I am procrastinating and self-sabotaging to a life-threatening degree [NEEDHELP]

[notfamous]

It's not a mind-blowing fact that a good percentage of people in the world, procrastinate from time to time. Especially if they are a college student. But how benign does procrastination look, when one chronically waits until the very last second (as in just hours before class) before they start an assignment? Or while one understands the consequences of procrastinating this badly but subconsciously has even found peace with failing the class — or even failing out of college entirely? 

Throughout this semester, I have had no drive to do any of my classwork until the last second every night despite knowing the consequences of doing so. And when I finally decide to get to work, what usually is supposed to take 2 hours stretches into the entire night, leaving the project half done and pitiful looking. My mental state feels tarnished to the point that I can't motivate myself to do anything productive, and I can't even fully enjoy the activities I use to distract myself such as watching YouTube or aimlessly searching for solutions to my problems on Google.

  I'm in my third year of being a Visual Communications (Graphic Design) student, and with that comes a HUGE workload. Which is precisely why they give me 5 days to do work for 3 different classes. However, with the way my mind works, I will spend 4 days THINKING about doing the work and then with 2 hours until midnight on the 5th day, I will feel pressured enough to even start planning on how I am going to tackle all of the work. Despite my efforts to come up with a methodical plan for how I am going to pull this all-nighter, I still fall into this chaotic process of doing the work: 

*  Have an initial idea
* Start working towards the initial idea
* 15 minutes in, get stuck somehow (program isn't behaving as expected, I'm stuck not knowing what idea to come up with next, unclear instructions, etc.)
* 5 minutes into thinking about what the problem is — sleepiness and the urge to masturbate start settling in. 
* Resist at first but eventually rationalize giving in and wasting more time. 
* Realized I've wasted hours of time I had to finish the project
* Forced to cut corners while working and make sacrifices that didn't have to be made. 
* Repeat bullet points #3-5 until I don't finish the project anyway, figuring I'll do better next time.

 

I don't know why I lack the capability to sit down and work on something until it's done, or stick with something long-term nowadays where as before in high-school I was able to do this with about as much struggle as it would take any normal person. Now, I can't even muster up the motivation, drive, discipline — whatever you want to call it — to even start.  I don't even know why I procrastinate as hard or as long as I do, it's not like I am enjoying what I'm distracting myself with. It's like as long as I am not doing anything that feels like work, then my brain will prioritize that over actually getting what I need done. 

PLEASE HELP ME WITH THIS. Nothing I search feels like it helps, and I can't find posts similar to my situation. If anyone has any insight into why I am the way I am please say something. I am open to anything at this point to overcome this. I don't want to fail out of university but the way I am going, it's inevitable. 

TL;DR: I have a nasty procrastination habit that stops me from doing any of my work. I think about working on my projects constantly, but feel a deep resistance to the point where I start to rationalize failing the assignment in hopes of doing better on the next one. I need help because this is affecting other areas of my life to the point that if I go on like this I fear that I won't be able to function normally in a society. 

[Harriet]

My nerd. I feel this. I have also been struggling with a powerful resistance to anything like "work" for years. I think it started with a really deep antipathy to the powerlessness of school, where other people decided what I should be working on all day long. It was a little better at university, but ONLY when I had things I loved. Whenever I had a task that was a matter of obligation or duty, I would feel a desperate desire with avoid it. I think I felt overwhelmed by the world and the obligations that I knew were coming to me as an adult. Withdrawing from the world and spending time on the internet or computer games relieved my anxiety so powerfully that I think it became addictive. 
 

Anyway, I'm working on it now. One thing that helped was taking a very long break from what other people wanted me to do, and trying to listen to what I wanted and to nurture those interests and feelings (which had been crushed down by school and depression). I also had a moment last week. I'd been sick for two weeks and spent two weeks sitting in the same position on the sofa mindlessly doing 'the internet', when I really realised how disgusting it was to be so idle. It felt awful, and I couldn't stand another minute in that position, so I left the house. Recently I've been doing more of my work, but just an hour or so at a time. As soon as I leave the "flow" state of concentration I think to myself "well, I did something, now I deserve a break." But I decided that's like doing one set of exercises at the gym and then going home. I need to get into the habit of gathering my strength and returning for another period of concentration.

Speaking of the gym, I think that discovering a sport I care about--lifting--was really helpful. No one chose it for me, there was no duty, there were no expectations that I'd be good at it. I was free to show up and suck. And I learned to keep putting effort into something hard. After many years of refining my procrastination habits, putting in physical effort felt much more doable and available to me than putting in mental effort.

Anyway, my plan now is to set a schedule, and I'm thinking about keeping a journal where I record my thoughts and feelings before and after starting things, because usually I have negative feelings beforehand, as though the work is going to be bad, but then I feel good afterwards. 

 

So yeah. I think it's a super difficult problem and is probably going to be a very long journey, but I think we need to 1. nurture our interests and sense of control 2. confront our fears, make them visible and address them directly, and 3. collect evidence about how doing our work really makes us feel.

Sorry I don't have a magic cure. I hope you have some good luck in addressing this.