Once again, my good intentions to keep this blog updated on at least a semi-regular basis have fallen by the wayside. But tonight, needing an outlet after a totally frustrating day, I figured I should revisit my now rather lonely blog.
It seems that I am stuck in a very big rut lately and I don't know how to get out of it. Summer seems so long ago, yet the fall seems to be passing by quicker than I can handle. I have been trying to muddle my way through things, but in reality I am just not getting much done at all.
As I wrote about in a previous entry, I have attempted to resume my education this fall. I enrolled in an online course offered by a local university full of hope and expectations for myself. It quickly turned from something very positive into a massive stressor. I had a very difficult time adjusting to the nuances of online learning and the time management and discipline it required. On top of that after being out of school for almost 3 years due to my injury, I suffered a very serious confidence problem. My classmates seemed so much brighter than me and I felt they had so much more insightful things to say about the course readings than I did. I literally become fearful of posting on the course website forums for fear that everybody would realize I was stupid and a sham--somebody who didn't belong in the class. I began to avoid logging into the course website, something that was not good at all since that was entirely how the course was conducted. I began to fall behind on my readings because I would get overly anxious and borderline panic that I didn’t understand what I was reading. I would read and re-read things over and over, and with each reading become more anxious and further convinced I missing the author's point. Finally it reached the point that even just looking at the course material made me feel sick. The reality is I was fully capable of understanding the readings as well as making perfectly acceptable contributions to the class discussion. But I had myself convinced I could not. My instructor reached out to me to try to get me back on track but I began to even avoid opening his emails. I felt humiliated and figured I would have to withdraw or risk getting an F. I figured he was going to tell me he has booting me out of the class because I was so far behind. I thought he would assume my non-participation meant a lack of interest and a lack of motivation. I saw my attempt to resume my education as a total failure, saw myself as a total failure.
Yesterday I realized that my madness about this course had reached its limit. I was going to email the instructor and tell him I intended to withdraw. I finally opened the emails he had been sending me on a nearly daily basis. His last email included his home phone number and the encouragement to call him so we could together work out a way to get me back on track and able to finish the last 5 weeks of the class. Usually I will do anything I can to avoid calling people (do you see a pattern here? lol). I am one of those people who will purposefully call somebody when I know they are not home so I can just leave them a message. I do this even with the people I am closest too. I prefer email because writing seems easier. But in this case, I was even avoiding email. It took a lot of self convincing and I was hoping my instructor would be out and I could just leave him a message and tell him "That's okay I am just going to withdraw. But thanks very much for your help." It would have solved my school problem in one fell swoop. But of course he was home and he did answer his phone and I had to talk to him.
Long story made short: I think I have come up with a plan to get back on track and complete the course. There are still a lot of "ifs." I am currently recovering from a surgery to repair a broken collar bone (the subject for a different post) and that has severely hindered my energy and affected how much time I can spend on my laptop before regular doses of pain medication blur my mind. I continue to have problems concentrating and focusing even without the effects of the drugs. And I have an awful lot of work to catch up on in a very short span of time. An extension past the December 16 end of semester date may be possible and that would make things more doable perhaps and remove some of the pressure.
This evening when I was getting my evening care done and experiencing the regular annoyances and indignities that come with a spinal cord injury, I had a brief moment of doubt. I thought to myself "you have enough on your plate as is, why take on the extra stress of school?" It is a good question and one that several people asked me when started making plans to go back to school again. The truth is that as hard as it is trying to fit this course into my life right now and as much stress as it has caused me (and it has been a lot), I need this. I need something to feel like my life is not all about spinal cord injury and care routines and dealing with complications arising from my injury. And being a student again does give me a sense that I can be something more than my injury. So that is why I have to find a way to muddle through this right now. Even if I do end up withdrawing, at least I will know I tried.
