I Suppressed My Creativity To Pass My Engineering Degree

It gave me depression, and it was not worth it at all but I persevered to make it work eventually.

I have ADHD but that’s not the problem. I was always a student that was curious about higher education. I enrolled with high hopes that I will get to learn and put myself on track once again.

My high school years were really hard, apart from the excessive failing and the physical abuse I suffered from teachers. I was going through a rough patch. Though I was still a good student because I had gained respect from a few of my peers. But many of them saw my disability as being a case of “insanity.”

My parents would wonder, why would I fail the final term exams but not fail before. I have a condition, it’s my gift and perhaps my curse. The curse has been lifted but so has been a part of me that gave me a lot of hope during those hard years.

My condition is that I write complex answers. It’s not what you think. I just find it easier to understand and reciprocate complex matters. It has taken me more than a decade of resilience to understand my patterns of failing.

Though, my peers over the years have always shoved the dilemma,

“you were asked a question, but you wrote a complex answer.”

If I am asked a question, my answers are detailed and in-depth. Frankly, I learned that way. The only remark I would get from my teachers is perhaps a big cross on my answer sheets. Those answers were not what you expect from your average highschooler. I have always been told, that even though I am a great student but why do I fail during the finals.

Why do I write complex answers? Well, I usually don’t. But most of my peers have always never appreciated my output. I have always experienced anxiety, and half of the part lies in the complexity of my answer.

Combined together with hyperactivity and you get an answer sheet filled with answers, references, diagrams, etc. You can fairly get the idea, from the details I have mentioned.

During my first year at college, I found it very difficult to seek guidance. Even at times when I would consult my professors — they would be too busy chatting with the ladies over a cup of coffee rather than answering my questions. I would always get hungover whenever some peer would call me, and then shortly leave after with the female faculty for a latte.

My depression has been building for almost two decades. And my condition perhaps helped to escape such feelings. When you’re a hyperactive kid, you can multiple things at one time. I usually finish most things that I start but if it isn’t challenging enough or I don’t get feedback — I leave it for a later time.

Part of my mental health decline started because of the denial of either my parents, especially my father who would say there is nothing wrong with you. Though, if only perhaps I would have been tested and screened when I was little — I would have been at a good pace.

The denial is perhaps I had to live with for almost 15 years. Though, I acknowledged and understood my patterns. My teachers and my peers did not. Though there are some of my teachers, who guided me in a way that I could write. Because of their guidance and trust in myself — I was able to finish college, then a few months before graduation — corona happened.

My depression has been building up for the past 15 years hit its peak in 2019. It was the harshest, the hardest of years that tested everything I ever experienced alone, and had to build myself by my hands was shattered.

The hardship that I experienced broke me, mentally. I have another condition where when things happen, I can piece small fragments of observations that I had made about people in my life. It helps to predict their movements and outcomes through their choices.

It is perhaps a skill, through my creativity. My subconscious mind had to be trained during those years. My intuition was basically built through that process. But the year of 2019, is what made me ready to face any bad outcome that may arise in my life.

I had to trade, my creativity and had to kill that understanding to fit into the college exams. Though I did improve as I killed my hyperactivity, during those days. It just added another reason for what I experienced.

If I am brutally honest, I don’t need an engineering degree to be an engineer. I have achieved far many greater things in life than the school would have ever taught.

From college education, I developed my very own framework and understood it in a newer light. But I had to give up this habit consciously trying to use medications, that eventually killed my hyperactivity and thus my drive to be creative.

It helped me pass with flying colors, and my results did improve. But I never really felt joy by those results. There was no inner happiness that I used to get when I would write my answers, and even at times ask my teachers to give me a chance to take a picture of my answers and send it to me.

Because in the heat of the moment, I have written really great answers especially in courses like Data Mining, Data Structures, Computer Architecture, Applied Physics to name a few.

There used to come — this passionate spirit over me when I would write my answers. It was an overwhelming feeling of zest. My answer sheets were filled with answers that one would actually carefully read and learn from.

I used to put extra effort into writing my answers. Because they came from my conceptual understanding straight from the heart, mind, and soul. In life, if one door closes another opens up.

I have passed through many doors and have been through many rooms of hardships. This too shall pass, in the meantime — I would dedicate my time to my research and hopefully just say goodbye to college forever. I used to suffer from really serious headaches.

The only thing my depression affects me the most is the headaches and the fatigue that follows. I am usually not demotivated, though I did miss a lot of classes because of these issues — Good times.

Looking back, I had to make a hard choice. In life there are at times you have to make a compromise. But never compromise your self. Though, I didn’t kill my creativity. I just suppressed it, and it caused me a lot of suffering.

In time, I was able to heal from those moments of depression. I am looking forward as I should be, as I always have been. There are moments that I do miss, about those days when I ponder in the nights of solitude, praying.

I found clarity through trading my creativity. It wasn’t all bad, I was able to pass which I wouldn’t do normally. I sometimes feel, that what I have is not even ADHD, or similar to it.

Being called stupid, when you’re not and hit on the head excessively won’t treat someone’s failure. Sometimes we have to look beyond our frame of comprehension and we can understand why many students fail during their education journey.

Do not do what I did. Those hard nights, I won’t even wish them on my enemies. There are pros and cons to every choice. I know that I knew this was or could happen. I had predicted my declining symptoms to a degree. It did make me stronger but at the cost of suppressing my existential need for seeking knowledge.

It’s hard to get things back, to the way they were. We all wish we could have done things differently but I believe sometimes you have to make the hardest of choices — so there never comes a day when you aren’t for what’s coming.

It’s better to take a leap of faith, fail, and learn to move forwards than to obsess over the past and what could have been. Today, perhaps I am moving on and I have moved on.

It is time, you should too as there is an entire lifetime of joys waiting for you on the opposite side of this choice. Love yourself and your creative spirit. Harness your creative dimension and never let anyone tell you what you can or cannot do. Instead, learn from their advice and then make the right choice.

You will know how to make one when you have made the wrong ones at least a few times — that is the essence of learning and that will never let your creativity die out.

Keep trying, keep pushing, and aim to succeed — however hard the struggles that await you — I know you can do it, as have I.

Peace and Blessings unto You.

Thank you for reading.