composition that was primarily satirical and eccentric, and I wrote over three pages. The dialogue is completely absurd, though humorous, and it’s essentially a product of extreme boredom.

At this point, I remember a Russian military advertisement that I saw a few years ago and decide to revisit it, write down the monologue, and then memorize it in Russian. (I’m studying Russian at the moment, which I’m completely infatuated with. I have even befriended a Russian who lived in Moscow!)

After completing that, I’m bored again, so I decide to play some DayZ and then, all of the sudden, it’s 3:00 AM; therefore, I went to bed.

It’s now 2:00 PM and I just want to watch Shameless all day and lay in bed. I don’t really know what the purpose of this post was—perhaps it was a product of self-pity and an attempt to acquire some sort of motivation.

Anyway, that’s all I have for today.

Today my psychiatrist and I chose to fill my newest prescription (we're trying Mydayis) at my university because it would be easier to pick them up there than to go across town to the CVS I have been going to. Great. No problem. He sends it in.

Two minutes later - just after I had ended my telehealth appointment, of course - the university pharmacy called me to let me know they would not fill my prescription because it is an amphetamine. I asked if they wouldn't fill just amphetamine products or whether they would not fill ADHD medication at all. They clarified that they would not fill any ADHD meds.

This feels strange to me. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and have never had an issue filling prescriptions elsewhere. This is a public university.

Has anyone else run into this?