Senioritis. It’s the disease that every upperclassman fears. Like many others, I had heard stories of 4.0 students catching it their last year of school and transforming into ambitionless hooligans who skip class every day. But I never expected it would happen to me.

It started at the beginning of my senior year, although at that time, I didn’t have the slightest suspicion that there was anything alarming. The dark circles under my eyes were getting darker, but I brushed it off, thinking it was just my view on life growing dimmer. My everyday outfits slowly transformed to the same hoodie and sweatpants, but that’s because I was having trouble adjusting after only wearing pajamas to online classes last year, right? And although I had always turned in assignments on time in the past, submitting them a day late wasn’t that bad. Or a few days late… or a week. A month? Multiple months?! Okay, something wasn’t right.

Eventually, I went to a doctor looking for a cure to my worsening procrastination. I also rattled off a long list of other symptoms, including fatigue, loss of interest in class and aggression towards physics homework. A few tense minutes passed as the doctor exchanged worried murmurs with other colleagues. Then, with a heavy sigh and a pained look, the doctor gave me the final verdict.

“You have senioritis.” 

That was the last thing I heard before everything went dark.

A semester and 214 breakdowns later…

The months following college decisions (mostly rejections) marked the hardest period of my high school career. Since I believed they no longer mattered, my grades started dropping faster than my will to live. Nothing seemed to help — not even sleeping or stress-eating. During the lowest of my lows, my attendance was a mere 50 percent, which was still higher than my math grade. I was genuinely worried that I would never make it to graduation.

But as this is indeed a survivor story, I finally reached a turning point one boring-yet-faithful school day. I was sitting amongst the full IB students in my class who seemed to always have their lives under control, and I couldn’t help but ask what it was like to not deal with senioritis. To my utter surprise, everyone shared that they, too, were suffering from the same disease as I. Realizing that being successful in school was possible even with senioritis gave me the confidence to recover.

With their recommendation, I joined a senioritis support group where I met other seniors who helped me get better. Slowly but surely, I started to regain my interest in school. I was able to muster the motivation to catch up on late assignments, and eventually, I finally made it over my last obstacle: IB testing. At long last, I can proudly say that I am now ready to graduate high school.

Take it from me: senioritis can be life-changing, but it isn’t life-ending. So hang in there, because things will get better. I promise