The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Not as extreme as you, but similar deal in terms of being present and focused on school. I got a degree - but with a crappy GPA doing as little as possible. I relied on friends to help me pass classes extensively, and had deep anxiety about how much more discipline they all had. I was surrounded by hardworking people who put up with me because they liked me, but that I was a drag on. To be totally honest, I'm now in a very good spot in terms of success and responsibility, ~10 years later.
The key for me, which may be for you, is work. There are many problems with school, but succinctly: I find the idea of paying for the privilege of suffering (waking up early, hearing someone drone on about simple concepts, and doing work that has literally zero value beyond learning) to be sickening.
Even your minimum wage job, which is as meaningless as a job can be, matters to your teammates, manager, and customers at some level.
If you're in the US, get your fucking driver's license. Cmon.
After that, find another job that is preferably higher paying and potentially interesting to you.
One more bit of tough love: Your mom isn't going to fix this. You're causing her suffering even at this point. If she gives you another chance, I think you're still in the position where you'll take advantage of her to continue to fail. You live in a time and, presumably, a 1st world country in which it is impossible for you to starve to death or truly suffer in any way. I think you have to throw yourself in the water before you'll swim.
I think in some cases, she’s somewhat a hinderance. Not that it isn’t nice to have your nest to return to, but that’s a catch 22. For some people, the fact that you can afford to fail means that you don’t take things seriously enough. If not working means possibly sleeping in the car because you can’t pay rent, you’ll find the muscles to work full time. If failing out of college means poverty, class becomes much more interesting. I would actually suggest getting your own apartment or split Trent somewhere so that if you’re not working or doing the minimum it will be a risk to you.
I’d also recommend that if you’re not making it to class, maybe try either trade school or community college. If you’re doing community college, you can generally pay your way. That way the fact that you spent $400 a course might motivate you a bit more.
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