No, I think this is good. I do need to confront these things more.

I developed a mode of procrastination and associated depression and anxiety that consumed most of my time for four or more years. I resist making changes in part because when I start doing anything, I get anxious about all the other things I think I SHOULD be doing, which is certainly irrational because I don't get attend to all of them better simply by not attending to one of them, but I've also developed extreme laziness. It's hard to get out of bed because for a long time I was UNABLE to get out of bed and I stopped expecting that from myself; it's hard to work on math or anything like that because for a long time my anxiety completely stopped me from it; and so on--I'm still trying to claw myself out of that vicious cycle.

I'm afraid to look into potential future opportunities because I'm afraid I won't qualify or won't be competent enough--I'm looking at my past performance record and the part that's most real to me, the part where I spent most of my day (and still do) almost every day engaged in an activity I would characterize as simply "not doing X" where X is any activity I thought would improve my life or fulfill an obligation. I'm also afraid to "tie myself down" because of opportunity cost--not to myself but to whoever else I might be able to help by my choice of occupation. I'm intensely aware of the sorts of suffering that are invisible in the everyday lives of most people in our society, and I know that I need to resolve that awareness by dedicating myself to something that will make a real and necessary difference, and I'm not sure how "far" away from commonly accepted cultural values my personal values demand me to go. I'm afraid of making a choice that's polluted by fear. And so on.

But, yeah, it helps to keep bringing it into focus. The world looks DIFFERENT as your mental health changes.

You're welcome. ^_^

Of course, a variety of alternative scenarios would also seem plausible as insights, but it did seem very much like you were refocusing from a "I do this because this is who I am and this is what I do" position to one of "I do this because this will help me achieve a goal"--and with that rationality becomes more important. I was trying to understand your perspective that this was the result of acquiring thinking skills: you first acquired the ability and habit of questioning the motivations of the authorities who promoted schooling and certain tasks in school, and then you acquired the ability and habit of asking what you really wanted to do regardless of the way things are supposed to work.

I am afraid about the whole money thing. I have heard that you can't get scholarships if you're a transfer student. I have not looked into it, though. I kind of go into paralyzing anxiety whenever I think about The Future.

But, yeah, I think that would be a great idea, if we could pool our knowledge! My college is great for a number of things: Mainly, it's impossible to fail no matter what you do, and you can have hours-long conversations with professors whenever you run into one, and everyone's pretty much unconditionally supportive, which is a good thing if all that takes a lower priority to actually learning or engaging in anything vaguely intellectual. I know there's review sites out there for colleges, but you'd probably have to dig to find a "rationally-oriented culture" rating.

It's funny, though, I just realized that if you want to talk to anyone vaguely interesting here, you generally have to put up with some pseudoscientific belief of theirs. Ah, Utah: Everyone's a Mormon or a pagan. (Or a Catholic who believes that quantum physics somehow supports their faith, or an agnostic/atheist/ex-Christian who believes scientific fields are about on par with literary criticism, and so on.)

Oh, how I wish I'd had enough mental health to investigate and apply to colleges my senior year of high school instead choosing a default last-minute option.

Seconded.

Even though better pedagogies might exist--that, say, require you to do the memorization at the same time as doing something that involves more in-depth thinking and learning--you have to be there and do the exams anyway, so it's best to see them in a positive light, which will hopefully increase both your ability to pass and your ability to get something out of them. The information IS a valuable tool, and seeing it as such will help you use it.

And, certainly, rote studying is FAR better than coasting by on one's enormous intellect--at least, if one doesn't have anything better to do.

I am currently in a college where my discussions with the more intellectually-alive people have sometimes involved someone attempting to refute evolution by saying, "But if evolution were true, we'd have humans coming out of the jungle!"

The vast majority just sit there with glazed eyes. High school was more challenging.

wrinkles forehead in mock-puzzled look

We're literate. Is there any other way to become literate?

I would imagine that's not a case of stupidity, but of the brain working in a way that's (usually, more or less) efficient. Instead of analyzing the specific words you're using, the nurse, who has no reason not to trust you, analyzes the content of what you're saying, the urgency and manner with which you're presenting the evidence against this chemical that's just "blahblahblah" to the brain.

This is a way of filtering out irrelevant content and only paying attention to what is (likely) to be relevant. I had a related problem when learning to drive--my brain doesn't instantly process "right" or "left" as belonging to the specified direction, but when the instructor or person giving the test bellowed a word at me, I knew to turn and turned whichever way made more sense to me in context--which wasn't always the right decision. I don't think everyone has this thinking style, as evidenced by my instructor's irritation with me, but it's certainly not overall a bad one--in general, it's probably better to pay attention to information from the environment when operating heavy machinery, to the emotional content of a social situation rather than to etymological clues, and so on.