I feel so isolated, so depressed and anxious whenever I think of things such as getting my GED or finally heading out to go to a dentist and get my teeth fixed. Or hanging out with my worthless, POS problematic family. I have no idea why. I know I’m not smart enough for the GED and I fear things going wrong. I just wanna get it done in just one or a few days. I just want to rest and live without a diploma since I believe I sorta have average intelligence as I was told before. I don’t really have college plans cause I have no interest in anything, and I know there’s some colleges out there that don’t require a diploma or similar.
I just really wish I could pay someone to take it for me or do it in a way that doesn’t take a long time or just bypass it. I don’t even feel like living.
I’ll try and keep my answer brief, because I feel the urge to infodump lol.
Task anxiety: I struggle with this and am under treatment for it. For me it has 2 parts: 1. Something like “see the dentist” that most people see as 1 step, I see as all the individual parts (like a previous comment lists) and get overwhelmed by it all and feel like I have to get it all done at once. For this, it helps me to write every single step down and just try tackling one when I feel the motivation.
My brain jumps ahead to thinking about worst-case what ifs, like really expensive dental work. It helps me some to ask myself the best and worst case for this, and I keep a list of examples when I expected the worst and it didn’t happen to remind myself it’s not guaranteed to be the worst case.
Future/jobs and career: First of all, don’t believe what people have told you about your intelligence. Everyone has areas of expertise and areas of weakness. If math isn’t your thing, there are plenty of jobs where you don’t have to do math (or nothing harder than add, subtract, multiply, divide). How you did in school and not getting your GED (yet) doesn’t imply intelligence. Second, don’t feel like you have to choose the career that you’ll do for the rest of your life. I’m on my 4th “career” and none of them are what I initially studied in college. In true ADHD fashion, each time I’ve sort of fallen into a new opportunity, my passion (about the novelty) got me the job, I dove in for a while, and then it fizzled out and I chased another interest.
Oh, he might be me. 1 also applies to 2: Don’t see “dentist” as this complex task that is about figuring out what to do, getting the money, getting it done.
Focus on one thing: Get a quick cheap appointment for a first assessment. Typically 10 - 20 minutes, I think, unless he does same day x-ray.
OP would feel like a million bucks when he walks out and has a first idea how how extensive the work will be. When I was in that situation, I was sure it would be horrific, like many pulled teeth, expensive dentures. In reality, there were just lots of discolourations and 5 cavities, which is not great, but so much better than I thought. And it’s likely that my case is already near worst-case, because with anything more, there’d be enormous pain and infections.
If dentist anxiety is involved, first step is to find a dentist who specialises in that. Like, when you first come, he’d have a talk in the office, not the dentist chair, and only if you feel like it, he’d have a look based on your limits (e. g. no instruments in mouth, not on the dentist chair, etc.).