February Mental Health Column
This month in the Mental Health Support Column, our amazing counselor Dr. Nuckols addresses mental health-related questions and concerns submitted from anonymous OHS students! The aim of the Support Series is to foster a community where one can freely express or ask questions related to mental health and get feedback.
Submission: I've fallen behind in almost everything in my life, including courses and extracurricular responsibilities. I feel like I've fallen in a pit and still haven't pulled myself out, so I'm always scrambling with extensions and late work. I want to succeed, but I don't know how or what to do and I feel like the situation is all my own fault. It was me who wasted time, slept too much, and watched too much YouTube. How can things get better? What can I do?
Response: I want to start by expressing my sincere thanks for this question and recognizing the courage it took to share it. We all go through times of feeling overwhelmed or out of control, and one of the most painful aspects of such an experience is the false idea that we are alone. It can appear that everyone else has their act 100% together, while we are isolated in our struggles. But nothing could be further from the truth.
One aspect of feeling bad about our performance in classes or extracurricular pursuits is that we may focus only on negative aspects of the situation, or we may exaggerate our sense of responsibility for what happened. While it is important to assess what we actions we can take now to help ourselves or address mistakes, simultaneously we may need to give ourselves breathing space for the influence of factors (such as the hugely challenging and potentially traumatic ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, just to give one example) that are completely outside our personal control.
In addition to not compounding current difficulties with unrealistic self-criticism, there are a number of different action steps that could help. However, as I explain further in the next paragraph, sometimes determining which tools to use and how to apply them may require working with someone else who can provide both support and an outside perspective. If you are behind schedule with assignments right now, listing exactly what needs to be accomplished, prioritizing tasks, and writing down some clear target dates could provide focus. In other words, a goal such as “catch up in class X” may feel overwhelming because it is too broad and doesn’t give a clear action step. In contrast, if you know that the highest-priority task for class X is to begin working on a specific problem set, paper, or lab, then you know where to begin. More generally, it might help to keep careful track of how you are using your time for, say, one week, or (if you aren’t already using one) to draft a weekly schedule that pieces together your class times, course assignments, and extracurricular activities. There are a great many other tools or techniques that could potentially help, more than can be described here. Steps such as the ones I have mentioned could seem a bit simplistic, but they can bring to light other issues or considerations that are contributing to falling behind and need to be addressed.
In a situation like yours, one of the best action steps we can take is to talk to friends or family to ask for help and support. More specifically, it may be necessary to talk to a parent/guardian, a counselor, or another trusted adult for assistance navigating the situation and getting connected with helpful resources. Finding a path forward requires looking at the details of your current situation as well as your unique strengths, and it is much easier to discover and follow such a path with guidance and support from others. An effective combination of tools that works for you might not be appropriate for someone else, and your path forward could involve learning some new techniques or mindsets, or it may be necessary to consult with professionals outside OHS to precisely identify obstacles that are getting in the way. Remember that your OHS counselor is always available, and you can reach out to your counselor (ohscounseling@stanford.edu) for help with challenges both big and small and for ongoing support in taking effective action to deal with them.
-Dr. Greg Nuckols
Need advice on mental health, wellness, or academic stress? Anonymously submit your question here for a chance to get advice from an OHS counselor or peer in the next Pixel Journal issue.