what’s the point

[uroko]

Rainy day in Kyoto

[jadedfadedalmostgone]

[xanaxfarts]

Arches National Park, Utah photo: Elliot McGucken

[lyvonian]

anxious slytherin student

quizzing themselves while brushing their teeth, late night studies and sleepless nights, reading russian murder literature for avoiding the feelings, feeling like an insane 19th century villain, smoking while circling the room thinking they went crazy, overworking for exams, rainy and foggy exam mornings, counting the stars at night wishing calmness, drinking black coffee like its water

[thewildetyme]

the feminine urge to run barefoot into the forest. to read and make art. to tell people how much they mean to you. to pick pretty flowers and put them in someone’s hair. to stare at the sky and see your own breath as you breathe in the changing air.

[inactive4444-deactivated2022080]

i feel like i’m never myself around the people that matter.

[dying-flowers]

rory gilmore aesthetics

[id1367]

[theunaestheticstudyblr]

UNIVERSITY WITH MENTAL ILLNESS

Mental health and illness is already hard enough, but adding school pressure on top is hard. High school was easier for me since there is a lot more structure and a lot less choice, which is why I'm targeting this towards college and university students.

Firstly is attending class. Getting to class is a major hurdle, especially with a commute like me (1 hour+) broke people problems lmao. Driving that long to go to a class just to drive back home is already exhausting and unpleasant, especially knowing professors will post slides or something after class anyways. But you have to drag yourself there. One thing I do to help is dress up. I'll do my makeup and put on nicer clothes. Why does this work for me? I hate wasting stuff, especially money and to me, putting on makeup is spending money essentially (same logic as using rare items in a video game idk). I can't just sit around the house and waste the money I just put on my face so I gotta go to class. Small things like this to trick your brain works so well. Before this, there was a restaurant I absolutely loved next to campus so if I went to every class for two weeks I would reward myself by going there. Another thing that helps is making plans with people ahead of time. They'll hold you accountable on days that you can't.

Take rest days. Schedule one whole day a week where you don't do school or go to work. It's a day completely off for anything. I use this day to do chores in the morning and then just lay around and do absolutely nothing all afternoon and night. This helps recharge and reduce stimulation and socialization. It gives your brain that little rest it cries for every day. I used to panic so much about this one day because I could be working and making money or studying or doing anything to be productive until I had a week where I couldn't do anything because I broke down completely, mentally and physically. Now I see it as a preservation day. I use this day to recover from everything.

Make your notes pretty. I hate going back and looking at my messy class notes. Everything is scattered and messy and I get frustrated. What I do instead is make a virtual, concise copy that is pretty to me. I'll add little sketches, color, pictures, etc. This helps draw my attention and allows me to study while doing it! Making the second copy forces you to go through the material after a class is over and review the material to decide what is truly important and then organize it all and then rewrite it all. This has been a huge help.

Use class breaks to snack or grab coffee. One thing I have found in many people with high anxiety is that food and drinks really help calm you down. I've found some research suggesting it's because food is a signal that things are safe and therefore makes you more relaxed, though I don't know much about anthropology and psychology fields. I find this really helps to calm me down after I had a very stressful test so that I can be more present for the next class. Gum helps a lot on high anxiety/panic days as well.

Download the notes or slides, especially if posted ahead of time. This way you have access even if you don't have wifi. You can even pull them up in lectures so you don't have to focus on the board the whole time. For my people with autism, this has helped me so much. There are times where you can't focus on the professor and the slides and the sounds and writing, so doing this cuts out having to watch the teacher and the board. Bonus points if you can record during lecture as well so you can revisit parts that you zoned out in or couldn't focus on.

Keep a journal or diary and list your activities, food, weather, etc in it as well as your mood. This can help you find correlations to hack shit. My favorite way of doing this is through the Daylio app (I wrote a post about it here). Like I notice that days when it's rainy, I study and read more and days where I walk more and eat breakfast, I focus better and am happier overall. This information helps so much. If I know it's going to rain tomorrow, I won't try to force myself to study a bunch today and instead save that energy for later. Instead, I'll take care of myself and go for a walk or something. Knowing how you work and why really makes a HUGE difference.

This might just be my autism brain, but finding cool things related to the topic at hand has helped me keep interest in at least a little of the subject, helping me study more. Like I don't like chimaeras (a fish group) BUT for some reason I love fish teeth and these fishes have a very unique tooth set. This at least let's me know something instead of just ignoring and forgetting everything. 20% is better than nothing.

Find a reason to study what you do, even if it's just that you need this class to graduate. Just taking classes for no reason seems like something neurotypical people are able to do. I can't do it. I need a reason and if I can't find one, I just give up. I used to always say it was useless and pointless and didn't understand why it was required. But I realized the reason to take it is because I want a piece of paper that says I traded lots of money and sanity for it. And that reason has to be good enough.

Make study games. Games are more fun than lifeless paper. Matching games, crosswords, coloring pages, whatever you like!

Feel free to add your tips to this post as well!! I always have room for improvement and experimentation, especially for really hard days. I still find myself skipping even online classes some days. No one had all the answers or has everything figured out. This is just an incomplete list of things that have helped me out a bit and made college life a bit easier.

[nd-studyblr]

some tips if you're mentally ill and just trying to scrape through university

(for reference, i'm still only a first year and this is just what i've found works for me. im also in humanities, and don't write any exams, so my advice might not work for everyone.)

1. don't even look at supplementary readings. write them down or save them somewhere along with what topic/module they're related to so you can use them as references if you have an essay on that topic. a lot of the time you probably don't even need to do primary readings; the lecturer will go over the most important stuff in the lecture.

2. make a list of the bare minimum you need to do each week. for me this is attending tutorials - because of covid everything else is still asynchronous for me, so for participation marks i just need to show up to tutorials and do the weekly questions. i can catch up on other stuff when i need it for assignments.

3. take your meds (if you have them). set alarms, set multiple alarms, ask a friend to bug you about it, whatever. i have too many times fallen into the trap of forgetting my meds because i feel like i don't need them, getting too depressed to take them, and then getting even more depressed, and having no motivation to work. my meds always help more than i think they do.

4. get a study buddy. this doesn't even have to be someone in the same courses as you! they don't even have to be a student. just get someone to sit in a room with you, or be on a video/voice call, and hold you accountable. for adhd people this is like a hack to our brains! no clue why, but for many of us it seems that just having someone else in the room (or on a phone call) makes it way easier to avoid procrastinating.

5. water and food! especially if you're on adhd meds, make sure to eat before you take them, or have something to snack on while you work. i often forget to eat and then wonder why my brain feels like slush. (also, have a big water bottle so you don't have to fill it up as much).

6. don't worry about your notes looking pretty. this has honestly been one of the hardest things i've had to get over, for some reason. i really enjoy making pretty notes, but they just aren't practical for my brain, especially now i'm in university. because of adhd, my brain doesn't remember shit if i just wrote it down once. instead, i've started focusing on just getting down key words and phrases, with a simple two-colour highlighting system (colour 1: main heading; colour 2: subheading; colour 1: key words/definitions). this way i can easily find what im looking for when im referencing my notes for an assignment. (NB: since i don't write exams, i don't need to memorise anything - if you do need to do this, i recommend flashcards; either physical ones or quizlet).

7. talk to your lecturers/tutors! not all of them are gonna be nice, but more often than not, i've found my lecturers and tutors to be very understanding and accommodating (although i might just be lucky). if you can, ask older students about which lecturers and tutors are lenient and if there are any you should avoid. i've found that especially since tutors tend to be younger (and often are students themselves), they're very understanding with mental health. if your university has a disability service, sign up with them if you can, and inform your professors at the start of the semester that you may need extensions on assignments due to [insert mental illness/medical problem]. if you tell them in advance, they'll probably be more likely to hand out an extension or give you leeway.

8. this has gotten long, so im gonna end it here with: go easy on yourself. uni is hard enough without also being mentally ill, and the fact that you're even trying to do it is impressive. you're working three times as hard as other people, and it can be frustrating when it doesn't feel like you're getting results that represent the effort you've put in. i'm proud of you, even if you haven't managed to get any work done.

[achillesdespair]

earth

[girlofdogs]

if i had a hot academic rival i would be at least 55% more motivated to study so i can beat their score in every exam. applications open

[aarcturus-deactivated20210608]

and when nobody wakes you up in the morning, and when nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do whatever you want. what do you call it, freedom or loneliness?

— Charles Bukowski.

[crimsoncover-deactivated2022081]

bewitching things about the slytherin common room

the centerpiece of the room and arguably the most spectacular piece is the stunning piano forte that, when played by the hands of a skilled pianist, sings the most enchanting notes

it is quite a warm and welcoming room, contrary to popular belief, heated by a magical fireplace able to keep away the cold and frost of the black lake

the notice board holds a monthly “overheard at hogwarts” contest where the funniest overheard conversation brings its listener the delicious prize of a smuggled slice of hufflepuff cheesecake

while the purebloods pretend not to like it, they secretly enjoy the monthly movie nights when all the couches and armchairs are pushed together and everyone watches whatever movie the ravenclaws are whispering about

near the piano stands a mahogany desk littered with old world maps and a large globe, for the dreamers

the entire left wall is made of glass, showcasing the haunting depths of the black lake

sometimes, the sirens swim to the other side of the glass and gaze at the students, while the ones who know sign language chat with them 

the sirens pick favourites, and once a year they offer their chosen ones an enchanted ring that allows them to spend one night underwater, and they secretly emerge out of the lake the next morning, humming old siren melodies

hidden in the darkest corner of the room sulks the portrait of a young princess, who, despite her less than ideal living conditions, is kind and always listens to whoever needs to vent

a small group of slytherins used to join the hufflepuffs and ravenclaws for their “inception” themed debates, but they got too passionate and curious about the topic of dreams within dreams that they were asked to participate less often

the common room houses a very secret slytherin exclusive bookclub where the most gushed over book to this day is jane austen’s “pride and prejudice”

[castudies]

mental health tips i wish i’d been given before starting university

trying is much more important than succeeding

10 minutes of studying > not studying at all

being a college student is more than academics. it’s also learning how to enjoy your own company, learning and occasionally screwing up meals, wandering outside campus like a tourist, questioning your ideals and presuppositions, discovering new talents and skills for the hell of it, and SO much more. if you feel burnt out in one dimension of college life, that’s a sign to spend some time relishing in another dimension.

if you need more time, take a deep breath and shoot that email to your professor/TA asking for an extension. at worst, they say no. and don’t stress over properly explaining yourself/your situation. hell, just email them: “Hi, Professor. I need your help. Sincerely, y/n.” all it takes is that one initial reach out and the rest will follow.

failure does not reflect character. read that again. remind yourself as often as you see fit because at one point or another, you will feel like you’ve failed. it’s growing pains. once you’ve accepted that, learn to view any setbacks as a hint that you need to try a new method/approach. didn’t do well on that math quiz? don’t beat yourself up over it–instead, regroup with yourself and see which metaphorical gear got stuck in your personal learning process machine. for instance, maybe you used flash cards and that wasn’t really your style. act like a detective, not a bully.

THERE IS NO NORMAL TIMELINE FOR YOUR COLLEGE CAREER(!!!!!!). a lot of people need more than 4 years, a lot of people need 4 years, and a lot of people need less than 4 years. and every single one of those timelines are valid. the worst thing you could do is squeeze the living hell out of yourself into some rigid schedule that is incompatible with who you are and how you learn. trust me when i say u will find yourself doing the best work when u do it at YOUR pace.

[lilianromantic]

[mathemorphosis]

「 ig: mariemokatt 」