Senioritis is a phenomenon we often joke about lightly, where seniors or even juniors begin to lose motivation in high school. This usually manifests itself in poor grades and/or attendance on the students behalf, but I don’t think enough time is spent understanding it.

As someone diagnosed with clinical depression, when senioritis intertwines with my depressive episodes, it tosses me into an absolute whirlwind. When it gets really bad, it feels as if I have no place in this world that is moving too fast for me to handle. I can’t keep up with time because I’m frozen in a deep, motivation-less trench while deadlines and important dates pass me by. 

Walking through the doors of a high school building feels like stepping out of a moving car on a busy highway. Turning in assignments on time feels like diving through the entrance of an important flight right as the terminal closes. 

It starts when you look at an assignment and decide it’s way too much to achieve at the moment. You push it off cautiously at first, but quite frankly you’re too trusting of yourself to complete it later. When later comes, the inspiration you need to complete the assignment is still nowhere to be found. 

The only difference between now and when you initially pushed the assignment off is that now the amount of work you have to get done this week has begun to multiply. You look around at all the incomplete work that seems to have you surrounded. It just continues to dogpile until it feels like you’re drowning in tasks you can’t build the motivation to complete. Now, as the work cut out for you has increased ten-fold you succumb to the fact that you probably won’t ever muster the motivation to finish it all. 

That’s what happens when you allow senioritis to completely take its course. I’m guilty of this too, but it’s important to understand that there are ways to combat it.

The first step is to not push off the work. Set a designated time that is a reasonable distance from the deadline to complete the assignment, and prepare yourself accordingly so that you’re mindset will allow you to do your best work.

There are plenty of different ways you can get in the right headspace, but the most important thing is to get inspired. Whether you talk yourself up, listen to your favorite song, or delve into what’s required of you for the assignment and discover what intrigues you most, you have to take the time to find the motivation you need. 

Motivation is lost because of senioritis, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be rediscovered. There are plenty of students just like you who battle being uninspired, but what’s important is that you don’t give in to deception of senioritis.