Right now, I’m a 2nd year student in university doing Computer Science.
In my later years of high school and first few years in university, my parents (especially my dad), have been very much forcing me to study and getting yelling at me over a single bad mark. While it did give me good marks, it made me so stressed out that one day I just decided that I couldn’t handle it anymore and resisted. At the time I also thought that if my parents kept on managing me like that, then I’ll never really learn how to be truly independent and take control of myself.
After that, they did leave me alone. However, the next semester after that, I failed a course - something which has never happened before. I told myself that it was just a hard course at the time.
This semester, I have lowered my course load from 5 courses to 3. However, I’m always missing or being late to my classes (either it’s because of bad time management, having to rely on the bus, or I just don’t bother to show up, or I just woke up too late because of my sleep problems) and have a lot of missing quizzes/assignments. I also have never managed to pay attention during lectures and get myself to study as much as I need to and do my assignments on time (and no, I’ve found that rewarding myself doesn’t really work). I just got my 1st midterm mark back and it was a 50%. I fear that this semester may go the same as the last one.
Over the last few semesters, because my dad has stopped forcing me to wake up at 7 AM, my sleep schedule has gone terrible. For example, yesterday I got to bed at 5 AM and get up at 2 PM and if I need to be at school by 11 AM, I get to bed only at around 2 - 3 AM and wake up at 9 - 10 AM and am usually late. Despite my efforts to force myself to go to bed earlier, I’ve failed. I believe the only thing that can make me go to bed and wake up on time is if either someone else was forcing me to or I had a completely unavoidable and super important reason to which I’d even be willing to sacrifice sleep for (and most days I just don’t feel like that). I’ve tried melatonin and setting an alarm clock far away from my bed and it didn’t really help.
I just feel like I really suck and am ashamed of what I’ve become. Any advice?
I’ve been pretty much exactly where you are now, but we’re not the same person. I’m drawing a lot from my own experience here, but I’m going to try to keep it as detached from myself as I can.
First thing, I want to really acknowledge here that you were right. You cannot become an independent person while you are being managed by other people. Unless they intended to do this for you your whole life, you were going to have this issue at some point. Usually it’s done earlier on, when the consequences for failure are less, but this is the situation now, and you will have to deal with it as it is. I think you were wise to set those boundaries with your parents, and I think what’s happening now are just the first growing pains, an adjustment period. It will get better after this, I promise. Do not let them take the reins back if you can help it, this is an important developmental milestone in your life.
There’s a possibility that there’s some mental health issues here, exactly what I’m not qualified to really diagnose. It sounds exactly like how I fell apart at University because I was independent for the first time, with undiagnosed ADHD. While that might be a possibility for you, I think that’s best something you should think on. It may help getting a diagnosis with whatever might be going on, but that’s something you can pursue if you feel the need.
Even if you don’t have that kind of mental health issue though, you might have a mental block of some kind due to your past or even current experiences. It might be worth talking to a councillor, or even to a trusted friend about what’s going on, it might help unbottle your feelings and help you realise what’s going on inside your head.
Beyond the clinical stuff though, make sure you are unwinding a little. If you’re constantly pushing yourself you might have these kinds of issues as well. You have needs, and you’ll need to figure out how to keep yourself and your body happy and healthy. It should be easier now you have more control, but there’ll be an adjustment period, like everything else.
The real meat of the issue sounds like the loss of structure and maybe purpose, because you’ve never been in a position to organise yourself before. That’s only natural. The first thing I would advise is maybe take a day to reassess what you truely want. If your parents have been in control all this time, you might not have had the opportunity to really decide for yourself what you want to do, and sometimes your brain will retaliate by self sabotaging, substance abuse, anything to take back control or help with the discomfort. Instead, really think about how sure you are you want to continue on this path. If not education, maybe try working for a bit, if you can. Focus on where the path will take you, focus on moving out eventually if you haven’t already, think about the life you want beyond this. How you achieve these things is entirely in your own hands. Having this sense of purpose will help everything else fall in place, so it’s important to maintain it.
If you’re 100% sure this is what you want, you’ll need to start building good habits for yourself. It sounds like sleep is a big issue, so focus on that. Figure out exactly what you need to be up for, set that alarm, and stick to it 100% of the time. It’ll suck, but then it will get better. If that’s not working, as it sounds like it might be, it could be down to some other issue. I have delayed phase sleep, I couldn’t maintain a normal sleep cycle despite decades of trying. If that’s the case, or something else, you might be able to work around it.
This goes for everything, but don’t try to just force yourself to act the same way everyone else is, because it’s not possible if you aren’t the same as everyone else. Instead, work with what you have, your own needs and limitations, and your body and brain will thank you for it.
Beyond the specifics you’ve described, you’ll likely come up against issues as you adjust to your new way of living. You’ll stumble, there will be minor failures, that’s okay. It sucks, but those failures are part of the learning. I know people that never put those boundaries with their parents, it’s not a good look in the long term.
I want to stress this, if you fail a bit, it’s not a sign you should stop. I stopped my degree because of issues like these, and it has not been helpful, though I have done well despite it, because working helped me get my brain together. I have a friend that took a decade to get a teaching degree, but now he’s teaching at one of the better schools in the state. Persistence does pay off, and it does get better.
I know it probably really sucks right now. You’re doing the right thing. Keep going.