This isn’t my story of mental illness, but its the story of how I got to the tribe. So I feel its relevant:

I started college in August. I have OCD, anxiety, and mild-moderate depression. Its been tough. I mean, I knew it would be, but I’m just getting so tired and so discouraged. I have good moments, lots of ups, but they don’t last long. The very first moment I started getting stressed out about college things, it started this endless loop of misery. Its hard to focus in class and be motivated to do work because I’m stressed about school. But I’m stressed about school because I’m having trouble focusing and getting motivated to do work! This week was my breaking point. I had been feeling really sensitive this week- but not in the way where you get offended easily, just in the way where you’re so close to breaking down over all the stress and overwhelming things to do and figure out. I had already started beating myself up over grades and work and procrastinating, but then I got emails from teachers which made me feel worse. I got over it, tried to view it in a good light, started studying for another exam, and I think I did well on that! Turned in a paper worth a large percent of my grade that I felt good about! Hooray, an up! Annnnnnnd now we’re back down. Studied hard, felt confident, and FAILED my other exam. Tried to view it as a learning experience, started feeling better. until I realized I was so stressed about the paper and my exams that I literally forgot to go to one of my classes. I’m just so tired. The issues seem endless. This is just one very long example, and I know other people have it far worse than me, but man. I really feel like giving up. I worked so hard to get into my school and program and I’ve been doing my best, but, its so tough to keep going sometimes. Sometimes, you just run out of “best”. My older sister used to use this forum so she recommended it to me. So here I am. Misery loves company…….or maybe, just maybe, we can try to be okay 🙂