My Education And Work-life Suffers

[hollyberrytea]

I'm currently 20 years old, just a simple FYI.

I went to a college for a year and a semester, before flunking out. What was my downfall? I couldn't do anything. Homework stressed me out to a max, and I just didn't/couldn't do it at points. Without doing homework, my test grades failed. I just could never sit down and do the work. I always thought I had ADD, but my therapist said that PTSD could reflex similar symptoms to ADD. And we read a packet together and it was pretty dead on. It has always been so hard to focus for me in all aspects of school. I wish I got help sooner, so maybe I didn't flunk out.

But now I go to a community college as a part-time student (the semester directly after the one I flunked out of), and I'm doing well in all my courses (all A's so far), but I know it's only because the three classes I'm taking are just incredibly easy and I barely have any work to do at home. And I'm planning to take a bunch of courses over the summer to bring my GPA back up and go to a 4-year college. (I really just want to get it out of the way, I don't want to be in school for another 6 years.)

As far as work goes.. I haven't. I haven't worked a day in my life. I mean, I've helped out around my dad's work, but I've never had a serious paying job. I never cared to look for one when I was a teenager. Now I'm looking and it's impossible to get even a simple job. My cousin was going to help me, but the manager at a store told him they didn't want me because I had no experience.

It's stressful. My education and employment life is horrible. And right now those are the majorly important things for me, at least at this age.

:banghead:

 

[Jlso111187]

It is very hard to get a job with little to no experience.

I have a hard time focusing on school work. What I do is do my homework in stages. Do a little for about an hour then take a break and then go back to it. Yeah, it may take all day to get what would take someone who doesn't have a hard time focusing 3 hours done. But it has worked well for me.

Be careful on how much of a case load you take this summer, remember the classes are half the amount of time as a normal class meaning you have in my school 8 weeks to do a 17 week course. The homework load for only 2 classes was very grueling. If your already stressed with large case loads you might want to take a few classes at a time. I'm not trying to talk you out of going back to the four year college because I agree a better education is for the best but what I am saying is you don't want to overload yourself. I did that and now my gpa suffers from it. I was a 3.9 until I took on a huge caseload and now its a 3.1. Yes thats not bad but to drop that much in one semester not good and I beat my self up for it all the time. I know I shouldn't but I know if I would't have taken as many classes I could of focused and got better grades than I did.

About the no experience if your field has field study that will help get your foot in the door. I know it seems like forever from now til you get to that point but atleast this way you have the schooling behind you to show to your potential employee and have the experience in the field due to the field study.

 

[madmax]

Try internship; work for free gain experience and you may just land a job. In high school I was number 309 out of 312 students. I worked 30 hrs a week while in school. The single most important factor that contributed to me earning Deans

List in college was the fear of failure and the loss of a life style I was accustomed too.
And yes I had ADD PTSD and God knows what else. Find your motivator and soar!

 

[Sick of Fear]

I'm going through that right now. School is overwhelming me terribly, but it will work out somehow.

My advice to you is to finish school before you ever consider having children. Parenting, school, and ptsd do not mesh well together. Sorry I don't have any good pointers for you because I'm struggling right now. I just wanted to let you know that I understand.

 

[Dennis # 121]

I went back to college when I was in my mid 30's. Thats when my PTSD symptoms first reared it's ugly head. I made it through 2 years and finished with my second associates degree, but I struggled. I was working full time and school was 3/4 time. I had no time for my family, friends, but I did make time to go to therapy. It worked for a number of years, until my PTSD came back even stronger and more intense a couple of years back. It is a life changer, l ended up getting separated and just waiting on the final divorce. I wish I would have went back into therapy earlier. But I'm too strong and proud. Get the therapy you need, get yourself strong, the jobs will come with education, I agree about the internships, give you valuable experience and possibly a position with that company. Good luck, I will keep you in my prayers.

 

[MissMacD]

I am 29 and I just stopped to deal with my trauma. I didn't stop until I flunked out of school, lost my job and things got so bad that I couldn't leave my house and didn't sleep for over a month. I wish I had taken time off earlier in my life to deal with it but I wasn't ready. With my trauma weighing me down school was impossible. I by some miracle finished chef school but have a partially finished dietitians degree of which I fizzled out a few years in a row before I had to stop and take care of myself. When my trauma is put to rest I may go back to school and/or work.

There are specific therapies for PTSD such as CBT or EMDR - which are both extremely effective because they lessen the effect of the trauma. You can only really deal with your trauma when you are ready. All the best.

 

[sol1107]

I feel you. I couldn't handle school. The social anxiety crippled me in class. I couldn't work with the other students. Hell, I could barely talk to them. I was only able to connect with other military students, of which there were few. I even had a dream job making stupid amounts money with no experience, but I was terrified to even get out of bed, as it was my first job after the military.

I went 3 years without work. It's impossible to raise two with just one income these days, and that sent me deeper into depression. One day I lucked out and got a call from a hospital. I got heavily medicated and somewhat drunk, and I hid my mental health issues from my interviewers. I've been here for 18 months now, and it is hell every day. I started recovering a few months ago, but right not it's not enough to make this job easier. I'm great at the job when I'm not dealing with patients, but that's about 60% of the work right there. Luckily, it's cheaper to keep us than it is to hire new employees. They make too many mistakes and we might miss out on too much money while they train.