College Freshman with a Vicious Cycle/ Your 1st College year

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CharklesTimon
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23 Oct 2012, 3:23 am

I am in a situation where my anxiety has caused me to block out my classes in fear. I have tried every coping strategy in the book. Sadly, since I am in a new institution my unorthodox actions in some cases has led a teacher to think I am suicidal as well as (as I expect) to just generally scare people. This problem is getting worse as I sink deeper into a depression. Currently, I am getting no sleep at night, even when I feel as if I have to pass out. This pattern has destroyed my sleeping schedule. The basic thought of a simple assignment terrifies me. I have never had this, and it bothers me greatly. My self-discipline system is not helping, for that is getting out of hand as well. I have hidden away from others because I feel I do not deserve person to person contact. I come out into my common area at night (my school is like Hogwarts). I have tried to take steps forward such as getting my old academic and behavioral assists that I had back in high school, but now that even feels like a task that will destroy me. My apologizing has near quintupled, with every conversation having an apology. Ironically, this all started with a really random and harsh phone call from my father. Just chained events have taken me to this lowly block. At this point, I feel that I am a psychopath, deserving of nothing.

Aside from my sob story that I deserve no sympathy for, I am curious; did anyone else have such a tough start in college? It doesn't have to be like mine, but I want to see if I am simply the only one who can't come to grasp with the world and rather just hide from my friends, girlfriend, and family.

(Sorry to annoy you with this post)



eric76
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23 Oct 2012, 3:53 am

My first semester in college was a major change in life. Part of that was because I was in the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M and had it quite regimented, which I wasn't at all ready for. I was so tired that I could fall asleep anywhere.

One Saturday afternoon we had an away football game at LSU. After the game, the tradition then was that everyone who could make it went to the airport to meet the team, win or lose. I decided to take a short nap before going to the airport and woke up twenty three and a half hours later.



profofhumanities
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23 Oct 2012, 4:01 pm

Oh, Honey. You are not alone. I wish I could speak from personal experience, but I am N/T.
However, I am currently researching the transition to college for people with Asperger's. From my studies, I can tell you that there are many, many people with Asperger's who struggle to adapt to college. The steps required to ask for help like what you had in high school can be daunting, but your college teachers are not likely to know much about Asperger's. As hard as it is, it will be to your benefit to contact the special populations office on your campus. They can walk you through the rest of the process. Please let me know if I can help. It breaks my heart to know you are struggling like this.


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jkrane
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17 Oct 2015, 9:36 am

CharklesTimon wrote:

Aside from my sob story that I deserve no sympathy for, I am curious; did anyone else have such a tough start in college? It doesn't have to be like mine, but I want to see if I am simply the only one who can't come to grasp with the world and rather just hide from my friends, girlfriend, and family.

(Sorry to annoy you with this post)


You're not annoying me at all, sir.

I f*****g HATE college and everything it stands for!! !

In order to get a job, you have to sciences (stem), and that may not always guarantee it. It usually does, because the programs are a combination of brute force intensity stress levels, and mind numbing tedium. I was having panic attacks every sunday night, breaking down in tears over all the pages and pages, slides and slides, endless piles of catalogues of volumes of information to known for each class for each week. The lab reports had to be typed, and the calculations also had to be typed, which took hours. Neatly handwriting a lab report takes 15 minutes. Typing it with all the dots and dashes takes 2-4 hours depending on the intricacy of the lab. What the heck is the point of that???!

No one had time to do the work because there was so much of it, and it was poorly taught. A lot of the teachers had very thick accents, and spoke very quickly, which itself isn't a problem, because I just get used to the accent after a class or two. But the accent, combined with the speed, combined with the amount of information, the blur where instructor's mouth is, and the constantly changing numbers and letters on the screen are almost hypnotizing.

Broken lab equipment.

1 teacher for 20-40 students, which is a lot when you're dealing with and first learning how to use - lab equipment and or complicated engineering software and hardware.

A constant rat race. It's impossible to retain information. Learning is secondary. Everyone copies the answers off of the smartest person, and we all leave our books and our reports on the table, for everyone to copy, because it either impossible to do the assignment or pointless to try. Everyone would get together and memorize their copied answers, and compare notes we all copied off of each other, and do the scantron exam, and we'd all get about the same mark (high 60s to low 80s) depending on who bothered to cram that extra half hour.

The disgusting washrooms. They were so busy, and the smell was so bad, it would pour out into the hallway. Even after they cleaned the washrooms, they could never get that smell out. The washrooms were tiny for the amount of people in that college - two urinals, two stalls per floor, per building. Sometimes more, but those buildings would be twice as big, and the washrooms would still be disgusting. I had to go all the way out to the forest to pee, because it was clean and calm, and the air smells like nature. If I had to drop a deuce, I had to hope and prey the disabled washroom all the way at the very end of the school was either unoccupied or clean. The dental office across the street was my number two "number two" option. The sad thing is, that I've been to other colleges and they have much larger bathroom facilities. We're talking 10-20 stalls and several walls of urinals. Going to the washroom should be a relaxing experience, not a stressful one.

Wow...the more I type this information, and I look at it in person, the more I just look at how pathetic college is. How could they charge so much money for this experience, and keep jacking up the price?

I hope all colleges burn to the ground. Post secondary education has been a nightmare for me! An absolute nightmare!