Childhood Planing To Become Finantially Independent - How Did You Manage To Get Of An Unhappy Home?

[hodge]

It is hard to work when you're doing a full load of courses. I understand, @JennaJenn. I did work study jobs one year. It was either that or just get the grant money. I decided to work for it and my grades suffered.

One semester I worked for a doctor who was a major researcher on sickle cell anemia. The other semester I worked for the campus theater.

 

[JennaJenn]

It is hard to work when you're doing a full load of courses. I understand, @JennaJenn....

It is, and i really wouldnt want to sabotage my future by messing with my grades, especially now that I switched to Dental Medicine! It still isnt quite what I wanted to do ( I wanted to go for a Medicine degree and study Psychiatry) but at this moment Im not sure if this will ever happen.
Wow, those jobs sound awesome! Working for a doctor must be one of the most interesting jobs ever. I wish I could do something similar, but I think they only select medical students for that?

 

[hodge]

Nope. In my first year I was a chemistry major and I worked in his office, but with clear sight of the lab. I really, really wanted to do the lab things, but I only had secretarial experience. The people who worked in his lab were Ph.D. students.

But, yeah, don't sabotage your grades by working, especially since you don't have to. Focus on your studies and use your down time to regenerate your energies.

 

[JennaJenn]

Thanks for the advise! I do agree with what most of you are saying - I think the best I can do for now is focusing on my future, and since I live on campus I spend most of my time away. This gave me time to work on some issues I had going on and gain some perpective, but somehow now its kind of a shock whenever I go home and see my dad acting out..It makes me go crazy irrational and thinking about moving out its the only thing that keeps me sane.

 

[JennaJenn]

Talking about lab, I was studying Pharmacy last year and the labs were the best thing ever! Brave for going for chemistry though. I loved chemistry in highschool but once ai got to college things took quite a turn!

 

[hodge]

I know the feeling. I would get good reality checks when my suitemates would hear my end of phone convos with my mom and would be alarmed, especially when she threatened suicide and I'm 60 miles away in the middle of the night.

Keep your eyes on the prize, as the old American civil rights saying has it. You don't have to be black to need to hear that. It applies to all of us who go through struggles :-).

 

[hodge]

I got straight As in chem until organic chem at the uni (which they made intentionally really hard to screen out pre-med majors; basically you had to memorize like 100 formulas a week. I'm not a good memorizer.). I also could not pass calculus to save my life, even with probably a dozen tutors, who were all engineering grad students. It was crazy because I had straight As in math until then.

So after a year of that I switched my major to English, which ended up working out fine. Got a job in publishing which I worked until PTSD reared its ugly head and I had to get on disability. But I had a good almost 20 years working at my career and have several nice reference books to my name.

 

[JennaJenn]

About keeping my eyes on the prize, certainly will. Just another thing, I get the feeling that I'm offending some people for being here (and I have a good intuition). Im sure my situation may not seem horrible, but on the other hand, I am being quite vague about it. Im starting therapy in January, can I still use the forums? Wouldnt want to upset anyone..

 

[hodge]

I say you are welcome, hon. Let us know what your diagnosis is next month, but even if it isn't PTSD, please feel free to private message me. I would love to keep encouraging you on your journey.

 

[JennaJenn]

So after a year of that I switched my major to English, which ended up working out fine.

That's actually very interesting, switching from chems to English! Im sorry that you had to stop, but yet I admire you, sound you were successful and happy.

 

[hodge]

I was! It was great till PTSD kicked in. Gads, that was a blow. But a few years into it, I found out I could paint. Every night I'd wake up in the middle of the night in a panic and paint. I have done hundreds of paintings due to that and have had a few displayed in galleries, so it's cool.

 

[EveHarrington]

I'm not seeing PTSD in anything that you say.

PTSD is not being afraid of one person. PTSD is a disorder that dominates many aspects of your life. You say you're fine when at school. It's perfectly normal to be afraid of someone who has treated you poorly in the past. However, this is not PTSD. I can't help but feel that you did a little Google search, decided things "fit" and then went with it.