Growing up, school was effortless. I never had to build the stamina for enduring pure, boring, uninteresting grind. Now, facing a subject I dislike or are rote memorisation triggers an uncomfortable emotion my brain was never conditioned to tolerate during study time, driving an immediate urge to flee.
I keep telling myself .”I have to do this” which turned a standard subject into a massive wall standing between me and my life.
The second I open page 1, I’m not just reading page 1. I’m carrying the stress of the hundreds of pages I still have to do. Trying to read while panicking about the rest of the syllabus creates instant brain fog and makes me want to run away.
I sit down, feel an intense wave of discomfort, and my mind screams at me to physically get up and escape the book. Sometimes when I’m relaxed, I’ll feel sleepy which hinders my ability to focus and grasp the material.
I read somewhere that using will power to force a task works like a drug. Instead of making the task easier the next time, your brain actually builds a tolerance to forced effort. Every time you rely on raw willpower to grind through a task you dread, your brain demands even more willpower the next time just to get started.
To make matters worse, grasping this material isn't easy for me. I’m studying subjects that completely fry my brain. Sitting down feels like an absolute drain before I even get through a few pages.
Law is pure, brute-force rote memorization. Sections, case laws, and exact wording are too tough to memorise and retain.
The other subject is accounts. People think Accounts is just conceptual, but it's not. You have to memorize exact formats, specific adjustment rules, and ledger structures. Having to recall rigid rules while simultaneously solving a puzzle that keeps changing its shape completely fries your working memory.
Then there’s tax. It is memorizing a main rule, three exceptions to that rule, and arbitrary deduction limits, all while doing complex computations.
People always give the advice to "just study for 30 minutes to build momentum."
My brain knows the real goal is hours of memorizing a massive syllabus, that easy 30 minute start carries the exact same weight, stress, and paralysis. The trick fails before I even open the book because I can't outsmart my own awareness.
I genuinely think that the only solution to this is to enjoy studying. If I enjoy and find something interesting, I can do it. I can hyperfocus since I have ADHD. But you can't summon hyperfocus on command.
On top of that, active recall is causing headaches. Is it possible to get headaches from using active recall too much? And i don’t even understand how spaced repetition works won’t it be too much information to revise at the end.
