#milo talks

Quando: perto das 12h

Milo manteve sua melhor expressão de ator enquanto levava a xícara de chá aos lábios, saboreando o líquido quente na esperança de que isso lhe trouxesse alguma lucidez naquele lugar deplorável. Ir até sua antiga casa havia sido, sem dúvida, um dos piores erros desde que decidira voltar a Thornhill. Passou a noite inteira atormentado por pesadelos - preso naquele lugar, incapaz de sair, fadado a ser um mero jardineiro e empregado pelo resto da vida. Um verdadeiro pesadelo.

Foi arrancado de seus devaneios pelo som de passos se aproximando. Balançou a cabeça em um cumprimento discreto, abaixando a xícara antes de soltar, com ironia:

— Eu diria "bom dia", mas acho que nem a Srta. Banks está tendo um bom dia.

this is a work in progress. i will constantly and continually be adding more fics.

i want to be able to have easy access to some of these fics because i do be in love with them and i also want to share them bc they be hella good. i hope you enjoy them as much as i do.

So I want to preface this by saying I absolutely love the studyblr community! There's a reason I wanted to be a part of this community, you know? Everyone's aesthetics, their study tips, the sense of community, it's all so inspiring. But as a person with severe mental illness, it can also feel kind of ... hollow's not exactly the right word, but like I can't relate to it. People talk about balancing internships, work, exams, social obligations, and homework as if they have it mastered and I just can't relate to that at all. Even the posts dealing with burnout all seem to boil down to the same thing: give yourself time to rest. And, like, yeah! Rest is great! But for some of us, rest is a privilege. For some of us, things like food and rent and other necessities are dependent on working and maintaining our grades. So I want to provide an honest, raw look into what balancing school and work can look like when dealing with severe symptoms of mental illness.

Context / My Experience With Mental Illness

I experience invasive thoughts that make me envision my own death in extremely visceral ways, as well as mild tactile and visual hallucinations. Now add the with the sensory sensitivities that come with autism, sprinkle in some gender dysphoria, and a pinch of PTSD. Most of the time, it's fine. These things can be unpleasant, yeah, but usually I'm only dealing with one or two of them at a time and it's manageable. I know what to do to self-regulate and most of the time I manage to pass for a functional human being. But recently, all of these have hit me at once. And when that happens, it feels like you can't trust your body OR your mind. Like your whole perception of reality has been shaken. And when you're spending all of your energy fighting your own brain, it doesn't leave much energy for anything else. When I took that picture, I was 2 weeks behind on readings for my classes. I hadn't left my apartment in over a week, I hadn't washed dishes or cooked in who knows how much longer than that, and I could barely get out of bed. Everything just seemed to keep building and I fell further and further behind, which of course only exacerbated the problem, and I started missing work.

I'm on the upswing now, though, and things are getting easier. I'm still behind on reading, but not as much as I was before. I'm caught up enough to at least pull through this midterm. I actually made it to class on Friday, and I was able to go downtown with my roommate today to go to the bookstore. I don't know if anyone is actually going to read this, or if anyone can relate, but if you do, I just kind of want to share some of the practical things I've been doing to take control of my life again.

What I Did

First, reach out to your school's emergency mental health line if you have one. There's no shame in it. The people there are supposed to be trained in crisis intervention and in my experience they were a lot more compassionate than normal counselors.

Next, email your professors or schedule office hours. I had a really hard time doing this myself because I didn't know how much information I should divulge or what to ask for, but if you call the counselors, they can help you figure that out. In my case, they actually helped me draft the email while I was on call with them and recommended asking for assignment extensions and alternative means of accessing course materials.

If you're affiliated with your school's disabilities resource office, reach out to them, too. They can provide extra support and pressure your teachers to make the course more accessible. Again, they also advocated for alternative means of accessing class materials, like lecture recordings or allowing virtual attendance instead of in-person attendance.

If your school offers pass/no pass options, look into this. Some schools/departments have limits on how many courses you can take this way, so check in with your academic advisor. If you're worried that you're going to fail the class, this at least keeps it from impacting your GPA.

Finally, if you've done all of these things and your professors still won't work with you to provide access to lecture recordings or alternate means of attending, you might have to do some serious math. Can you pass the class without attending lecture? Obviously this isn't ideal, especially with as much as you're paying for lecture, but we're talking about the worst case scenario when you just can't. If you can pass the class but not with the grade needed to maintain your GPA, consider pass/no pass options. Not having to worry about commuting to your classes can free up some of your energy for things like work that you need to pay your bills.