i feel like i'm trying to push a rock up a slippery slope

[storm yew]

i'm in my last year of secondary school. in my country, this is the year where all the students go to extra classes multiple days a week, and study daily, and drop all their extracurriculars and generally focus all their attention on studies. we have an exam period, i'm pretty sure it's similar to GCSEs, where every student (specifically in my school) has to do at least sixteen exams next year. the exam period that our government subsidises is the may/june period, but you can register for the organization's january exams as well. i'm doing those, so i have an extra six exams to get ready for (if you register outside of schools you have to do 3 exams per subject instead of two).

my problem is that i have no discipline. i forget to study, i forget to do everything honestly. sometimes when i do things, i feel accomplished and like i've acheived something, but it's never enough. i was a straight A student in primary school, so i never learned how to study properly, so now, in my final year of school, between school and extra classes four days a week (which may increase if i start french class), i have to figure out how to do something i've never been good at. i've been coasting through school with pretty good grades by doing the bare minimum, my overall grade's never dropped below a B or higher thant a B+. but now that's not good enough for my mother, and the forgetting is just an excuse. it's gotten to the point where she's begged me to remember to do what i have to, to use schedules, set reminders, anything, but they never work.

(1)

since i was about 11, i've thought that i could have adhd. i got evaluated after a truamatising experience i had at home (my parents were in an incredibly toxic relationship that i had no clue about, during covid their fighting got more and got worse) but after a terrifying time in a room with my parents and four other adults, including a really scary psychiatrist asked me why i thought so, i blanked out and told them things that weren't true, and honestly worked against a chance of getting a diagnosis. the psychiatrist (who was a scary man who talked in short blunt sentences </3) told me that people with adhd don't experience what i said. so there's a very thin chance i'll ever go down the eval route now, even though i've recorded a lot more evidence, and noted and related to so many more symptoms and experiences.

another thing: my entire view of one side of my family is continuously being proven wrong. my father is a cheater. my parents have a business together, they've had it for 12 years and it's what sustains my mother and i because my father doesn't do anything for us anymore. he (my dad) wants to legally cut my mother out of the business and leave us with nothing. before he moved out, his girlfriend and her family repeatedly called my mother when i was younger to taunt her. he'd pick me up from my sport and rush to hang up so i didn't know he was talking to her. i found her number from one of the calls she'd made to my mom once, and i texted her (at 11) telling her that she should feel ashamed, then she replied saying my name, and called me a bitch. they've done so much more but i can't say everything.

(2)

my half sister, who i once thought could no no wrong, stands with him. she's disrespectful to my mother (who literally raised her through high school), and said that our brother purposefully called the police on her when she stayed in our booked airbnb and hid when out tenant was trying to get inside. he had no idea it was her. my father soon came and took her side after that.

my aunt (dad's side) claimed to be a neutral party, then took anything my mother said in confidance to her, and told my dad.

on the other hand, whenever i'm upset with my mother because of her actions, she asks if i want to move in with my dad if she's so bad. she's constantly under stress, and i feel terrible because of the ends i leave loose, but i'm trying and still failing. and when i do things, it's never enough for her. most times she's great, she's literally my mom of course she is. but sometimes she yells at me for things i can't control, or gets upset when i don't just ignore something she's done that's unfair or just mean.

my mother and brother argue every other day (most of the time my brother is at fault), and her and my grandmother have started to as well. and when she's upset with one person, everyone deals with it.

everything's just coming to a head right now, i don't know what to do with myself.

(3)

i don't know if i'm experiencing depression, cause most of the time i'm fine, but when i'm not it sits so deep and i feel so helpless. sometimes i get upset that i can't hold on to that feeling for longer, cause then i feel like i'm faking it, or that it isn't really that bad and i'm being dramatic. it gets to a point where if i try to think that i'm valid to be upset, another part of my brain is screaming that i'm being dramatic.

i don't even allow myself to be mad about my dad breaking into our house anymore. i can't even bring myself to be entirely on my mother's side either, cause the day of the break-in, my dad said she started cheating first, and i don't know who to believe (she's ommitted shit that she's done before, like throwing hot soup on one of my dad's girlfriends at a party two years ago). my dad said he wanted to get out of their marriage but only stayed because of my brother, and he's eight years older than me. i've never lived in the happy household i thought i did since i was a kid.

all of this is happening and i still miss deadlines and don't study till the last minute. i'm becoming the worst student that i've been for my entire life. i don't even know if i'm even that good of a daughter anymore, cause i can't even cut contact with my sister after all the shit she's done.

(4)

through all that, my day to day is fine, i don't feel like i deserve to be upset. after a big argument with my mother that turned into a mental breakdown, she asked if i ever felt like ||committing suicide|| and i said no, cause truly i don't, then she said "good, you'd mess up a lot of people's lives if you do". is that even the right thing to say to your kid who's sobbing on a chair next to you?? who can't even say full sentences right now?? i just feel so lost

i have friends, which is good. but my corner still feels empty.

but regardless i still have to push through this because my mother wants top grades for all my subjects, which means doing well in all 22 exams, which means learning to study without problems. if i can't do that my entire life might be fucked over. so i guess i also have to figure that out.

(5)

i'm so sorry if this felt disconnected and like i was jumping from place to place, i just dunno what to do with myself right now. i'm writing as things go through my head. i haven't actually said all of this to anybody, so i just needed to spit it out and hope someone reads it and replies.

(6)

i think i was supposed to ask a question so uh, what study methods do you use for adhd?

and should i ask my mother for a third go at therapy?

[eternal hare]

dang bro thats tough

first of all in terms of study methods

i just go to a place where i know that if i get distracted that i might get in trouble

so that kinda motivates you to stay on task

second of all

if you think that therapy will help, then you should go for it

if you don't think it will help, then

well

give it another shot

(basically yes)