This Labor-Day weekend, while you were outside grilling burgers and hotdogs, and some other college students were drinking and partying, I was all alone, locked in my apartment, doing nothing but homework and chores… And I’m so thankful I was.
Tag: College
How I Keep Up with College Fighting PANS & Lyme
In the past three years of running this blog, one of the most common questions I get asked is, How have you been able to do college when you’ve been so sick?
Truth be told, when I look back at the last four years, I’m surprised by it, too. And not only have I made it through eight semesters, but I’ve made good grades. This sounds like an impossible feat for someone fighting an illness that causes severe mental disorder and sometimes severely incapacitates my cognition, but over the next two posts, I’m going to show you how I did it.
These posts might be longer than usual, so I hope you’ll stick around! This week, I’m going to answer one part of the question…
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I Have No Idea What I’m Doing Anymore
With my final semester of college on the horizon and an amazing summer internship behind me, it’s finally sinking in that it’s time to figure out what I’m doing with my life next. I’m pretty sure that anyone about to graduate from college is feeling anxious about transitioning into the “real world,” but for me, as someone recovering from PANS/Lyme, there’s a whole other layer of messiness.
Why I Almost Quit Lyme Treatment
On Thursday morning, I woke up and immediately knew something was very wrong. My whole body ached. I had an awful headache. I was dizzy. I was too nauseous to even think about food or water. It was that familiar set of symptoms that meant one thing: I was in for a terrible Lyme herx.
Why I’m Working through PANS
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A couple weeks ago, I was elated to find out that I’d been accepted for a summer writing internship! This wasn’t just any job offer, but a highly competitive internship that I’ve worked towards and dreamed about for years. It seemed so surreal that this door had finally opened!
Why I’m Struggling through College… For the 8th Time
It was with a truckload of emotions that I pulled up to my apartment last Monday night, before my eighth semester of college. While being at school means seeing my friends again and keeping busy with interesting things, it also usually means grinding myself into pieces as I try to get all the required work done in the midst of PANS and Lyme. College isn’t easy for anyone, but trying to do it with these chronic illnesses can make it a hundred times worse.
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The PANDAS Games
During one of my many insomniac nights recently, I found myself watching the second Hunger Games movie, Catching Fire. While I knew this wouldn’t exactly soothe me to sleep, there was one quote in particular that’s haunted me continuously:
Haymitch: No one ever wins the Games… There are survivors. There are no winners.
Recovery Is Possible!
Okay, I’m keeping it shorter this week, because I’m doing so well that I’ve been extremely busy! As I’ve said in the past, the better I’m doing, the less I tend to post and tweet, because I’m away from the blog living my life.
Why I’m Not Living up to Your Expectations
Last semester, when some of my work got a major recognition, my college experience transformed. I quickly went from being the quiet kid with few friends to the student that everyone in my department knew about. People who’d barely spoken to me before were now congratulating me and asking for advice. And I finally got invited to social events.
While I enjoyed my upgraded status, with my success came a side effect: unreasonably high expectations.
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Stuck in the In-Between
The other day, when my high school best friend and I met for one last goodbye before returning to college, at one point, she asked what I was looking forward to most about going back to school. And then, it hit me: I wasn’t looking forward to much of anything about my senior year.