Even from when I was first diagnosed with severe generalized anxiety, severe major depression, and panic disorder, I was always concerned with using those labels as an excuse.

I was told that my depression and anxiety was what made it so hard for me to not feel guilty about using my illnesses as an excuse.

I was told that what I went through warranted some flexibility in my life that other kids didn't get.

I think a lot of my hesitation to accept the extra wiggle room also stemmed from my childhood. I was grown up on a very conservative view of “you don’t take free handouts” and “you don’t make excuses, you only take responsibility for your actions”. Even years after my diagnosis, some members of my family look down on me for not working harder to get to the same place as others.

There was this assumption that the real world doesn’t give you wiggle room.

Well, that’s just not true.

In the real world, an individual will be considered disabled because of their mental illness depending on the professional evaluation. With that, employers in the real world must accommodate to that disability. The extent of the accommodations will obviously vary on disability to disability.

When I first started college, I was advised to register with Services for Students With Disabilities because of my mental health history. In doing so, I was granted accommodations in the on-campus dorm requirement, tutoring, and on my class registration times.

Initially, I felt guilty that I had gotten these accommodations. I felt that they were more than I needed and that if some other kid could do without them, then I should too. That has always been what I was told and that was always what I told myself.

However, these accommodations were not just handed to me. I had to go through a lot of interviews, screenings, and evaluations beforehand. You would think that this would be enough for me to realize that maybe I did need these accommodations.

Maybe just because one kid can get through the year without those accommodations doesn’t necessarily mean that I can too.

But no. I still feel guilty about it and now I’m in an even tougher situation.

I was given a scholarship to go to my school, but I must meet the requirements after each semester to continue receiving that scholarship. The requirements are pretty standard, asking that I meet a minimum GPA, am a full-time student, and remain in good academic and behavioral standing with the university.

This past year has been hard. I thought I was ready for it, and I anticipated the long nights of just studying and dedicating myself to my education. Things didn’t go as planned.

I ended up relapsing, but it took me a bit to realize I was actually relapsing. I thought I was better and that I could still handle myself. When my first semester ended and I realized I didn’t do nearly as well as I thought I could have, I really started feeling out of it. I quickly started seeking treatment to keep my relapse from getting worse.

As a result from a poor first semester, I was on academic probation for keeping my scholarship. Because it was only my first semester of college, the university allowed me to redeem myself in the second semester. I decided I would be better; that I would study harder and that the treatments would help with the relapse.

I wasn’t wrong.

I did do better than my first semester, but it still wasn’t enough to make up for my first semester. I am 0.05 point away from meeting the minimum cumulative GPA requirement for me to keep the scholarship that lets me go to school at my university.

My heart sunk and I realized there was no way I could still go to college without the scholarship. I couldn't even get a loan for that much. I blamed myself for not trying harder, for slacking off, and for not even being able to do the one job I had. I considered myself a complete failure.

I discussed the situation more with other people, and I found out about the possibility of requesting an appeal for my scholarship. I could apply to have my personal situation evaluated in terms of me keeping my scholarship. If the administration found my appeal reasonable, they could waive the minimum GPA requirement for me for this past semester.

You would think I would jump right on the opportunity to get my scholarship back. You would think that I would try to get it back because that’s really the last opportunity I have at staying in school.

You would think that by now I would have learned to see where an exception can be made due to my mental illness.

Well, I still haven’t sent my appeal.

I’m not sure what it is. Maybe it’s the depression telling me I don’t deserve a second chance. Maybe it’s my anxiety saying that trying to appeal against it will only make it worse. Maybe it’s the childhood teachings of “you got what you deserve” telling me this is what happens when you don't work hard enough.

It is just so damn hard to sit down and explain to someone that the reason I didn’t meet their expectations was because of something they can’t see.. that it was something in my brain that just made it harder for me to study for some reason. I mean how pathetic does that sound?

Yet, that's pretty much how it went down. My therapist explained it to me as a mental barrier. That for whatever reason, my brain’s way of functioning made it all the more harder for me to sit down, stay focused, study, and then remember that information.

While other students can sit down, study, and get something out of it, I had to work ten times harder to get the same result and to absorb the same material.

What took one average kid an hour to learn took me a day to learn. While one kid only needed a little energy to sit up and do his work, it took me all of the energy in my body. And while that same kid was worrying about what he was going to wear to his fraternity formal, I was worried about everything that could possibly go wrong at that moment in time (I also had many extreme family related issues going on).

It’s hard to want to take that risk of using an excuse that many people look down upon as a means to get ahead. A lot of people will look at the situation and think that my ‘diagnosis’ isn’t a valid excuse for laziness… that I just didn’t want to put in the work but wanted the result of it anyways.

I tend to believe that about myself a lot.

It’s hard to not blame yourself for what your mental illness might have facilitated because at the end of the day, our actions are our own. We can’t point at someone else and say “they made me do it” or “it’s their fault”. The only physical person we can blame is ourselves.

People don’t typically look at someone and assume that they didn’t meet their requirements because of some dysfunction in their way of thinking. People assume it’s because that person is lazy and is trying to make an excuse.

It’s hard to work around this thought process, and I’m still having a hard time.

I don’t have much advise other than try to stay realistic and easy on yourself. Listening to the actual professionals is typically helpful, but I’ve also had cases were it was more counterproductive. It really sucks.

For me, I think I’m just going to have to reach out and see what others think because who knows how distorted my own thinking might be. I guess I can only hope that my situation is messed up enough to grant me an appeal.

But even then, I wonder if I'll continue to think of myself less because of it.