Does anyone have any personal experience with respect to this? I’d especially like to hear from scientists who have themselves suffered from mental illness and still gone on to have successful careers.
My situation is this: I’m in my fifth year of an undergraduate degree in physics and astronomy. My depression is of the sort that makes me unable to concentrate or get motivated over half the time, and this results in poor academic performance. I’ve failed most of my courses this term.
Funny thing is, I do well in a lot of courses too. I’m not failing all around and I don’t do poorly all the time. There are courses that I’ve failed with one professor and passed quite well with another. So I know I’m not stupid. I can understand this stuff. I believe I have what it takes, but my problem is in areas such as concentration and memorization (I have no problem on open book tests; once the obstacle of memorizing formulae is taken away, I can understand the material well enough to solve problems).
So: I’d like to hear from scientists who have had similar problems.
I don’t want to hear about: (a) people with mental illnesses that result in social ineptitude but that enhance numerical and spatial thinking, or (b) people who just overcame their difficulties by sheer force of will and lots of all-nighters.
