Burnout or depression? or both :''')

i have been to uni 4 times and never been able to finish.  There is alot of pressure to do a degree and of course pressure to obtain career progression.  Looking after yourself has to come first.  Sorry to hear that you are not doing so well.  I dont have suggestions right now but hope you find a way forward :)

Well me and my friend would stay up until 4 or 5 AM playing songs on the guitar it was really surreal. My friend could really play some great songs. He played a song that reminded me of train tracks for some reason lol. We loved lil peep and Declan McKenna people like that. I still love Lil Peep to this day. I identified with the song Lil Peep made called ‘Falling down’ because I felt like I was falling down at the time. 

The main thing is that you have to do the things you love doing. If you don't, then it becomes a chore that will drain your energy very quickly, and your mood falls as a result of not doing well. The people who achieved a lot, made what they do into a game, and have fun playing that game for hours. Even for subjects they don't really like, they'll still try to make it fun for themselves somehow. 

Did you get into music at all? Tbh the only thing I have ever loved is music and I was considering pursuing it to help with my self esteem, I would love to hear more about what you tried during this "going all over the world entertaining people" phase? That's not my goal though, fame is not something I want lol, I know I couldn't handle it anyways

Thank you thank you, I think celebrating the small things will really help, it's difficult to understand that my best is someone else 'sup-par', but I also know that my exceptional seems to be far greater than most (not in a bragging way, there are upsides and downsides to it all). Acknowledging that when I'm doing my best, that it is my best, will help greatly

Thank you so so much for your reply, I think I need to get over the shame that comes with taking time to rest. I've been trying to rest for a while, but there's this nagging feeling telling me that my resting makes me lazy and immoral. Hearing this from someone else is incredibly helpful. My special interest is music/singing, and I've been trying to apply to a music course that's 3 days a week, I think I'm gonna go for it! Even if it leads to nothing, I am 100% sure that it will be healing. Thank you again, I am very greatful

I experienced a similar thing to you. I was 18 and life was going good for me then I started smoking weed then my mental health started spiralling down hill fast. I’m not the same after everything that happened. I may not go back to the way I was after everything. I wasn’t at uni but I dropped out my job just dropped out of everything basically. It didn’t get me anywhere. In the weed haze I thought I was going to be a massive musician who was going to be all over the world playing for millions of people. None of this happened. Life has been better but I had to start going to things again and getting out there. I understand uni might have been too much for you but in my opinion it is better to stick in at something. You’re only 20 you can join a course right now if you want. 

I used a couple of strategies in high school when studying was incredibly hard for me, these things relate mostly to depression I think, but I believe everyone should keep them in mind... 

1- Celebrate doing very very small things. Yeah that little thing might not have contributed much to the whole thing but it was really really hard to do and you did it! You deserve to feel good. As an example, if you need to write 4 pages on your laptop and can't do it at all, start by just turning on the laptop and celebrate that sh*t. Your next step is opening the app, and it's ok if you just stare and can't do it at the start, that's part of your progress. Remember, somedays you might not get anything done, then just feel good that you survived, that was a really hard thing for me to do back then, just not ending it.

Another great way of explaining this tip (which I heard from Healthy Gamer on YouTube) is: in making progress, it's not about doing things that are enough, it's about doing things that are NOT enough.

2- Remember that you might get in a loop where feeling miserable makes you unable to do things and not doing things makes you feel more miserable, it's a feedback loop. You need to break the loop and it's incredibly hard cause you just wanna hate yourself, but hate will get nowhere. Try hard to be kind to yourself, don't beat yourself up when things go wrong.

3- Using a timer might help, or might not. I didn't always find it helpful, but try it if you find it hard to focus. set 20 minutes, or 40 minutes, or 1 hour, then start doing the task. After the timer has stopped, if you feel not tired, add 20 more minutes to it. You might not get anything done at all at the start, but here it only matters that you spent time focused on the task and that's an accomplishment as well. 

I have a few things to say.

i managed to complete uni, but at great cost to myself. From the perspective of 30 years later I know why, but it would be helpful if you could truly reflect on why it challenged you.

Second point, burnout verses depression. I started to struggle badly in 2020, and there were some obvious adverse life events which could easily be blamed for that, but standard interventions did not work. Fast forward to 2023 I am diagnosed with autism and likely have ADHD too. So I may have been slightly depressed but the main problem, confirmed only months ago, was burnout not depression.

There’s such a huge overlap between the two conditions. Definitely worth exploring standard depression treatments (therapy, meds) but the cure for burnout (so I’m told) is a combination of rest and immersing in special interests.