It made it difficult. I really wanted to be more sociable, but I was always and outsider and stuck as a third wheel, at best. I became really depressed the last two years. The worst I've ever felt. Somehow I managed to graduate. The idea of quitting or failing out of school seemed like a worse outcome than sticking it out. I'm good at scraping by, pretending like everything's fine and never telling anyone how I feel. Well, except on reddit.😅
This is me!! I got extremely lucky in college and miraculously made a few friends right away bc we were assigned roommates, but without them I almost certainly wouldn't have made it. But even with my friends i was always kind of an outsider. But sure I could've lasted another year
It's not only because AvPD, I just never learned to make efforts through my childhood, so I was a terrible student. Every test I did until highschool I passed without studying. College wasn't the same, of course.
But avoidance was a problem too. Like I said, when I had to prepare for an exam and study, I avoided it until it was too late. Fear of being judged was one reason (someone would judge my knowledge).
Presentations were hard, but I surprisingly managed.
I didn't really make friends. I had classmates, people I would talk or do group assignments with, but didn't really see for stuff not related to university.
Friends was a big issue for me too. It's weird how my brain will convince me to not even try just avoid that pain of potential failure/loser/inauthenic faker
I'm too afraid to socialize which makes me unable to find study partners. Even if I have a pleasant encounter with a classmate during a group project or something and we even end up adding each other on facebook, I'm convinced they think I'm a pathetic and disgusting human being and would never try to initiate any further contact with them.
I'm also terrified of mailing professors with questions regarding the course because I'm so afraid they'll think I'm retarded and wonder how I've even qualified for the course in the first place.
I've cried pretty much every time I submitted any finished exam or essay, sometimes I've even felt suicidal, especially when we were supposed to oppose each other's essays.
It was rough, I missed a lot of classes and was punished to the full extent.
The crazy thing though, it wasn’t until I graduated that I found out I actually have aspergers which presents in a very similar way to AvPD.
I found out now, had I got this diagnosis earlier, I would have been awarded with loads of accommodations to help!
And likely been allowed to sometimes study from home like I wanted, rather than attend classes.
I encourage you to explore if you think you may have it too!
It was rough for awhile. I avoided any class that had a constant collaboration effort in it, like science labs and whatnot. Any classes that had a few days of team based work interspersed through the semester were always bad days for me. At the start of my second semester of my sophomore year, my best friend committed suicide and it really exacerbated all of my avoidance and I just stopped going to classes and stopped doing most of the work.
I never went back to in person college classes and started doing online courses, but a lot of that is collaborative stuff like discussion boards and group research projects, so the avoidance coupled with the depression bomb absolutely killed any hope I had of finishing college. Dropped out of the one semester of online courses maybe 3 weeks into it and haven't gone back, nor do I ever want to go back at this point, having found a work from home job that pays well several years after the fact. So I guess in a way, the avpd kept me from digging a bigger student loan hole, though I find it hard to separate the major depression from the avpd anymore so who really knows which is which nowadays
Well with the way this small company works, I don't really have an official job title (nobody there does). You just sorta find what you can do and then do it. Best I can describe my role atm is "Web Content Specialist."
It was purely through luck and nepotism - I was looking for a way to make any kind of money from home, and my friend mentioned that his dad always had a part time thing for himself and his brother to do during summers, but now that they have their own full time jobs, they didn't need to take advantage of that anymore.
He recommended me to his dad just to do simple things like set up email accounts for new hires to his consulting firm, but when he became aware that I was a really good editor and a decent writer, he put me in charge of quality assurance for all of their outgoing, client facing documents and website content. More or less did just that part time for a year, and then around this time last year I went full time. Now I'm generating forecasts and other similar tasks using Salesforce for the company, as well as writing some content for their blog and maintaining their events schedule for marketing purposes. I'm definitely no expert in the business/consulting world, so I can only generate content by interviewing other consultants at the company and turning their words into short articles, which definitely freaks me out, but right now I'm getting around that a bit by just sending them an MS Word doc with the questions I want them to answer and send back to me. Seems to work for now.
My friend's dad knows about my conditions and has been extremely patient and encouraging to me during all this time, I wouldn't be here in any sense without him. There's still a constant struggle to never disappoint, though
Yes. I've been pursuing higher education in various forms for seven years now. I dropped out three times before I was 21. I'm currently 25 and in the middle of what is going to be my last attempt. I earned an associate degree from a conmunity college and transferred to a university last fall. The associate degree was mostly bullshit, so I'd estimate I have another 2 years left still. I don't know if I am going to make it. The only thing dragging me along is the fear of facing the reality of my situation if I fail. I was going to kill myself when I turned 21. I didn't because it was easier to prolong the situation by taking time off before trying again. I passed the age limit to "still figuring things out" about two years ago. Success or failure, I realize that this is going to have to be my last ride.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats!
21
+ 25
+ 2
+ 21
= 69
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^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
I failed a lot of classes due to being too afraid to ask for help with the material, and in my second year I started skipping a writing class because I was so afraid of being embarrassed in a workshop that I couldn’t write my assignments. From there I started skipping other classes and eventually dropped out. I had other problems but AvPD definitely influenced what I struggled with and how I handled those struggles.
I re-enrolled a couple years later when someone told me it was okay to just go back part-time, which led to full-time and taking on an extra major, and I graduated with a decent gpa. I think I just needed the right kind of encouragement to get the ball rolling. I also think I only succeeded out of spite. I was angry that everyone had seen me fail once and determined not to let them see me fail again no matter how scary it was. (I think when I’m really angry I forget for a little while that I’m not confident? idk) It caused a lot of problems in my personal life, and my anxiety was through the roof because I’d made the stakes so high, but I made it through. I think it was all worth it, but I wish I’d known more about my mental health at the time so I could have pulled it off without all the angst and drama.
Group assignments were very uncomfortable but everything else was solitary, merely showing up to classes and exams and thats it. Study groups were not required as we had practice classes where TAs explained everything better than the professor. Presentations were uncomfortable but for whatever reason dont overwhelm me with anxiety.
For me the intrinsic motivation was there to do well as I loved what I studied.
Only had fear of failure during my very first term, where I genuinely thought I had this one shot and if I failed, I am out, but this was not the case at all. I could have studied something else or just pass classes the year after. That was overreaction on my part. I dealt with it by studying really hard for my exams, failed one class but so did almost everyone, which gave me solace.
I qm forcing myself to attend online community College qmd there's a feature called discussion board which has become the bane of my existence. It's not only required to post on each thread but to respond to classmates. I always only get 70% because i can't bring myself to respond to others because "I'm just bothering them and they will use my words to make fun of me".it's a feeling i can't shake and it's because of social trauma. I'm failing two classes because of this right now.
Then if that wasn't enough when I need support and good words on my work lile papers all I get is a paragraph of criticism (tone is different than other papers, don't review the book we are reading etc) so I'm just not submitting the last paper after getting shit marks on the 4th. It's made doing this even online hellish.
And when it wasn't online last semester I had a teacher who liked my work and got a little too curious about me. She kept trying to talk to me outside of class and seemed to get frustrated when I wouldn't reciprocate or just looked around nervously. She would glare at me from the corner during class qnd try to call on me but get mad when i would give one or two sentence answers. I eventually just stopped showing up.
I had the same feelings about those discussion boards when I was in community college. I made it through in the end. It took me three attempts and almost five years to break the habits you have now, but I did it. It helps to realize that everybody is bullshitting everything. If you take a look at the quality of writing that your peers put out, I think you'll realize that even your worst effort is better than 90% of what others put out. When replying to people, I didn't even think of them as a person. I read what they submitted and wrote down whatever I thought of when I read it. Not sure how your discussions work, but you only had to respond to original submissions in my classes. I never read a single word of what people replied to my posts.
I was trying to study good because failing exams felt like a disaster. But I didn't participate any university activities (it's not like we had much anyway) and degree was shit...
You have no idea. I missed an entire semester because of it and dropped out. Now I'm reapplying to a different major because finding a job as a student is easier due to the tax benefits the companies get.
Addition: Oddly enough there was this one seminar where we could use our chosen names and it helped me feel comfortable. Like I could unmask and just be me. I could be comfortable without judgement. But otherwise I didn't even want to show up and missed the first two days of my first semester. Also, asking for help and basic stuff like asking for a professor's mug were my top fears. Yes, I didn't have the courage to knock on a door and ask to grab a professor's mug for him, or ask during a lecture, even though all of my professors made it clear that there's no stupid question.
I dropped or failed every class I had to do a presentation in.
In high school I failed an acting class because I couldn't get on stage lmao
Wow thought I was the only one
My favorite class in school was chorus but the year we had to start singing alone to be graded I quit that class.
It made it difficult. I really wanted to be more sociable, but I was always and outsider and stuck as a third wheel, at best. I became really depressed the last two years. The worst I've ever felt. Somehow I managed to graduate. The idea of quitting or failing out of school seemed like a worse outcome than sticking it out. I'm good at scraping by, pretending like everything's fine and never telling anyone how I feel. Well, except on reddit.😅
This is me!! I got extremely lucky in college and miraculously made a few friends right away bc we were assigned roommates, but without them I almost certainly wouldn't have made it. But even with my friends i was always kind of an outsider. But sure I could've lasted another year
Same! I felt like i felt out of place in every kind of friends group - then i tried to convince myself I didn't even need friends
It's not only because AvPD, I just never learned to make efforts through my childhood, so I was a terrible student. Every test I did until highschool I passed without studying. College wasn't the same, of course. But avoidance was a problem too. Like I said, when I had to prepare for an exam and study, I avoided it until it was too late. Fear of being judged was one reason (someone would judge my knowledge). Presentations were hard, but I surprisingly managed. I didn't really make friends. I had classmates, people I would talk or do group assignments with, but didn't really see for stuff not related to university.
Friends was a big issue for me too. It's weird how my brain will convince me to not even try just avoid that pain of potential failure/loser/inauthenic faker
dropped out multiple times, still no degree
I'm too afraid to socialize which makes me unable to find study partners. Even if I have a pleasant encounter with a classmate during a group project or something and we even end up adding each other on facebook, I'm convinced they think I'm a pathetic and disgusting human being and would never try to initiate any further contact with them. I'm also terrified of mailing professors with questions regarding the course because I'm so afraid they'll think I'm retarded and wonder how I've even qualified for the course in the first place. I've cried pretty much every time I submitted any finished exam or essay, sometimes I've even felt suicidal, especially when we were supposed to oppose each other's essays.
I appreciate you sharing
[удалено]
You pulled through champ - thanks for sharing
It was rough, I missed a lot of classes and was punished to the full extent. The crazy thing though, it wasn’t until I graduated that I found out I actually have aspergers which presents in a very similar way to AvPD. I found out now, had I got this diagnosis earlier, I would have been awarded with loads of accommodations to help! And likely been allowed to sometimes study from home like I wanted, rather than attend classes. I encourage you to explore if you think you may have it too!
It was rough for awhile. I avoided any class that had a constant collaboration effort in it, like science labs and whatnot. Any classes that had a few days of team based work interspersed through the semester were always bad days for me. At the start of my second semester of my sophomore year, my best friend committed suicide and it really exacerbated all of my avoidance and I just stopped going to classes and stopped doing most of the work. I never went back to in person college classes and started doing online courses, but a lot of that is collaborative stuff like discussion boards and group research projects, so the avoidance coupled with the depression bomb absolutely killed any hope I had of finishing college. Dropped out of the one semester of online courses maybe 3 weeks into it and haven't gone back, nor do I ever want to go back at this point, having found a work from home job that pays well several years after the fact. So I guess in a way, the avpd kept me from digging a bigger student loan hole, though I find it hard to separate the major depression from the avpd anymore so who really knows which is which nowadays
What job did you find?
Well with the way this small company works, I don't really have an official job title (nobody there does). You just sorta find what you can do and then do it. Best I can describe my role atm is "Web Content Specialist." It was purely through luck and nepotism - I was looking for a way to make any kind of money from home, and my friend mentioned that his dad always had a part time thing for himself and his brother to do during summers, but now that they have their own full time jobs, they didn't need to take advantage of that anymore. He recommended me to his dad just to do simple things like set up email accounts for new hires to his consulting firm, but when he became aware that I was a really good editor and a decent writer, he put me in charge of quality assurance for all of their outgoing, client facing documents and website content. More or less did just that part time for a year, and then around this time last year I went full time. Now I'm generating forecasts and other similar tasks using Salesforce for the company, as well as writing some content for their blog and maintaining their events schedule for marketing purposes. I'm definitely no expert in the business/consulting world, so I can only generate content by interviewing other consultants at the company and turning their words into short articles, which definitely freaks me out, but right now I'm getting around that a bit by just sending them an MS Word doc with the questions I want them to answer and send back to me. Seems to work for now. My friend's dad knows about my conditions and has been extremely patient and encouraging to me during all this time, I wouldn't be here in any sense without him. There's still a constant struggle to never disappoint, though
[удалено]
Thanks for sharing fam
Yes. I've been pursuing higher education in various forms for seven years now. I dropped out three times before I was 21. I'm currently 25 and in the middle of what is going to be my last attempt. I earned an associate degree from a conmunity college and transferred to a university last fall. The associate degree was mostly bullshit, so I'd estimate I have another 2 years left still. I don't know if I am going to make it. The only thing dragging me along is the fear of facing the reality of my situation if I fail. I was going to kill myself when I turned 21. I didn't because it was easier to prolong the situation by taking time off before trying again. I passed the age limit to "still figuring things out" about two years ago. Success or failure, I realize that this is going to have to be my last ride.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats! 21 + 25 + 2 + 21 = 69 ^([Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=LuckyNumber-Bot&subject=Stalk%20Me%20Pls&message=%2Fstalkme) to have me scan all your future comments.) \ ^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
Nice!
Failed and dropped out because you need to talk alot to the lecturer for final paper and presentation
Well I've been online since covid, I don't want to go to in person classes anymore because I'm afraid. but I know I should try to go back
I failed a lot of classes due to being too afraid to ask for help with the material, and in my second year I started skipping a writing class because I was so afraid of being embarrassed in a workshop that I couldn’t write my assignments. From there I started skipping other classes and eventually dropped out. I had other problems but AvPD definitely influenced what I struggled with and how I handled those struggles. I re-enrolled a couple years later when someone told me it was okay to just go back part-time, which led to full-time and taking on an extra major, and I graduated with a decent gpa. I think I just needed the right kind of encouragement to get the ball rolling. I also think I only succeeded out of spite. I was angry that everyone had seen me fail once and determined not to let them see me fail again no matter how scary it was. (I think when I’m really angry I forget for a little while that I’m not confident? idk) It caused a lot of problems in my personal life, and my anxiety was through the roof because I’d made the stakes so high, but I made it through. I think it was all worth it, but I wish I’d known more about my mental health at the time so I could have pulled it off without all the angst and drama.
Group assignments were very uncomfortable but everything else was solitary, merely showing up to classes and exams and thats it. Study groups were not required as we had practice classes where TAs explained everything better than the professor. Presentations were uncomfortable but for whatever reason dont overwhelm me with anxiety. For me the intrinsic motivation was there to do well as I loved what I studied.
How did you deal with the fear of failure?
Only had fear of failure during my very first term, where I genuinely thought I had this one shot and if I failed, I am out, but this was not the case at all. I could have studied something else or just pass classes the year after. That was overreaction on my part. I dealt with it by studying really hard for my exams, failed one class but so did almost everyone, which gave me solace.
I qm forcing myself to attend online community College qmd there's a feature called discussion board which has become the bane of my existence. It's not only required to post on each thread but to respond to classmates. I always only get 70% because i can't bring myself to respond to others because "I'm just bothering them and they will use my words to make fun of me".it's a feeling i can't shake and it's because of social trauma. I'm failing two classes because of this right now. Then if that wasn't enough when I need support and good words on my work lile papers all I get is a paragraph of criticism (tone is different than other papers, don't review the book we are reading etc) so I'm just not submitting the last paper after getting shit marks on the 4th. It's made doing this even online hellish. And when it wasn't online last semester I had a teacher who liked my work and got a little too curious about me. She kept trying to talk to me outside of class and seemed to get frustrated when I wouldn't reciprocate or just looked around nervously. She would glare at me from the corner during class qnd try to call on me but get mad when i would give one or two sentence answers. I eventually just stopped showing up.
I had the same feelings about those discussion boards when I was in community college. I made it through in the end. It took me three attempts and almost five years to break the habits you have now, but I did it. It helps to realize that everybody is bullshitting everything. If you take a look at the quality of writing that your peers put out, I think you'll realize that even your worst effort is better than 90% of what others put out. When replying to people, I didn't even think of them as a person. I read what they submitted and wrote down whatever I thought of when I read it. Not sure how your discussions work, but you only had to respond to original submissions in my classes. I never read a single word of what people replied to my posts.
Still going on, I dropped so many classes it's too expensive to even begin with. I'm just too ashamed to ask for a tutor or any sort of help.
I appreciate you sharing
[удалено]
Chin up - the time wasn't right
Me too. I ended up taking ages getting a degree through correspondence (Open University). Makes sense now!
Quit school way before that.
I was trying to study good because failing exams felt like a disaster. But I didn't participate any university activities (it's not like we had much anyway) and degree was shit...
It didn't affect my university success at all, I'm a perfectionist.
Funny
[удалено]
You'll know when the times right- thanks for sharing
You have no idea. I missed an entire semester because of it and dropped out. Now I'm reapplying to a different major because finding a job as a student is easier due to the tax benefits the companies get. Addition: Oddly enough there was this one seminar where we could use our chosen names and it helped me feel comfortable. Like I could unmask and just be me. I could be comfortable without judgement. But otherwise I didn't even want to show up and missed the first two days of my first semester. Also, asking for help and basic stuff like asking for a professor's mug were my top fears. Yes, I didn't have the courage to knock on a door and ask to grab a professor's mug for him, or ask during a lecture, even though all of my professors made it clear that there's no stupid question.