I haven't been diagnosed with treatment for Depersonalization/Dissociation Disorder, but I'm going to talk to my therapist tonight and seriously persist on treatment for it.
It's at the point where I'm positive this is my problem. I've been researching the symptoms of Depersonalization and Dissociation for a year to a couple years now, though I can't remember when exactly I started looking into it. I match up with a majority of the symptoms, and it's finally at the point where it incessantly interferes with my life. It hasn't gotten worse since I've started college, it's just that because of what my school asks of me, I've been unable to avoid direct conflict with the problems this disorder creates for me.
My memory is constantly failing me. It's not a matter of retention or writing down notes or asking people or double-checking or just reading the assignment information. My mind plays tricks on me. It skips entire lines of instruction even after I reread the same assignment several times. It deletes or fails to record entire conversations, information, and assignment requirements. On almost every single assignment I've turned in for the past three years, something has been missing, wrong, or misinterpreted. I think I remember all the instructions, only to find something was missing from my memory, or I remembered it completely incorrectly. I write things down incorrectly. Or I write them down correctly and fail to actually execute them correctly, despite having the instructions right next to me.
This is constant, and it's not just my school life. I have to call my boyfriend or text him when I'm at the grocery store because out of three things I need to pick up, I can only remember two. I get out at the gas station to fill up my car and stare blankly at the pump for an entire minute because I can't remember how it works. I forget my debit card pin number. I forget where my checkbook is. I forget where my laptop is. I can't remember my password to log in, even though it's the same password I type in eighty times a day. I get into the car and can't remember how to gearshift into Drive. I forget to give my dog her Heartgard medication. I forget to feed and walk her, even though a huge chunk of my life revolves around her. I forget to plug in my laptop to the power chord that's sitting three inches away from it. I forget things someone told me five minutes ago. I forget things WHILE PEOPLE ARE TELLING ME THEM.
There have been some very scary times when I have actually forgotten, from as long as several seconds to a full minute, how to speak and understand words. There have been times I've forgotten to breathe. There have been times I've forgotten to eat, or forgotten that I'm hungry. There are times where I lose massive gaps of time, like hours, to years. I can't remember most of my childhood. I can only remember three or four of my birthdays. I can remember the first time I drove a car, but not when I took the test for it.
There are times when, with the light turned off, I can't recognize people I've known for years. Even with them talking to me, even mid-conversation.
This is terrifying. And I hate it.

These are not even a fraction of the symptoms of DPD that I have recorded myself experiencing. This doesn't even include the severe detachment from my body, my inability to connect to touch and emotion, my near-dysphoric levels of my inability to reconcile who I am with my body.

This condition has been with me as long as I can remember, but it's only now, after three years of incredibly stressful college life, fighting to get assignments done correctly and turned in on time, only to be wrong near every single time, that I am beginning to acknowledge that there is something deeply wrong here. That it is wrong to a point that I can't cope with it in this lifestyle anymore. Something has to give, and after a recent, deeply painful slap in the face I received from my professors in regards to my portfolio review, I feel it is time to acknowledge that this thing is college. I don't enjoy it. I never have. I don't want it like I did, and that's not just in regards to changes in my life priorities.
I enjoy my job as a cashier. It's much less stressful than school. I get paid to do it. And even though this problem does interfere occasionally, it has never interfered with my job like it has with school.
Tonight I'll be discussing with my therapist and my parents what steps to take next. I think I would rather just drop out now. As much as I've enjoyed parts of school, as much as I have learned a lot and enjoyed learning it, it simply is not worth it to me anymore. Because it's become clear to me that self-discipline and self-motivation, while issues I do have, and can deal with and persevere through myself, are not the main issue like I once thought they were. I have worked constantly to push through them, and have, only to find a much, much higher mountain that will require a lot more than mere determination and perseverance to climb. And for the past three years, the conflict that this issue has created with my school life has only served to deeply stress and upset me without really any pay off to make it worth it.