Attention Whoring: Having tough experience, thoughts please

[TDAS04]

I have been experiencing a very tough last couple of weeks.  I'm finally completing my senior year of college, but recent events have made it difficult to wrap things up, but I believe I'll make it. It's embarrassing to admit that it took me eight years after high school to graduate from college (due to health/emotional issues after high school that still exist in some form), though I'm glad I'm finally completing it.

Over the past two weeks, lots of family related issues and conflict have surfaced, and the relationship between my parents is bad.  I've been trying to support my mom and help her with things.

This is combined with my health-related issues that I've had for many years, particularly depression and generalized anxiety, with are still clearly with me now.  An endocrinologist is helping me figure out why my energy level is so low.  These issues have made completing work and college a bit of a challenge, but I have been able to increase my focus on it now, and I think it will be fine.

I'll probably have to reduce my posting until classes finish later this month, but I'll still be here a little, since being with friends provides relief.  Please keep me in your thoughts.

[Sol]

I'll be thinking of you.

You'll do great!

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

No shame at all, TDAS.  We all have our setbacks, but you become a stronger person because of them.

Keep doing what you're doing and let everything run its course.  I'll pray for you.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I'll be keeping you in my prayers

[TDAS04]

Thanks guys!

[angus]

but recent events have made it difficult to rap things up...

I'll probably have to reduce my posting until classes finnish later this month...

I imagine that your English professors are especially proud.

Life comes at you fast.  I had a rough time at the end of my undergraduate career as well.  In my senior year at university, my mother got sick.  I missed lots of class and received an incomplete grade in all of my classes.  I had to make them up in the summer.  She had raised me since my father died when I was in the eighth grade, and we were particularly close.  She stayed sick a long time, and died during the end of my first year in graduate school.  She died a very slow, very painful death.  A death I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.  For a very long time I felt that I didn't have the chance to talk to her as much as I had wanted to.  I didn't get to let her know that I was going to be okay, that I was sorry for all those times I stayed out late and made her worry, and that I really had, more or less, internalized the value system she tried to instill.  I had dreams about her death fairly regularly for about ten years.  Not just about the fact that she was gone, but about her death.  The moment of her death visited my dreams in various forms and in various scenarios.  It was quite maddening.  Eventually the dreams became less frequent. 

Anyway, life's a bitch, and you can choose to whine about that fact, or you can choose to make the most of the very short time you have on this earth.  You need to get your act together.  People will come into your life, and they will go out of your life.  You must accept that.  You must be strong in order to nurture the people that will one day depend upon you.  Find a catharsis.  Find a hobby, or find a god, if you're inclined to believe in such things.  Get laid.  Climb a mountain.  Water your plants, feed the fish, study.  Mostly, get yourself out of that sorry funk you're in. 

[TDAS04]

but recent events have made it difficult to rap things up...

I'll probably have to reduce my posting until classes finnish later this month...

I imagine that your English professors are especially proud.

Yes, have to check spelling.

Anyway, yes, life can always be difficult.  Obviously, it could be worse for me.  I am managing and getting things in order.

[angus]

Ah, forget the spelling.  I have a tendency to be an asshole about things like that.

More importantly, get your shit together.  It's not good for a young man to let himself go.  See a psychiatrist, if you think it'll help.  Don't let whatever is bothering you to fester. 

Glad to hear that you are figuring out what is actually bothering you and that you are doing something about it.  Don't force anyone else, though.  Ultimately, you only have control over yourself.  At most.  Sometimes, not even that. 

But if you're so deep in a funk that you have to ask for an incomplete grade at the end of your senior year--and truly I can sympathize with that--then get it finished as soon as you can.

[H. Ross Peron]

No shame at all, TDAS.  We all have our setbacks, but you become a stronger person because of them.

Keep doing what you're doing and let everything run its course.  I'll pray for you.

[RedSLC]

You'll pull through this. I have no doubt.

Until then, do whatever you need to in order to get through this.

[Mechaman]

Ugh man college.  I'll see what I can do.

If it makes TDAS feel any better, my best friend who is his age (26 right?) just now started going to college this year.  When I was in my Junior year I roomed with a 24 year old ex-military guy who was just starting his college education.  I believe he finished his education in 2013, which would make him about 28 or so.  I even knew a guy in my Accounting classes who was in his late thirties who was taking courses.  As for taking years to complete collegework, I had a friend who was in college for seven years before he stopped going (probably because his parents ran out of money).  There is no shame about being in your mid-late twenties and still working towards getting your degree, especially if you are supporting your folks at the same time.  There were quite a few kids I saw in college who didn't really appreciate at all what they were getting.  Especially how much sacrifice their folks had to give just so they could go to college.  Though admittedly, this was me at some points in college too, as I pretty much drank myself silly my Junior and Senior years but somehow managed to graduate.  Nowdays when I go to work at a job that provides me a sustainable living, I feel like such a sh*t for taking advantage of what they provided and how much sacrifice went into it.

Whatever your case may be, it's good that you considered getting your degree this important.  Many people would've given up after a few years of bad grades.  It really says a lot about your persistent nature that you stuck with it this long.  I was in college for five years, I'm not sure I could've lasted another two or three years!

Finally in closing, while the degree is essential (at least in this society) to getting a decent living, just remember that at the end of the day it's not about what you have, but how you use what you have.  There are many people who have degrees that in my humble opinion don't have the rational thinking to justify the piece of paper hanging on their wall.  Hell, we had a President recently who had an MBA at Harvard, and look at how well he used what he had.  Don't ever take what you have achieved for granted as a license to act stupid.  At the end of the day people are not judged by their GPA, but by what they bring to the table (whether it be in relationships or at work).  Somebody who judges you for what you have isn't worth associating with, true friends are those who stick by you when the going gets tough and are able to overlook the small immaterial things.  If you are a good decent person you will attract good decent people, who in my opinion are the only people one needs in life.

Yeah, I'm done!

[Mr. Illini]

A favorite blessing of my family and one of our heritage...

An Irish Blessing

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Cheers, you'll be in my prayers. This, too, shall pass.