Can't force myself to do my uni work

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SaxNerd
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17 Aug 2017, 1:17 am

I'm at the end of my Master's degree in instrumental (saxophone) music teaching, and I just have two more essays and a couple of smaller things until my degree is finished.

Unfortunately, I'm in a pretty bad way at the moment, I recently discovered that I have epilepsy caused by a brain tumour, which has all of a sudden turned my life upside down. I can't drive anymore so I'm basically housebound, and my life in general has become a game of waiting for the next appointment.

Besides depression, I've also been having memory problems, I'll be in conversation and can't remember the word I want to use, and I end up going"um.. um... um..." for 20s+ until I can either find a synonym or remember the word I was after. This has been happening in my teaching too, which I'm starting to get very concerned about. I'm having a full 3.5+ hour memory test with a neuropsych next week, so we'll apparently find out for sure whether this tumour is screwing with my memory.

Getting more to the point now, I'm finding my uni work much harder and more stressful than usual. I simply can't concentrate and it's taking at least 3x longer than usual. To put things into perspective, it took me 20-30mins just to write this post.

I'm so stressed and frustrated because I was always very good at writing, I've always just sat there and simply started typing, and a few hours later the essay was done. I've always marathoned uni assignments, though my record was probably last year when I had a 3000 word essay, I hadn't done any reading beforehand or anything, I simply sat down at the computer and didn't leave, no food, no toilet, nothing, 11 hours later it was done. The problem is this isn't working anymore, I simply can't concentrate that hard anymore.

It's just so frustrating that writing used to be a strength of mine and now I've been suddenly thrown into the opposite situation and I have no idea what I'm doing. I've now completely lost motivation, I have to really force myself to write every word. If it was a more mainstream subject like arts, science, commerce, etc., I'd just cheat and pay for an essay writing service and be done with it.

I just don't know what to do, I've never even really thought about how to write before, I've just done it, if that makes sense.

I'm wondering if anyone has any strategies they can share to help me motivate myself to get on with my work, and/or make this experience a little less stressful. Any advice is much appreciated, as part of me is seriously considering just forgetting the whole degree right now. :cry:


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brownsugar
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17 Aug 2017, 10:52 am

I keep getting distracted


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Trueno
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17 Aug 2017, 11:12 am

Mainly, you need to wait for the results of your memory test and get the doc's view. It could be entirely the result of your tumour. Once you've got the whole problem assessed you'll be able to make some decisions on how to tackle it.
It may be a good option to delay your studies until you've got everything else sorted out.
It may also be that you're suffering from depression, caused by the worry of the tumour and being housebound. Maybe you need some advice and some anti-depressants. Getting out of the house would help... can you go for a walk? I have to force myself out sometimes but always feel the benefit of it.
If it is depression, I've had something similar. I've sat at the computer trying to write stuff and suffered from what I describe as brain fog. Sometimes I can no more write anything than stick my hand in a fire. That applied to both work (I don't work any more) and writing for fun.
Hope that helps... I can only make suggestions based on my limited experiences and I'm not medically qualified.


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shortfatbalduglyman
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17 Aug 2017, 2:39 pm

Trueno wrote:
Mainly, you need to wait for the results of your memory test and get the doc's view. It could be entirely the result of your tumour. Once you've got the whole problem assessed you'll be able to make some decisions on how to tackle it.
It may be a good option to delay your studies until you've got everything else sorted out.
It may also be that you're suffering from depression, caused by the worry of the tumour and being housebound. Maybe you need some advice and some anti-depressants. Getting out of the house would help... can you go for a walk? I have to force myself out sometimes but always feel the benefit of it.
If it is depression, I've had something similar. I've sat at the computer trying to write stuff and suffered from what I describe as brain fog. Sometimes I can no more write anything than stick my hand in a fire. That applied to both work (I don't work any more) and writing for fun.
Hope that helps... I can only make suggestions based on my limited experiences and I'm not medically qualified.

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