Corona Journal #5

^That's how I feel right now.

Has it been five weeks already? It doesn't feel like it. It feels like 5 days and 25 years simultaneously.

The homework situation hasn't gotten any better. I still get around 12 hours a day. I'm taking more breaks than last week, which means I'm getting more done in one day than I do last week. Still, it's way too much. I can't keep working like this, I'm exhausted.

I've been going outside more. I love being in the sun, and having a desk in front of the window means I have to resist the temptation to put down my homework and just frolic in the grass all day.

My therapist says that my school is very 80's in its culture and toxicity, overemphasis on sports, rigid and unforgiving academics, outdated building. I can definitely see what she means by unforgiving. My teachers are tone deaf, assigning homework that I can't possibly do while maintaining a personal life.

My entire existence has become a very simple inequality: GPA > literally anything else.

My teachers are monopolizing my time with useless busywork that teaches me absolutely nothing. They can't even grade it all! I think if teachers can't grade all the homework their assigning, they're assigning too much.

I'm losing sleep, I'm losing my appetite, I'm losing motivation. My hair started going grey when I was in 7th grade, but it's graying at double speed now. I'm not exaggerating, this is a ridiculous amount of work. I haven't slept before 4 am since Easter.

I wrote something this week, which is super rare nowadays. Just a simple 3,000 word short story that expands on the backstory of some of my favorite characters. It felt so good to write again, and I think the end product was pretty good. Not to my submitting standards, but good. I don't think I'll submit it unless I flesh it out some more.

I'm excited to write more, but I doubt I have time for that. Like I said, homework is overwhelming. I think I've written 4 speeches in the last three days. My day is dominated by homework to the point that I'm worried that I'll either have to drop classes or stop sleeping.

I think my ADHD is getting worse. I'm slowing down and speeding up in homework simultaneously. The biggest frustration of this week has been people telling me "Oh, you don't actually have 12 hours of homework a day." Each time I hear that I want to scream. I do have to do homework for 12 hours a day. My head is always foggy. I can always hear voices in my head, and songs, lots of songs. I hear snippets of dialogue and people calling my name and it's so so foggy. I cannot do this. Everything is glazed over and out of focus.

My therapist says it's not just the ADHD, it's also depression. I don't feel the depression as much. I feel a LOT of panic. How can you be extremely exhausted to the point of paralysis and panicking and manic at once? Because I'm experiencing that right now, every single day. It's an up and down and down and up and sideways and upside down and up and down and inside out of emotions all day.

I cannot stray away from the homework subject. It's all I can think about. It dominates 50% of my day and 100% of my thoughts. I've had dreams about sitting at my desk, doing homework. My entire life has become this 4x5 box where my desk and the immediate surroundings are.

Anyway, I think I've said enough about homework today. Signing off until next week, hopefully the long weekend will recharge my batteries a little bit.