Hey everyone, I don’t know if I’m asking for reassurance, but I need some guidance. Query: Academic integrity I’m nearing exam period (I’m currently in study break) and my obsessions around academic integrity and honesty are rising again. Our class was given the instruction sheet for exams early and it said that you aren’t allowed to exchange written summaries of the permissible materials for the exam with each other (the exams are all open book, but permissible materials are lectures, tutorials and readings). My mid year exam period was really hard on me. I was struggling to keep up cause my OCD relapsed and I was struggling to take care of it, and then my uncle passed away unexpectedly, so I got pretty behind with studies but I still managed to keep up with all of the content and write up my cheat sheet (this is permissible, it’s just a condensed version of your notes as it’s too time consuming to go over all your notes). Despite my circumstances, I wouldn’t help feeling bad for my peers who were struggling to keep up. They weren’t behind because of any other circumstances, mainly just because our studies has such a huge workload (studying law is basically a full time job). I felt an obligation to send my cheat sheets to them (we didn’t communicate on these documents, so I always assumed this wasn’t cheating considering how many other students admitted to doing it as well). Sometimes I would insist I’d give it to them because I felt bad that I couldn’t really see them suffer, but sometimes they’d ask for other notes from me. This became exhausting for me because a lot of people ended up depending on me. One of them reciprocated and gave one cheat sheet to me, to which I drew some of their notes and incorporated mine, as well as some from the student note bank which is backed by the university law student organisation (permissible to use the latter). When exams came along, I failed two out of three exams. I was really disappointed, but my peers ended up passing (but they were also disappointed with their grades). I really do not want to commit academic dishonesty again, there have been so many instances where I didn’t realise I actually was technically cheating because I would discuss ideas with my peers for assignments. But recently, my friend came to me and asked me to send her all my tutorial notes because she was behind this semester. I previously gave her my case sheet and lecture notes (the latter because her laptop died on her and she lost everything, she was also the one that still gave me a cheat sheet which I’m thankful for). I’m not going to lie, but I didn’t feel like giving it to her because I’m not being compassionate to myself when I am struggling myself, but I didn’t know how to respond to it so I said “sure, just make sure to go to the office hours and run through those notes cause they’re vague”. So I sent them to her, but I really regret it once I saw the instruction sheet for the exam, literally saying that it went against the university policies. The exam hasn’t started yet but I’m just ruminating. Sorry for the rant, but I want to know how to approach this situation??? I won’t get caught for this because it’s just tutorial notes which is hard to track but it’s sick and tiring when I give people my notes and I fail and they pass and I don’t want to be dishonest :(

So I have cheated on tests and exams before, and I just now have started feeling guilty about it because of my OCD flare ups among everything else in my life. I also have really bad relationship ocd that I may cheat or may have cheated in the past (I didn’t) and so having these thoughts that I cheat in school makes me feel like a really bad person. I didn’t feel bad about it until now, because I know that it’s wrong. I still can’t shake the feeling of guilt and I feel like I should confess to my professors.

so I feel like I’m finally having an academic comeback after years of failing & I’m currently looking at pinterest for that motivation. there are videos that are helpful tools for college students like websites that read chapter books and summarize/create notes & it seems pretty cool. but I somehow deny using those tools bc it feels like I’m cheating. my mind is like, “no, you will study the TRADITIONAL way (which idek what it rlly is)” I don’t know why my brain is doing this to me. I feel like these apps could be beneficial to my learning. what’s ironic is that I literally googled all my assignment answers for one class at the last minute to get some grades in. this is a retake class but because I was so behind on everything, I just looked up the answers. so that really does count as cheating. like bruh 😭 I did it to save myself from a bad class grade. I’m definitely going to study the rest of this semester. I have officially began taking notes and actually doing schoolwork. someone help me!!! these videos look like great resources but my mind is telling me otherwise. another thing is that I’m still lost on what to major in. I keep changing career choices and my head’s gonna explode. there are so many things I wanna say but I don’t want the post to be long. I just want to get good grades and understand the material!!! someone help me >n<

I had avoided a lot with school specifically, but I did do it in other areas of life as well. School for some reason has been the biggest trigger that sends me into avoidance and it has been for the longest time. Does anybody relate? If so, what did you do to help besides therapy? In high school I used to sit in the bathroom stalls for hours so I could avoid going to classes. I was struggling to keep up because my OCD makes me perfect my school work so much so to the point where I’d never turn it in because I’d never be satisfied with what I’d produce. I’d get so incredibly frustrated with myself and the fact that I could never meet my own standards, never mind the rubrics given. I took ages analyzing all my writing, all my answers, all my google slides and I burnt myself out. So I stopped trying. I stopped turning in work because I’d never be satisfied. I’d cry because I felt I wasn’t good enough. Then I’d be missing assignments, getting them done but not submitting them because I was too ashamed. So, I avoided classes because I’d be in trouble or be called out for not getting anything done. Unfortunately this habit bled into my first year of college last year, and OCD coupled up with depression, made going to the dining hall and attending classes even worse. So I avoided it all together. It’s so hard being a freshman in college, so so hard. I unfortunately failed out of that school but I tried to medically withdraw either semester. No, I wasn’t partying, or drinking or smoking or hanging with the wrong people. I was a college freshman struggling with ocd and depression. I’m trying to not make excuses for myself either because I’m well aware this is my fault and I’m trying to reverse it now at community college. Right now I’m trying to get those Fs turned into Ws from my old school so I can fix my gpa. I want to transfer, I want to be a forensic psychologist, I want to be independent, I want to be ok. It’s gonna take me so long to transfer from community college but that’s on me. I’m willing to put in the work. I’m so embarassed, please help me.