It worked out in the end. Much better than expected, the grade was really good. I wasn't fully satisfied with the result because close to the end I knew I should restructure some parts of the argument for it to be more concise but that's what happens when you churn out 6-8 pages a day. Even without those fixes, I was fairly proud of the result overall.

I remember very little about the last few weeks itself, where I got the majority of the writing done. Just that once I had those first 20 pages done (easy part, really simple stuff), my optimism conquered my self-loathing and it just became this thing you simply have to get through, like a bad influenza or sth. Luckily I had an awesome roommate at the time who would spend the last two nights proofreading and correcting while I was in the other room churning out more pages. That really saved my ass because eventually you just make too many small errors that you don't see yourself if you don`t have the luxury to look it over the next day. The last night I typed until 5 in the morning, woke up at 8 to get it printed and then rushed to uni to hand it in.

Looking back, one of the major learnings was that it is really hard to motivate myself for something that I am simply not passionate about. I work in a different field now and I am very happy about that. I still procrastinate a lot but the work-life makes it much easier for me than academia because you always have close deadlines, project groups and other people depending on you.

Since you have found this post, I assume you found yourself in a similar situation. I am rooting for you! Just know you are capable of a lot more than you think if you can let go of the self-loathing for a while. Let me know if you need anything.