College Stress Support Group
This community is dedicated to the unique challenges and stresses of being in college or university, including: relationship challenges, roommates, financial issues, academics, and questions about careers and future. College is exciting, scary, fulfilling, and sometimes a little out of control. Get support from other students and make a new friend!
I realize that on the boards here at DS I am best the Invisible Man. Tonight, however, I feel a bad need to vent.
This semester has been difficult enough on its own. I'm taking four classes and working part-time besides. But the last month in particular, things have just gone completely downhill.
It started when my dad retired from HIS part-time job. Now, in his defense, it was coming; he's not exactly young anymore (he's 63, in fact). But he always wants to do stuff around the house...like me, he can't sit still for very long. So he's taken on a lot of the stuff that my mother had been doing so that she could convert her part-time job to full-time.
But there's something really strange...you could say really bad...that happens. I feel guilty when I don't help, and I can't go a day anymore without worrying that he's going to launch into some project that requires my presence. And sometimes he needs me because he has no choice; the pet cockatiel goes berzerk with us around, because we're her alpha males, so to speak...I often have to take the bird to keep my dad from ripping the bird's head off because the peeping just pisses him off.
Added on top of all this is that I've had trouble keeping up all semester long, and the added pressure of maintaining peace in the house means there's now even less time to work on my studies. I feel I have no say in what goes on, and at any rate talking things out face-to-face has been useless for me because I don't trust people...it seems the only thing I believe in is that the world is out to get me, which means that it probably has already. I haven't been able to get help on my courses for the same reason.
Now it's all but certain that I'm going to flunk one of my courses as a result of this (the withdrawal period is long gone), and obviously there will be no one to blame but myself. But I'm also going to feel crushed because I've never flunked a class before in my life, but it just seems like the trust issues I have are permanent and will never go away.
Vent over...
This semester has been difficult enough on its own. I'm taking four classes and working part-time besides. But the last month in particular, things have just gone completely downhill.
It started when my dad retired from HIS part-time job. Now, in his defense, it was coming; he's not exactly young anymore (he's 63, in fact). But he always wants to do stuff around the house...like me, he can't sit still for very long. So he's taken on a lot of the stuff that my mother had been doing so that she could convert her part-time job to full-time.
But there's something really strange...you could say really bad...that happens. I feel guilty when I don't help, and I can't go a day anymore without worrying that he's going to launch into some project that requires my presence. And sometimes he needs me because he has no choice; the pet cockatiel goes berzerk with us around, because we're her alpha males, so to speak...I often have to take the bird to keep my dad from ripping the bird's head off because the peeping just pisses him off.
Added on top of all this is that I've had trouble keeping up all semester long, and the added pressure of maintaining peace in the house means there's now even less time to work on my studies. I feel I have no say in what goes on, and at any rate talking things out face-to-face has been useless for me because I don't trust people...it seems the only thing I believe in is that the world is out to get me, which means that it probably has already. I haven't been able to get help on my courses for the same reason.
Now it's all but certain that I'm going to flunk one of my courses as a result of this (the withdrawal period is long gone), and obviously there will be no one to blame but myself. But I'm also going to feel crushed because I've never flunked a class before in my life, but it just seems like the trust issues I have are permanent and will never go away.
Vent over...
What happened with the high school smoke bombing incident? I have had a lot of pranks pulled on me in my youth but none that I would say scared me. It must have been rather intense.
The short story on that: I unfortunately didn't know that was going to happen until it did happen, and even then I didn't know for sure for about 90 minutes after the fact. Being moved from outside to the resource center connecting the middle and high schools to outside the middle school cafeteria was pretty telling, though.
When I was escorted to get my things after the smoke cleared (I wasn't responsible for the act), I happened to catch a glimpse of the device that detonated...and my sense of safety shattered on the spot. To this day I still don't think anyone really knows everything that ran through my head when I saw the shrapnel with some leftover smoke emanating from it, and that goes for myself, too.
Was it columbine?
Have the studies improved any recently?