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I'm burning at both ends.
Ein
CaliforniaRegistered User regular
CaliforniaRegistered User regular
This is going to end up being emo because it's stuff I've been wanting to tell someone for a long while now, but haven't been able to. I do apologize in advance for this, with that in mind, and I feel like a fool just throwing this to the internet for evaluation and help, but today's been an interesting day for me and I need to talk to somebody.
A couple bits of information to preface this.
I am 20, a Junior in college, with a major and minor in subjects that I don't really care for with the hopes of going to law school after I graduate.
I am diabetic, type 2. Diagnosed about two years ago in the fall. I've been taking medication to try and control my blood sugar adequately.
I have had back surgery about two months ago when I injured two discs in my lower back and rendered myself reasonably incapable of moving. The surgery has since helped a good deal, and I'm doing good - I get around, walk, sit, general life activity without any trouble. I still can't run, but I was never all that good at it to begin with.
I am an only child with two parents that were (are?) amazing acheivers, graduated top of their class, own their own business, fairly well-off. They expect a lot of me because they expect a lot of themselves.
I have a girlfriend who I have been with for three and a half years. I don't feel like I can confide the sort of information I'm about to present to the internet of all places to her because I'm afraid she'd think less of me for it, and I don't want to deal with her pity or her anger. The same goes for my parents.
Let's do this in the order I just presented those.
I want to go to law school. I'm not particularly interested in being a lawyer, but it seems alright. Some parts of the law interest me, I suppose. The only reasons I want to be a lawyer... well, basically, I don't know what would make me happy for a living. I've thought about it for years now, but I haven't come up with anything, other than I want a job that would allow me to live comfortably and pays well. Law seems to fit that bill - it appealed to my mercenary side, at least. I feel like even if I don't enjoy doing it as a job, I would be able to enjoy the rest of my life with the money that the profession accompanies.
The problem with law school is that they require good grades and a good LSAT score. I did okay on the LSATs - 159, which is pretty much middle of the road. I know a lawyer who got a 150, and another who got a 149, so I suppose I'll be alright. My GPA is another matter - I have a 3.25 right now, which is nowhere near what law schools want, for the most part. I need to get my GPA up to something like a 3.4, at least, which doesn't sound like a big deal, but it seems to be for me.
I'm doing awful this semester at school. I'm a political science major, even though I have no interest in politics, because the deans at my school told me that it would be a good background to applying to law school. My college unfortunately does not have a pre-law major, so I have to rule that out. I am also a history minor, but mostly out of convenience - I didn't know what my minor would be, but poli sci has a lot of overlap with history, so I just went with that as a suggestion. My grades this semester are rapidly failing - I've been getting C's on my midterms so far, despite my best efforts. I can't seem to concentrate on school - when I'm in class, my mind wanders, and even when I try to take notes I don't come up with anything productive. When I'm studying, I can only muster enough willpower to keep me focused on my work for about 5 minutes at a time before whatever I'm doing trails off into something more interesting - like, reading Wikipedia on a subject I'm being tested on tomorrow just to get a feel for some things and following links from there and reading about totally useless subjects that won't help me at all.
I don't know how to deal with this - it's just stressing me out a tremendous amount. Even when I try to buckle down and read, my eyes will go through the motions, but when I'm done with a paragraph I couldn't begin to tell you what I just read. I never used to be like this, I used to be a straight-A student up until about the middle of high school, when things just started falling apart - my A's started becoming B's, and then C's, even though I did the same things I always did. I have a midterm tomorrow that I have been trying my hardest to study for, but of course, I'm doing stuff like writing this instead.
On to the diabetic part - I wasn't always one. I had a fairly good warning I was going to be - both sides of my family have a history of it, even though neither of my parents have it, and I used to eat sugar like mad right up until I was about 17. At around 14, the doctors started warning me to cut it out or I'd become a diabetic, but I didn't take them seriously, and lo and behold, now I am. I take medication, not insulin, to compensate for it.
All of that is fine, except for one thing. I still have a vice for sugar.
I can't help myself, sometimes. I think I'm responding to stress, or something. I'm usually a good diabetic - I don't eat anything too bad for me, or drink regular soda (I've adjusted to diet soda, water, and seltzer).. but every so often, I go on huge sugar binges. It's awful when I do it - I'll walk into the store for groceries or whatever, and walk out with twizzlers, airheads, skittles, whatever it may be. There will be times when I even say to myself 'Well, I'll ration it slowly over the next few weeks, maybe that'll work out' but it always ends in me eating pretty much all of it in one sitting. Case in point - halloween. I went trick-or-treating with the girlfriend and her family, and collected some of the candy they were giving out. I brought it back to school with the intention of sharing it with my three other roommates - I figured they might enjoy it. Of course, the result of this has been me basically eating half a pound of crap before realizing what the hell I was doing and promptly throwing the rest out. That's always the way of it - I'll binge like this, and then immediately feel a huge amount of regret, followed by panic. I've heard someone use the phrase 'burning a candle at both ends' on that behavior before, and it's entirely appropriate - in a dark room, it'll burn bright and keep everyone content, but it goes out much faster than it should. My blood sugar's in the 200's right about now, which for anyone familiar with diabetes will tell you is about 2-3x higher than it should be. I just paniced and went for a walk around my campus while trying to study for my midterm tomorrow, and I seem to have gone down a little bit, but the walk was even a bad idea because I'm not 100% better from my back surgery yet.
Speaking of the back surgery.
It was late august when I had the surgery. Prior to that, I was basically incapable of moving - I could, but even the slightest movement in my hips caused agonizing pain. I had a disc problem that was pinching down on my cyatic nerve in my back, and basically giving me hell. Surgery was scary, but now, afterwards, I'm able to walk again and get around. Some things still hurt me, and even with physical therapy, it's starting to be depressing - my therapist is telling me never to expect to get back to 100% like I was before surgery, and the thought of being permanently crippled at 20 already is tremendously demoralizing, moreso than being diabetic seems to be.
Because of the surgery, I also ended up falling behind a little bit at the beginning of the semester because I missed the first two weeks or so of lectures. My professor responses to this have basically been to suck it up, get caught up, and get on with it, but it's already starting to hurt me - I did very poorly on the first couple of quizzes in a couple of my classes, and they don't really have much sympathy for any of it, which is understandable to some degree - my lectures are all 150-200 people each. My college has never had small classes, and I doubt I ever will, so most of my professors don't even know who I am when I talk to them, even if I've come to their office hours before.
I want to tell someone about this, but I can't tell my parents or my girlfriend for the reasons I mentioned above. My girlfriend would just get mad and yell at me if I told her any of this, and tell me how I'm gradually killing myself with this stupid sugar bingeing, and then start crying. My parents would do all the same yelling, but I'd probably get no sympathy from them either because all they ever seem to tell me is how hard it was when they were my age and they endured through stress without complaining or acting like a fool. And don't get me wrong - I know that what I'm doing is stupid. There are just times when I can't seem to stop myself. So, I figured that putting this on the internet doesn't hurt - anonymnity is always a good thing, right? Though I'm a bit more hesitant to put it here because I'm at least friends with some of you, but what the hell.
tl;dr - I don't know what to do with myself. I'm burning out, mentally and physically, because I can't seem to pull myself together and stop from doing things that I very clearly know I shouldn't do. But please do read.
A couple bits of information to preface this.
I am 20, a Junior in college, with a major and minor in subjects that I don't really care for with the hopes of going to law school after I graduate.
I am diabetic, type 2. Diagnosed about two years ago in the fall. I've been taking medication to try and control my blood sugar adequately.
I have had back surgery about two months ago when I injured two discs in my lower back and rendered myself reasonably incapable of moving. The surgery has since helped a good deal, and I'm doing good - I get around, walk, sit, general life activity without any trouble. I still can't run, but I was never all that good at it to begin with.
I am an only child with two parents that were (are?) amazing acheivers, graduated top of their class, own their own business, fairly well-off. They expect a lot of me because they expect a lot of themselves.
I have a girlfriend who I have been with for three and a half years. I don't feel like I can confide the sort of information I'm about to present to the internet of all places to her because I'm afraid she'd think less of me for it, and I don't want to deal with her pity or her anger. The same goes for my parents.
Let's do this in the order I just presented those.
I want to go to law school. I'm not particularly interested in being a lawyer, but it seems alright. Some parts of the law interest me, I suppose. The only reasons I want to be a lawyer... well, basically, I don't know what would make me happy for a living. I've thought about it for years now, but I haven't come up with anything, other than I want a job that would allow me to live comfortably and pays well. Law seems to fit that bill - it appealed to my mercenary side, at least. I feel like even if I don't enjoy doing it as a job, I would be able to enjoy the rest of my life with the money that the profession accompanies.
The problem with law school is that they require good grades and a good LSAT score. I did okay on the LSATs - 159, which is pretty much middle of the road. I know a lawyer who got a 150, and another who got a 149, so I suppose I'll be alright. My GPA is another matter - I have a 3.25 right now, which is nowhere near what law schools want, for the most part. I need to get my GPA up to something like a 3.4, at least, which doesn't sound like a big deal, but it seems to be for me.
I'm doing awful this semester at school. I'm a political science major, even though I have no interest in politics, because the deans at my school told me that it would be a good background to applying to law school. My college unfortunately does not have a pre-law major, so I have to rule that out. I am also a history minor, but mostly out of convenience - I didn't know what my minor would be, but poli sci has a lot of overlap with history, so I just went with that as a suggestion. My grades this semester are rapidly failing - I've been getting C's on my midterms so far, despite my best efforts. I can't seem to concentrate on school - when I'm in class, my mind wanders, and even when I try to take notes I don't come up with anything productive. When I'm studying, I can only muster enough willpower to keep me focused on my work for about 5 minutes at a time before whatever I'm doing trails off into something more interesting - like, reading Wikipedia on a subject I'm being tested on tomorrow just to get a feel for some things and following links from there and reading about totally useless subjects that won't help me at all.
I don't know how to deal with this - it's just stressing me out a tremendous amount. Even when I try to buckle down and read, my eyes will go through the motions, but when I'm done with a paragraph I couldn't begin to tell you what I just read. I never used to be like this, I used to be a straight-A student up until about the middle of high school, when things just started falling apart - my A's started becoming B's, and then C's, even though I did the same things I always did. I have a midterm tomorrow that I have been trying my hardest to study for, but of course, I'm doing stuff like writing this instead.
On to the diabetic part - I wasn't always one. I had a fairly good warning I was going to be - both sides of my family have a history of it, even though neither of my parents have it, and I used to eat sugar like mad right up until I was about 17. At around 14, the doctors started warning me to cut it out or I'd become a diabetic, but I didn't take them seriously, and lo and behold, now I am. I take medication, not insulin, to compensate for it.
All of that is fine, except for one thing. I still have a vice for sugar.
I can't help myself, sometimes. I think I'm responding to stress, or something. I'm usually a good diabetic - I don't eat anything too bad for me, or drink regular soda (I've adjusted to diet soda, water, and seltzer).. but every so often, I go on huge sugar binges. It's awful when I do it - I'll walk into the store for groceries or whatever, and walk out with twizzlers, airheads, skittles, whatever it may be. There will be times when I even say to myself 'Well, I'll ration it slowly over the next few weeks, maybe that'll work out' but it always ends in me eating pretty much all of it in one sitting. Case in point - halloween. I went trick-or-treating with the girlfriend and her family, and collected some of the candy they were giving out. I brought it back to school with the intention of sharing it with my three other roommates - I figured they might enjoy it. Of course, the result of this has been me basically eating half a pound of crap before realizing what the hell I was doing and promptly throwing the rest out. That's always the way of it - I'll binge like this, and then immediately feel a huge amount of regret, followed by panic. I've heard someone use the phrase 'burning a candle at both ends' on that behavior before, and it's entirely appropriate - in a dark room, it'll burn bright and keep everyone content, but it goes out much faster than it should. My blood sugar's in the 200's right about now, which for anyone familiar with diabetes will tell you is about 2-3x higher than it should be. I just paniced and went for a walk around my campus while trying to study for my midterm tomorrow, and I seem to have gone down a little bit, but the walk was even a bad idea because I'm not 100% better from my back surgery yet.
Speaking of the back surgery.
It was late august when I had the surgery. Prior to that, I was basically incapable of moving - I could, but even the slightest movement in my hips caused agonizing pain. I had a disc problem that was pinching down on my cyatic nerve in my back, and basically giving me hell. Surgery was scary, but now, afterwards, I'm able to walk again and get around. Some things still hurt me, and even with physical therapy, it's starting to be depressing - my therapist is telling me never to expect to get back to 100% like I was before surgery, and the thought of being permanently crippled at 20 already is tremendously demoralizing, moreso than being diabetic seems to be.
Because of the surgery, I also ended up falling behind a little bit at the beginning of the semester because I missed the first two weeks or so of lectures. My professor responses to this have basically been to suck it up, get caught up, and get on with it, but it's already starting to hurt me - I did very poorly on the first couple of quizzes in a couple of my classes, and they don't really have much sympathy for any of it, which is understandable to some degree - my lectures are all 150-200 people each. My college has never had small classes, and I doubt I ever will, so most of my professors don't even know who I am when I talk to them, even if I've come to their office hours before.
I want to tell someone about this, but I can't tell my parents or my girlfriend for the reasons I mentioned above. My girlfriend would just get mad and yell at me if I told her any of this, and tell me how I'm gradually killing myself with this stupid sugar bingeing, and then start crying. My parents would do all the same yelling, but I'd probably get no sympathy from them either because all they ever seem to tell me is how hard it was when they were my age and they endured through stress without complaining or acting like a fool. And don't get me wrong - I know that what I'm doing is stupid. There are just times when I can't seem to stop myself. So, I figured that putting this on the internet doesn't hurt - anonymnity is always a good thing, right? Though I'm a bit more hesitant to put it here because I'm at least friends with some of you, but what the hell.
tl;dr - I don't know what to do with myself. I'm burning out, mentally and physically, because I can't seem to pull myself together and stop from doing things that I very clearly know I shouldn't do. But please do read.
Ein on
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From what I saw, you need to relax. We only go around this thing called life once. You can't go around living your life for other people.
I would suggest stopping, taking complete stock of your life, and finding something that you can do that you will love. Being a lawyer is not the only career in the world that will allow you to live comfortably, and frankly, if this career is going to be so stressed that you're eating badly and affecting your health, being financially well-off won't help you diddly. Happiness > wealth. So, first, find something you can do with your life that can give you both happiness and wealth. It doesn't necessarily have to be one or the other.
I wouldn't say that the eating badly component is a sole result of my current situation - I've had these stupid binges on and off since I was first diagnosed. It's not helping, of course, but I can't pretend it's solely a response to stress.
I don't know what 'stopping' would exactly entail right now. I've had thoughts of dropping all of my classes this semester and trying to collect myself, but I can't for a couple reasons - primarily my folks. Not only are they paying for most of my education, but it would be wasted money for them, and it's the sort of thing where I know for a fact my father wouldn't talk to me again - it'd be something like "I tried to do my best for you, you're on your own now, don't come to me for anything else." It sounds harsh, but I am entirely positive that is the response I would get because it's come close to that before.
Take some time for yourself... even just a few weeks. Figure out what YOU want to do... read books, talk to people in different areas, at least narrow it down to a field that you have an interest in. Make sure it's you and not someone else pressuring you. If your girlfriend isn't supportive, get some space, your 20 and need to figure out stuff for yourself. Basiclly just think, and work through problems in your head, write them down or do whatever works for you. Whatever you decide, make sure it's well thought out and have some sort of plan. Just make sure it's flexible enough to take some hits and don't get frustrated... talk with freinds and family, they should provide some council, especially someone who knows you well and has experienced similar problems.
I ultimately have the same advice to give in threads like this, and that advice is travel. If you're stuck in a place without any sense of purpose then get on your bike and find a purpose. Seeing the world will do that for you. Is there anywhere you've always wanted to go, but never seriously considered it? Well, it's time to start considering it. Taking yourself out of the context of your everyday environment for an extended period of time will make you realise what exactly you need about your current life, and what you don't.
As for the sugar problem, I'm not great at health issues, but I'd suggest finding an alternate "fix" for when the need to binge comes along. Personally I'm a rampant consumer whore, and when I feel shit I indulge in retail therapy. It makes me feel good to buy something expensive. Is there anything else that, when you feel like eating sugar, you could replace it with? Would it work to say "Alright, every time I want to eat sugar, I'll force myself to go spend $10 to see a move at the cinema instead, and if I still want sugar after the movie then so be it" or "I'll buy a new CD and listen to that first" or "I'll go shag my misses."? It seems like you're just holding yourself back for so long that you're really forced to indulge. If you can find something else to indulge in which doesn't effect your health in such a negative way, you may be able to cut down.
I also really think you should talk about this with your girlfriend. You've been together for 3 and a half years - obviously she cares about you. Times like this are exactly what relationships are for, and if you can't see yourself discussing the big issues with this particular person then maybe you should think about why you are together. You probably will let her down, she may get mad, but if she does love you she'll help you through the shit in a way that you could never do on your own.
You lack perspective. College is a great time to be alive and enjoy life. Your 20's and 30's and 40's and so on. The level of stress that you are experiencing is real, but it is based upon the assumption that you absolutely must get into law school NOW. This is not the case; the only two things you are required to do are pay taxes and die. Every ounce of stress you think is the end of the world right now....yeah, not that bad.
Okay, your health first. You're diabetic and you're binging and you need to stop; so stop. You know that exercise is good for you, so do it. Go on a walk, ride a stationary bike while watching a cooking channel that focuses on healthy food, anything to break the routine.
Now, mental state next. You don't know what to do. Welcome to life. The best part about not knowing? Finding out. You don't have to be a lawyer to use a law degree. Ever think about politics? Spend one hour a day reading the posts in D&D and you could become the greatest statesman Penny Arcade ever produced. Failing that, think about a job working for the government as some level of civil servant and moving your way up to an administrative position with any number of federal agencies. Or you could become mayor of Washington D.C. provided that you don't have an unhealthy attatchment to crack. You don't like crack do you?
Lastly, chill the fuck out. Go watch a movie or read a book. Masturbate, it does wonders for the soul. And realize one simple fact: the hardest part was you admitting that you weren't perfect and asking for help. That shit takes courage. Well done.
Chin up, Jam. We got your back.
The foible in this is that I used to do stuff like this, and it helped keep me under control and managed, but with the introduction of back surgery I've lost my ability to do these sorts of things. I can walk, but not exercise distances. I used to bike to class every day to help keep my blood sugar in check, but there's no chance I'd be able to do that now. 'So stop' only works for so long, too. Not that I've ever smoked to be able to make this comparison, but 'stopping' the binging feels a lot like I would imagine going cold turkey on them would be. It just keeps coming back when I'm not ready for it.
I'll reply to more of this in a moment.
What I wanted to get you to understand is this, you have no idea where life is gonna take you, so don't stress out about a future that may or may not happen. You don't need to go to some top of the line law school to become a lawyer and live comfortably (and then some). If you fail some midterms, or even some classes, whatever. You can make them up next semester or in summer school. Go party with friends.
Stress is a pretty solid trigger for binge eating. I think that instances of this type of behavior would likely decrease if you were to a) reduce the number of stressors in your life, and b) develop better coping mechanisms for handling stress, but I'm not really qualified to advise you in this area. If you're not doing so already, I would recommend speaking with a counsellor of some kind, if your school offers them. If you can't talk to your girlfriend of parents, the next best thing is to talk to a professional who can advise you on either or both a) and b) above. This is especially true given that there's a potential medical risk to you if you don't get this behavior under control.
Wow... are you absolutely certain that would be their reaction? Because I have to say, that would be horribly unsupportive, and I have a hard time imagining that core people in your life would be so cold and dismissive to your difficulties. I remember thinking similar things when trying to figure out how to tell my parents that I was on the verge of having a spectacularily bad final term in CS. In the end, it was so much less than I had feared. The worst thing any of them said to me was "We're really disappointed." Which hurt, sure, but they also said things like "It's not the end of the world," "You shouldn't give up," and "We'll support you if you want to try again in a different program." I can only hope that your parents would be willing to give you the same sort of second chance, or trust your judgement when you tell them that you need to make a change / scale back your courseload / take some time off from school / whatever. Trying to keep your problems hidden from them simply creates another source of stress, and I think it will only be a matter of time before they become aware of some or all of what's going on. I can tell you from direct personal experience in a very, very similar situation that if nothing else you will feel a ton better once you can stop expending energy on keeping up a facade to fool the key people in your life into thinking that everything is hunky-dory.
I feel like I'm going out on a limb here, so I'll reiterate... please consider talking to a counsellor! But anyway, what I might recommend is this: figure out a plan that will improve your situation. This plan may involve drastic steps like switching majors, or changing your long-term life goals, or even scrapping existing long-term goals and embarking on a search for new goals. Whatever the case may be, you may find it's easier to tell your parents and girlfriend about your problems if you've got a plan in hand. You can say "Look, I'm having these problems, I really need your support, I have these ideas for how I can make it better, what do you think?" At the very least, it would hopefully push the dialog in a more constructive direction.
You need to put the breaks on now, before its too late.
First, fuck your Physical therapist, she/he is being negative and you need to think positive. You need to get into a gym asap and hook up with a personal trainer, you need to explain to him the severity of your situation and get him to work you a plan where you do extensive core strengthening exercises. You need to go 4 times a week, minimum. Your back is fucked, theres no denying that. You need to counter by making all the muscles around your back and your abominals very strong. If you do this, your life will start to change dramatically, trust me.
Failure is not an option on this one.
Second, but just as important; you need to go to your girlfriend, and you need to ask her for help- not criticism, but honest to god help. You need her to support you, to be there for you and to do whatever she can to make you feel good about yourself. She knows you have a problem, get her to do something about it, not just get upset. If she loves you this will be easier, if she doesn't, you need to think about ending it. I know that sounds like making things even worse for yourself, but you need to start thinking about yourself and what you really need- you need someone that gives you love, respect and unconditional support at all times.
Your partner should be your rock, she should be your confident, your light on the hill, especially in times like these.
Think positive. I -like you- am in a dark place at the moment. Don't let it beat you, your life is too precious to give up on.
Do these two things, and your cravings will start to eb, your marks will start to improve and you may even get where you need to go... no guarantees though... but at least if you do do these things, you will have sorted out the most important things in your life- your health, and your love.
I'm shocking when I'm at home and I want something sweet to eat. I'll raid my kitchen for anything. (There's often some cooking chocolate at my house) but again, if there is nothing in your house you can't be tempted.
As opposed to your studies. Tell your parents that you aren't going well and you need some perspective, tell them that you'll finish the semester and do your best but you need to do something else and take a break. It sounds to me like you'll like the lifestyle of being a lawyer but you wont like being a lawyer. That wont work. Life isn't a great big bowl of cherries, it's something I live by when things go bad, but at the same time it's just plain stupid to walk down a path where you know you'll be unhappy. Do you want to be the guy that's bitter and angry when he gets home because he hates his job so much?
Satans..... hints.....
Being a lawyer is extremely demanding. It's not something to be taken lightly; it can and will easily dominate every aspect of your life. If you do not love being a lawyer, I can't imagine that you'll grow to appreciate it, or like it. Is the money good? It can be. The work is grueling and goes all hours, especially if you choose a route that goes through a large firm. It is, as often as not, a perfect storm of stress, tedium, and unbelievable mental gymnastics.
It is not unusual for an associate at a good law firm, who is a very smart person in his/her own right, to be given say 10-20 full file boxes of paper (say 5000 pages per box?), and asked to go through and catalog the entire thing, discerning what is valuable evidence from what is chaff. Or maybe it's not 50,000 pages of paper, it's 400 CDs. Does this sound like fun to you? It's not. I've done it. You do it because it is a necessary and integral part of the job.
Do you enjoy preparing 100 contingency plans, only to see 2 of them actually be used? If you're a conscientious attorney, you do this. Being a good lawyer is like being a chessmaster: you are constantly looking three moves ahead, and preparing for every eventuality. This means getting ready for everything, only to have a small fraction of it actually occur. This might literally mean preparing 200 pages of argument, only to use four pages in a hearing.
Do you enjoy competing with other people? Because law is, as often as not, a mental and psychological battle. You will often do the best work of your life, and still lose. In what other profession is this true? You will have deep responsibilities on your shoulders, and you must muster responses on the fly, at a moment's notice. And if you don't, it will be your fault. Do you want this pressure?
Luckily, there are people that say "yes," or are at least willing to do this for the rewards - defending people's rights, enforcing the law, achieving justice, and upholding the Constitution. Lawyers get to do all these things and they are powerful rewards, but they come at a significant price.
So consider carefully a cavalier or ad-hoc decision to go to law school. It's an easy one to regret, to the tune of $100,000 in tuition when the reality sets in.
Don't do it if you don't really want to. It isn't some fallback, it isn't something to do just because you don't know what to do. If undergrad is kicking your ass mentally, law school could push you over the edge. I graduated with a double major in four years from undergrad, and law school is like five times as much work as undergrad. It isn't hard work, but it is immensely frustrating.
Then again, I mean to do really well. I made law review, which pretty much doubles my weekly work. One of my roommates got on the competitive moot court team. He spends hours upon hours in the library each day.
My other roommate, he doesn't do anything extracurricular. He does his five classes, hits the middle of the curve for his grades, and doesn't work very hard at it. So if you just want to coast and do alright, it is very doable.
But you seem like a guy that wants to push himself. And you don't want to do that to yourself in law school unless you are completely sure of yourself. I can't stress enough, don't do it just because you aren't sure of what you want to do. If you stress easy, law school can be really, really bad for you.
Take a step back. If you're doing it for your parents, don't. If you are doing it for yourself, then go for it. But don't go in thinking it is more college. College is fun. Law school is not.
Depending on your family financial situation, and scholarship (you really need to retake and get a 170ish if you want to go this route, or get into a top 10 school where this job is guaranteed if you can breathe through your mouth.)
you will come out with between $0 and $150,000 in debt.
Law school, especially at the beginning, is probably a 50 hour a week job and it's even more demanding because you only get one grade, at the end. In the absence of feedback, you don't know if you're doing things wrong or right; it's extremely nerve-wracking.
If you don't enjoy the stuff, this work would be completely mind-numbing. As it is, it's not fantastic schlepping through required classes. DrFrylock does a good job describing this: But if you're going to go this route, you'll be working 50-80 hour weeks on a regular basis with indeterminate vacations. Not exactly fun, or supporitve of a personal life. And the money isn't fantastic when you factor in taxes and debt and your hourly wage. But if you can stick with it for a couple of years, you'll be making 200kish, which makes you nicely upper-middle-class but will never make you rich.
if you just want to make money, go to business school.
That said: people doing things are happy because they are doing them in accordance with their values and interests, not for extrnsic rewards like money, status or parental acclaim. It sounds like your parents just want you to do something interesting and commensurate with your talents. There are lots of things to do in life that are interesting and commensurate with your talents, and it definately doesn't have to be law school.
You desperately need to talk to people about your problems - primarilly, your parents. Yes, it will suck, but this is something you need to do.
I'll say this now. No matter how badly you think you've fucked up, your parents will forgive you. It may take them time, but they will. I've seen almost exactly the same thing that's happening to you happen to my friends. They're so afraid that they'll keep pushing themselves until something snaps. My best friend was kicked out of law school after he failed too many subjects. He'd been doing it because he thought that was what his parents wanted for him. After results were released, he fell of the map for almost a week - no-one knew where he was, and it was kinda scary. Eventually, he came back, looked his Dad in the eye, and told him that he'd failed. His Dad was perfectly understanding. He was sorry for his son, but not dissapointed. He sat down with him, and helped him map out a future that was right for him.
Frankly, this is all part of growing up. It stings to know your own limits for the first time, and it really hurts to know that you might let someone down, but you've got to start living for yourself. You're in an especially dangerous position because your health is in danger. You need to talk to someone you trust, and let them help you - and no matter what you think, your parents are the perfect people.
EDIT: And I know it's terrible, but when I read the title of this thread, I thought it was about spicy food.
Hm how about swimming? I'm pretty sure it's really low impact on your body. You can probably do it with back problems. If you have something like that to do regularly it can really help to focus you.
Regarding the rest, it's already been said, but: drop out of college. Your parents will forgive you eventually. You don't like it, you're not learning anything, and the stress is making you damage your fragile health. If you don't have your health, as they say, you don't have anything.
Find a job you can live on, and live with, and take some time to take stock. If you're financially independent, it's a lot easier to deal with your parents. You don't want to be a lawyer, but given time to think about it, you'll find something you do want to be.
And then I just said fuck it, and took my basic classes and along the way figured out that I really liked English classes and creative writing. I am in no way telling you to quit what you're doing and become an English major, because seriously--you will be so broke. But if you've got some time to play with, take a few junk classes next semester. Not necessarily to change your major, either, but to give yourself a break. English classes and creative writing classes are always great, as well as art (ceramics, watercolors--anything) and art history. And with all the stress you're feeling, it definitely couldn't hurt to find some kind of creative outlet to vent through.
Seriously, though, as much as it sucks to hear that you're just worrying too much--you're worrying too much. Everyone's been there. A few years ago, I couldn't decide if I wanted to play my trumpet forever or go the bio/pre-med route and work with infectious diseases--and now I'm working on an MFA in poetry. Everything works out.
^ Wiser words have never been spoken. ^
My personal advice - Jam: You are a very bright and creative person - your talented 40k work is proof enough of that. I would recommend a career choice that lets you harness that creativity. Find a moment or retreat of stillness and reflect upon your life, where it's at, and where you want it to be. If you are so unhappy, find a easier road to travel down.
But I want to caution you: This is adulthood. Life is stress. It's making your bills on time, performing well at your job, it's your marriage or relationships. Stress doesn't go away. It's always going to be there in your face your entire life. There will come a point and time in your life when you decide how you want to deal with stress, and you can master it, or it will master you. I know it's easy for me to say, and tough for you to do. For some, it's a constant struggle. For others, it's amazing zen like mental discplene. The ultimate point - it doesn't get any easier in life, but putting yourself in unpleasent situations certainly can aggrivate the stress levels you endure.
That's almost three weeks away. Fuck this school so hard.
The good news is I did have a bit of a conversation with my girlfriend about some of this last night, particularly the sugar binging. She said she knew about it to some degree, but not that it was as bad as I told her.. All in all, she listened to pretty much everything, but didn't say anything new. It was basically her repeating what I was saying - "I'd try and talk to the professor about how I did on the midterm but I'm just one of two hundred faces in that class to her." - "Yeah, professors of big classes never know who you are."
That sort of thing.
Speaking of which, I did try to talk to my professor before the midterm - I went to her and without dropping all of my problems on her tried to explain that I was about to fail her midterm, and that it was completely uncharacteristic of both me and my academic performance to do so. I asked her if perhaps she'd consider basing my entire grade off the final, as the class is 40% midterm, 40% final, 20% paper. She blew that off, telling me that 'there are probably at least 10 other people in this class feeling the same way you do and I can't give you preferential treatment just because you come and talk to me' and 'if it were a smaller class, maybe I could consider it, but I really can't for such a large lecture'. I didn't bother arguing, as I felt it was really a shot in the dark anyway.
Seph: I did basically exactly what you just said - I took classes in EVERYTHING for the first two years. Psych, econ, astonomy, animal science, meteorology, art history, everything. The only difference is that I didn't have that moment of clarity where I realized I liked that one thing in particular - pretty much every time I've taken a class I go in with high hopes and finish up with a "Well, I don't think I liked that at all." The only reason I went along with a political science major is because it was convenient - a large amount of the random classes I had taken would contribute towards that major, so I just went ahead and followed it. I am on-course for a four-year graduation at the moment, but I can tell my GPA is going to spiral down after this semester.
As to the parents thing - the only reason I am positive I know how my folks will react is because we've discussed it before, in some form. I go home on the weekends to see the girlfriend and parents, as I'm about an hour away from where I live here at school. Pretty much every time I am home over the weekend, every time I have a conversation with my parents it revolves around school. Always. Or academics in some form. Before I took the LSATs, every single word out of both of their mouths to me whenever I talked to them was about taking the LSAT and studying for the LSAT and I hope you're working for the LSAT. I can't have a normal conversation with them without it devolving to school in some form. Now that I've taken the LSATs, it's become GPA - the same thing, just now about how I need to get my GPA up for law school. My parents, as far as I am aware, think I'm doing pretty decently at school at the moment, but even with that in mind my father still gives me hell about school. We'll be driving in the car and he'll just start with 'Your mother and I are retiring next year, and if you mess up at college we're not going to be helping you any more because I feel as though we've done the best we can to raise you and you're on your own after that.' That's his icebreaker. He's always been like that, and he always will be, despite my repeated attempts to have a serious conversation with them. They're very all-or-nothing people - let me give you an example.
"Seton Hall is having an open house on Saturday."
"Yeah, I know. I'm not sure if I want to go, though, I'm not feeling all that well and there's going to be a law forum at my school next week anyway where I can check all these places out."
"Oh, well, if you can't be bothered to even go to the open house, then don't go. Just don't expect any more help from us with law school, because if you can't be bothered I can't be bothered."
That's nearly verbatum. They always get their way.
They're basically financing my education, and I was hoping to get out of college on a 4-year schedule so that my girlfriend and I could get hitched and move away. I don't.. want to drop out of college. I had a cousin who left college for a semester to travel the world and get his bearings, much like what you are all suggesting to me, and he ended up becoming a psych major and a bartender because he loves talking to people and drinking. My parents basically refused to acknowledge his existence after he dropped out.
I do realize a lot of what I say about my parents sounds like exaggeration, but it's really legitimate, I promise you. My father hasn't answered a single letter from my cousin since.
Meh.
3lwap0 - I really wanted a creative job when I first got to college. I actually started at this school as a computer science major before I realized that I hate math and how awful the job market was for that sort of major...
I've actually had thoughts before I decided on law school that I wanted to have something to do with movies - not acting, but the special effects. I spend a lot of my time watching TV wondering how they did that, or how that was filmed, that sort of thing... but the things holding me back from that are that A) It would involve some sort of digital medium that I don't know how to appropriately handle, such as 3d modelling (which I have tried to learn in the past to no avail)
I do have a mercenary streak in me, and what I will eventually earn is important to me for a couple reasons. As I mentioned, I do plan on being with this girl after college, though I haven't figured out the specifics yet. She's becoming a middle school teacher, which if you have any familiarity with, provides a very, very low income. I figured in that sort of situation, I would have to be a big contributor, which helps fuel the mercenary part of what I want to do in the future.
I went to law school because I didn't want to get a job and I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I didn't even try to get into a top 20 school and looking back, I probably could have. It just so happens that law school caters to my talents. Moot court? Mock trial? Yeah, I'm on the team and winning competitions.
As far as actually getting into law school, you're on the right track depending on where you want to go. Depending on where you want to go, you're already fine. If you want to go to Northwestern or Harvard, then yeah, retake the LSAT and get those grades up fast. Want to go to a state law school (where you'll come out around 50k in debt, but much less if you know how to play the game)? Your grades and LSAT are fine (provided you're not in New York or California). No one likes to say it, least of all me as a black male, but if you're a minority it may be better than fine.
Another thing, a "pre-law" major doesn't make you attractive to a law school. Any office of admissions will tell you that, and they'll also tell you exactly what they look for.
As far as knowing lawyers who got low LSAT scores, yeah, they are out there. Any law student can tell you there are some idiots who managed to make it through law school and pass the bar. I worked for one before going to law school. Make sure they are actually practicing what you want before you take their advice, or you'll be wondering why you can't get hired at Winston & Strom, all while taking advice from some public injury attorney with late night commercials.
And don't listen to law school horror stories. It's really not that bad at all, but then again, I'm at a major state school. If you make it through the first year, you're virtually guaranteed the JD.
Whatever you do, DON'T "TAKE A BREAK" FROM SCHOOL. I did that when I was 21 and didn't end up finishing til I was 25. Everyone I know who did the same never even finished.
With the studying thing, as much as I think this society is over medicated and over diagnosed, you may want have an evaluation done for ADHD. I just talked to a therapist about it. We were talking about the difference for students and studying when they chronically can't focus, and it might be right for you.
Lastly, STOP FUCKING WITH YOUR DIABETES. That's no joke. Cut that shit out now. My dad has it and my best friend's dad just died from it a few years back. Yeah, you're young, but that'll only get you so far.
Either way, hang in there. Life gets tough for everybody, and you're just going through a rough patch. We've all been there. It's easier to go through when you really know that you'll be fine in the end.
Your father is messed up, big time and acts as if you are worthless to him unless you fit a very small mold. Thats bullshit. The truth is that he is worthless to you unless he breaks out of his very small mold. You're afraid of him cutting you off?
The only option you have for sanity is to cut his ass off. You don't have to be a jek about it, but you should be able to tell him "you know what, you're constantly hurtful and manipulative. The money for my education isn't worth your abuse. I'm leaving school after this semester and i'll go back on my own dollar for what i want to study when i want to study it. I don't want anything to do with you until you can deal with that like adult."
This is your life we're talking about, not his. You need to stop letting him have input because he is gumming up the works. Lots of us went to school without money from our parents. yeah, school loans are a pain, but its worth it for the independance you'll gain. You can go to a state school if you want. if you take out all the loans in your name you can keep deferring them as long as you're in school or you can take night classes that you can afford until something strikes you right.
Do you have any chance at a healthy relationship with your mom?