An Endless Cycle

Hi, I'm Lawrence. I don't know why I traded homework time for this giant thread post. It's one in the morning, and I'm running on five hours of sleep.

My life, well, my week is an endless cycle that slowly drags me down further into a pit of desperation. The root of all this comes from something that sometimes I can?t explain. More than an the inability to concentrate; the best I can describe it is as TV static or my thoughts being blended into an incomprehensible smoothie inside of my skull. At home, I?ll repeatedly get up out of my chair and walk around, sometimes grabbing food or water, other times for no reason at all. Another thing that occupies an insane amount of time both at home and during class is my obsession with my nails. My nails are extremely short, not because I just trimmed them, but because I constantly do so. If I don?t have a nail cutter at my desk, I search the house all over until I can find one. The reason? I don?t know. I find myself cutting my nails so short that they can?t be cut anymore. When that happens, I move on to the skin underneath and around it, sometimes causing my toes and fingers to get covered in blood. The day after, basic things such as writing, typing and walking hurt me throughout the rest of the day. During class, as I try and concentrate on the lesson at hand, slowly drifts away into a hypothetical world, where I seem to brainstorm every possible outcome of a made up scenario. For example, I could be listening about war, and then I?d mentally step out of the classroom, thinking about various things such as, ?What if I were to steal something from Target? How would I avoid being caught? What would I do if I were to be caught?? Sometimes, topics such as murder, skipping class or even suicide will just jump out of nowhere and eat up precious time. By the time I snap back to reality, I?ve missed a few slides and then scramble to get them made up again. When I try remembering what I had just daydreamed about, it?s nearly impossible, almost like remembering a real dream. My inability to focus throws me back in terms of my ability to understand and follow the curriculum at hand. I stay up late into the morning trying to get all my work done, but at times, it?s all just too much for me. It?ll be hours past midnight, and as I stumble my way to my room, I can only think of how I hate life. The next morning, I?ll be up as early as six in the morning to get to class since I?m incredibly sluggish in the morning. Getting ready, eating breakfast and making it out the door usually takes me a little over an hour. At seven twenty-five, I have my zero hour classes, which usually happen daily, though sometimes I have an extra thirty minutes to sleep. Then, since I have no source of caffeine, really, I go to school struggling to stay awake. In my battle to stop daydreaming and fighting the urge to doze off on my desk, following the teacher is extremely difficult to manage, let alone doing this six times forty-six during the morning. At lunch, I?ll usually pick up a soda with caffeine in it, and that?ll help with my remaining classes, which unfortunately, are only two out of my eight. Then, when I get home, the same symptoms start repeating themselves, only now, I?m both inattentive and sleep deprived. Fixing this cycle isn?t possible over the course of a weekend (even one that?s four days long), and instead, isn?t fixable at this point. The high expectations that my parents and friends place on me don?t help. Rather, they fuel the flame. Looking through my grade report, there are two F?s and the rest are B?s. Scrolling down even further reveals a 2.5 GPA, something that I haven?t even had nightmares about getting. This constant pressure, lack of sleep and bad outcome really keeps me down all the time. I usually force myself to keep a calm face when at school, since I fear my friends saying, ?What do you have to be depressed about?? and ?You?re smart, just lazy.? or something along those lines. Whenever I complain, it?s usually about being extremely tired. Both at home and at school I have lost motivation to do things that I once enjoyed very much, such as graphic design and video gaming. I wake up feeling depressed and go to sleep feeling depressed, and feel depressed the whole way through. What?s even worse is that, up until last week, my parents didn?t seek help for me; instead, they usually would say that I was making up an excuse so that I wouldn?t have to get my homework done in time. I think the only reason they made that phone call to the pediatrician was because I nearly had a panic attack during school one day. I was gasping for air (quietly) while also feeling like I was going to burst out in tears, embarrassing myself. I?m desperate, I really am. It?s hard to admit, but I have been turning to drugs in order to relieve the tons of stress that?s built up on me these past several weeks. I?ve used marijuana, alcohol and nicotine in order to calm myself down, though I doubt I?ll try any of those three again since they?re so tough to get inside of me. A quick fix, instant relief. That?s what I?m looking for. Until a solution to these things that I?m dealing with are found, I don?t think I can go on for much longer. Like I told my classmates,

?I don?t think I?m going to make it through this year [alive].?