What to do?

[Jason540]

For a year now, I have had depression. I have taken a few different kinds of medications and have found one that works better than the others. I generally feel better than I used to, but I still suffer. My main problem is the fact that I have no motivation to do anything, especially study and go to class. I always feel stupid compared to everybody around me, especially my girlfriend, who I am extremely jealous of. I know I am a very smart person, and even though I feel in competition with my girlfriend, I still lack motivation. My GPA is at 1.685 while hers is at 3.560, and I face University Disqualification as well as College of Pharmacy disqualification. If it weren't for my depression and my overall failure, I would be living my dream. School has always been extremely important to me. All I want to do is succeed in school and be able to pursue a career in what I want to do.  


My questions are about where to start:

What can I do to get back my motivation?
How can I make myself not worry about the success of everybody else?
How can I lose my jealousy issues?  
How can I get back my focus and continue in school despite the fact that I am in a bad academic position?


I know most of this is post is more background information than a question...I just have so much on my mind all the time and I can never organize my thoughts/questions.

Any advice will help. Thank you all.

[Jason540]

Thank you for your advice.

I'm still in the process of getting back my health insurance, so hopefully soon I will be able to see my doctor again. Also, I do already have a referral to a psychiatrist, but I need to wait to get insurance.

As for the support groups, I do not know where to look for one. This is the closest thing I've seen to a support group, and I am thankful of this.

I've tried discussing a temporary leave of absence for medical reasons, and from what I was told, everything will stay how it is. My only other alternative was to take a full withdrawal from the university, but that would also show up on my transcripts. I felt like I was in a catch 22 - damned if I took a leave of absence, and damned if I stayed. So I stayed.

But now I will look further into the policies regarding sick leave, because I'm sure it will help out a lot if things go back to how they used to be.

Thank you again, LeftCoastChick. I'm sure I'll be posting more questions soon!

[LeftCoastChick]

What you need to do is threefold -

See your doctor again - you made need a med augmentation or even switch to a diff. class of meds like mood stabilizers - Lamictal works very well. I've been on 11+ meds still with depression that impacted my life.

You may have a different mood disorder by the few symptoms you've mentioned, so get a referral to a psychiatrist if you don't have one already.

You may want to take sick leave. I should have done that and my marks tanked from a 8 to a 6 on the staynine scale. It ruined my chances of getting my Master's.

Find a support group for mood disorders and/or talk therapy. Drugs are not the cure.

Find out if there is a chance to take sick leave so the marks don't affect you. Be perfectly honest with them.

Good luck and get to you doctor asap.