r/adhd_college

19M undiagnosed. It is almost 4 AM on Monday during midterms, and I am writing this because I do not know where else to turn. I feel trapped inside my own head, completely overwhelmed by a mountain of pending university work, including a lab report due later today.

I just need to know if anyone else experiences this kind of paralysis, or how you cope when your mind feels completely frozen.

What I am dealing with right now:

• Task Avoidance and Paralysis: When I look at a massive workload, catching up feels like climbing an impossible mountain. My brain panics, kills my motivation, and leaves me stuck at the bottom. I end up staring at a wall or lying in bed for hours doing nothing, even when I genuinely want to get the work done.
• Bouncing Between Distractions: If a task feels uncomfortable or overwhelming, my focus instantly jumps to something else, and then another thing, until I end up completely stagnant.
• Burnout and Isolation: I feel disconnected, awkward, and hyper-aware of every move I make. I am a BS Computer Engineering freshman, and my academic pattern has always fluctuated wildly between sudden bursts of high performance and complete last-minute burnout.
• No Local Support System: My family does not discuss mental health or struggles like this, so I cannot talk to them about what I am going through.

Why I am panicking:

• Midterms are here, the pending tasks are piling up, and I am terrified that I will inevitably fall behind.
• Free counseling options have long waiting lists that stretch into next year, and private consultation fees are out of reach for me.
• Running is the main thing that helps clear my head, but academically, I feel completely stuck.

Questions for anyone who has been here:

1. How do you force yourself to take the very first step on a project when you feel completely paralyzed?
2. What are the best methods to triage a huge syllabus and focus only on what is immediately necessary to pass?
3. What are some reliable, free resources or communities for students dealing with severe task paralysis?

so i (18f) have been severely depressed for about a month now. i have a safety plan, twice weekly therapy appointments, and im on prozac, so no need to worry about me.

the real issue is that i haven’t been able to leave my room sometimes for days at a time. i haven’t gone to class (sophomore in college) in the entire month i’ve been depressed. it’s really knocked me on my ass and i don’t know what to do.

i reached out to the center for disability access, who told me they can help me get rid of late penalties, so steps are being taken to get moving. i’m just constantly fighting myself and losing that fight.

i know i should probably be gentle with myself, but it’s been a month and i can’t afford to fail these classes. it’s just that, no matter what, i can’t get out of bed in the morning. i feel so stupid writing it out because i just sound lazy. i feel lazy too.

i know that one way i’m more likely to get to class is if i style my hair. but i shower before i do my hair and it turns into a full 30 minute standing ordeal. i also know i’m more likely to get to class if i have someone waiting on me, so i tried asking my younger sister if she’d come down for a day but she can’t. what are other tricks like that that i can use to get to class? even more so, are there any good tricks i can use to start tackling the daunting pile of schoolwork i’ve accumulated?

No matter how much I want to do something (homework, housechores) I end up doing it last minute rushed, or not at all, and feeling guilty.

And I tried to separate the tasks in tiny steps. But my mind literally knows that the end goal is doing the entire thing so I just view the mini task as the big one, if you get what I mean.

My brain cannot get tricked into it.

I have tons of homework to do and cannot get started.

I had to do something this week. I had all week to do it. I procrastinated and ended up not doing it. My mom did it instead and now I feel terribly guilty because she did it for me, and she is tired.

Omg when will I get fixed.

I’m 21 f and I’m a senior in college. I have this semester and three more though plus a summer. I’ve been doing school for years and I’m tired but I still want to go into grad just in my terms. I like what I’m doing, I’m just so so tired and I want to slow down. I feel like I’ve been running basically since 2019. I hated high school and middle school. I haven’t developed good habits like consistent practice or studying. I’m not lazy, I know that. I do struggle though and I want to know to to do better. My current gpa is 3.06 slightly above average. I know I can do better, I just need advice. I want to go to liberty in 2030 for my masters and university of Florida for my doctorate. I graduate with two bachelor’s in 2028.

18M with a 1.7 gpa. started community college over a year ago and i’ve failed or withdrawn from about half the credits i’ve attempted and i’m digging a financial hole

i’ve been in and out of school since i was 11 and never learned how to study. i’m going off of 6th grade english and math. i’m behind, starting from scratch and trying to figure it all out all alone in college

this is gonna sound really stupid dude but i don’t know what studying means. i don’t know what im supposed to be doing when i study or what the goal is. i’ve tried taking notes before but i never go back to them, and end up spending hours on one chapter and burning myself out. ive never gotten past 10% of a textbook in my life

i’ve seen a lot of tips, but im genuinely starting with nothing. if you had to start again at zero in the easiest, least overwhelming way possible, how would you relearn how to study from scratch with adhd?

18M with a 1.7 gpa. started community college over a year ago and i’ve failed or withdrawn from about half the credits i’ve attempted and i’m digging a financial hole

i’ve been in and out of school since i was 11 and never learned how to study. i’m going off of 6th grade english and math. i’m behind, starting from scratch and trying to figure it all out all alone in college

this is gonna sound really stupid dude but i don’t know what studying means. i don’t know what im supposed to be doing when i study or what the goal is. i’ve tried taking notes before but i never go back to them, and end up spending hours on one chapter and burning myself out. ive never gotten past 10% of a textbook in my life

i’ve seen a lot of tips, but im genuinely starting with nothing. if you had to start again at zero in the easiest, least overwhelming way possible, how would you relearn how to study from scratch with adhd?

I’m so angry that my parents didn’t put me on anything until I graduated highschool. I’m on vyvanse 20mg + 5mg Adderall and I went from barely scraping by with a 3.2 gpa to now a 4.0 in college. (Ik it’s not a bad gpa overall I just had a 1550 sat… 11 aps all 5/4 … I couldn’t get into a single good school that fit the rest of my stats basically) I’m actually at a CC, because my whole hs application was ruined by my grades, and now I have to work for a whole year just to transfer. It’s really amazing how well even this low dose has worked for me and it just makes me so upset to think about how hard I struggled, swimming upstream for nothing. Anyone else think this way :(

I struggle with studying or doing my assignments lomg before they are due and I always leave them to the last minute.

But I keep procrastinating or thinking I have enough time, but when it comes to the day, I stress out, overthink and end up procrastinating more and then i dont know anything on test.

Ive had 2 tests so far. Didn't study for them AT ALL, knew NONE of the material and obviously failed because i had nothing to write down.

I have another test literally today. I did not study. I knew I should before, but I was focused on other assignments and obligations etc.

And now im going to fail yet another test because I cant seem to get my ass to study for shit unless my brains convinced were going to die in the next 5 minutes.

I started using my phone to read my notes and do study related stuff and i realised that I am less distracted than using my laptop given if I uninstalled instagram and turned off notifications in my phone. In laptop it is easier to switch tabs and get distracted but using phone since the screen is small it is hard to switch between two apps so it is hard for me to get distracted. But I have to uninstall my Instagram and mute my mails and messages in my phone while studying cause scrolling on Instagram is easier using phone.

Does anyone else have this experience??

I've been diagnosed with ADHD and I've been medicated for around two years now. Medication has helped me a lot with remembering things and organization, but I still end up with multiple assignments piling up.

My main issue is that I always organize and plan the work I need to get done, but the amount of time I THINK an assignment will take and how long it ACTUALLY takes to complete are completely different.

Today I planned to finish two assignments from two of my classes. I thought that assignment 1 would have taken me roughly 4 hours to complete (since I did most of the work the day prior), it's been over 8 hours and I still haven't completed assignment 1.

Because assignment 1's deadline is tonight at 11:55PM, and it's currently 10PM, I couldn't work on assignment 2 at all. But pushing assignment 2 to tomorrow would mean that the OTHER 2 assignments I planned to work on are now 3 assignments, and the probability of me completing all of them tomorrow is close to zero. So despite me working on my assignments daily, my workload keeps growing, and now a lot of deadlines for said assignments are approaching and I'm already super overwhelmed and anxious. Does have any advice on what to do?