i still struggle with a lot of damn-near crippling shame over how little ive accomplished ive struggled with internalizing it i actively fought the idea that i was lazy because i knew how hard i was trying without giving up and ive had too many people tell me how smart i am and specify how much better i could be doing a roundabout way of calling you a lazy failure even if they dont mean it that way accepting that i was stupid or lazy would have been admitting defeat and i wasnt strong enough to handle that  ive set out to do so many things and all my plans have fallen apart _repeatedly_ if i were to go back and talk to my younger self i think i would have killed myself knowing how much shit there was to come unless i could give myself the directions to fix it it would have magnified my grief and despair to an unmanageable level to know where im at now  ive made more progress in the past few weeks than ive made in the past _decade_ and i say that as someone with a fucking associates degree i also self-taught all through high school