Recently I’ve been diagnosed with severe sleep apnea - a condition where I’d just stop breathing during my sleep. I also possibly suffer from narcolepsy and hormonal imbalances. The results is that I’m constantly sleep deprived, and I feel exhausted pretty much during all of my waking hours. In the past year my productivity has been very low. I can’t concentrate more than 5 minutes before my mind becomes foggy and the textbooks stop making sense. Currently I’m waiting to get the medical treatments necessary to help me with those conditions.
I know my conditions are real, yet somehow I still can’t shake the idea that they are not valid reasons for me to perform badly in my study, and so my bad performance is really just my fault. Ever since I received the diagnosis, I’ve started having this fear that I’m making up excuses to not work, and that it is my character, but not my physical wellbeing, is flawed. I somehow think that everyone has one problem or another, and if they can overcome their own problem to keep working, so should I.
On the other hand, if my conditions turn out to really affect me as much as they did, then I have this fear that I’d have to live with them permanently, and I won’t be able to achieve many things that I want to achieve. When I look at my friends around me, who study, work and go about their business, I feel disheartened and helpless because I am not capable of doing those things.
I feel like I sort of having a schedule to follow. And ideally I’d want things to be like tasks in a calendar or a to-do list, which I can really get to, work on, and then tick them off. But my problems, real or not, are preventing me from doing so.
Of course, I realize that all those stuffs might just be in my head, as something similar has happened to me in the past. Since childhood I’ve had episodes of really low mood, which I just brushed off, thinking that everyone has days that they don’t feel ok and they will pass. Only about 4-5 years ago, after several panic attacks and a prolonged period of suffering, that I started looking for treatments. I was given counseling and anti-depressants, and they helped. Today I’ve acknowledged that my mental health is not as strong as some others, and I’ve learnt ways to work around my problem.
As I did back then, now I’m just hoping I can also find an appropriate way to look at my physical conditions.
Anxiety, depression and self doubt
how to stop blaming myself 
Starting to pull myself up
Trying to motivate myself
