Hey everyone, I am brand new to the forums, just joined today. I am 28 years old, finally diagnosed with ADD about two years ago, and started (and still take) 20 mg of Ritalin 2x daily, which has helped me a lot. I wasn't sure quite where to put this post, because it spans a few topics, so decided to land it here. I am currently going back to school, in community college right now, working towards my associates degree before transferring to a four year school for my degree in psychology. After massively underachieving for years in school, the Ritalin has helped immensely (dean's list last semester--first time ever, yay!), but recently things have been getting tough again. Long story short, I work at Starbucks and we are short-staffed, and I have had to work 40 hours a week/five days a week as well as go to school full time. I rarely have a day where I have neither class nor school (as a shift leader, I am told I cant have weekends off) and I am becoming completely overwhelmed with stress and starting to shut down. I would gladly drop back to a basic barista, and plan to, but I'm worried about the cut in my pay and money issues, which I always struggle with (solution, they say: Spend less money! If only it was that easy!) I have repeatedly gone to the manager and district manager telling them I need extra time because of my problems with ADD and depression and OCD, but I usually get "well, we all have stressors, you just have to deal with them." Im getting extremely frustrated and am having a harder and harder time going to work and class, and have started missing several different classes on a regular basis, just because I want more time to myself and freak out at the idea of another day of class and work. I also get upset because so many people tell me "a lot of people work full time and go to school full time, so why cant you?" Even a good friend tells me that, and when I explain that my mental health issues make it hard, he explains that he had depression and still did school full time. I never know how to respond to these people or what I should do. I don't want to drop back to part time at school, because if i can make it through my associates degree, i will get a fairly good amount of aid and scholarship money to the four year school--contingent, of course, on making sure that I do well the rest of the time at the community college. I apologize for rambling a bit, but I'm just feeling torn up inside, I entered a depression again, and I'm having a hard time really getting anything done. I think mostly I just need some compassionate ears and maybe some reassurance that I'm not just lazy and a slacker and making too big of a deal about the full time work and school thing. Thanks!

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