My experience with a mood disorder and college

What I’m going to talk about is completely my own experience. I am in no way talking on behalf of all students with mental disorders.

Mood disorders and college do not mix. I’m sure most mental disorders and college do not mix. College is hard for everyone, so I don’t want to make this sound like only those with mental disorders suffer. We just suffer a little differently.

The night I decided to go to college was, ummmm, not a “normal” night for me. I was feeling extremely good about myself. I kept thinking that I couldn’t be sitting around wasting my awesome brain on doing nothing. Sounds stuck up, but that’s what it was. AKA I was probably in a hypomanic state. I’d say within five minutes of deciding to go to college I was registered with the community college. Yes, it was done in a matter of minutes. After a couple days I had a “oh my god what I have got myself into” moment, but decided to keep going with this decision. I’m surprised that I did. It’s good that I did.

I started my first semester really well, but then I had those couple of episodes and ended up in the hospital. It was in the hospital that I seriously thought that I couldn’t do it. I decided to keep going though. Then a couple months later I landed in the first class I was really passionate about, so I decided to keep with it. Over the next couple semesters I had a couple more classes that I loved, all with my advisor as the professor. So I had something to keep me going.

Unfortunately the past year I have not taken any classes that I actually wanted to take. This has made school really difficult. When I get depressed I don’t do anything. I have no interest in school and just don’t care. There were a couple times in the past six months where I was depressed because of school, and during these times I had made some kind of move to withdraw from the semester. My advisor never let me. It is very likely that I wouldn't be in school now if it wasn’t for him.

So there is the depression. But then there are times that I am super motivated. I make all these plans for myself, like what graduate school I’m going to go on to. And I'm going to do amazing and get all As. I would work hard at my work and actually get a lot of good stuff done.

Annnndddd then there are times where I am just not with it, like part of me has left reality. There is too much going on in my mind that I just can’t do school work. There are times where I try to read and it’s like I’m looking at another language. A couple weeks ago this started to happen and for a little over a week I did nothing for school. Absolutely nothing. This caused me to fall behind and get stressed which caused me to get depressed. I actually decided to take an incomplete for my philosophy class. Which actually has put me in a positive frame of mind since I’m not stressed. I’m feeling very motivated, I’m going to get through two classes and finish my philosophy work in the next 7 weeks. And I plan on getting all A’s.

You might be able to see where this is going. I do. At least I know that.

So getting back to what I said at the beginning of this, probably too long, blog post. Mood disorders and college do not mix. However that doesn’t mean I, or anyone, can’t do it.