The Semester That Wasn't, the Guilt That Is, and the Life That Still Could Be

I (21F) have been lying to my parents, mainly my dad, about attending university, and the guilt is eating me up because my dad pays for my university himself. I graduated from high school in 2023 and decided to upgrade my classes that fall while my friends started their first year of uni. My parents weren’t too happy about this, but they weren’t upset either. The following year, I applied to universities in my city and didn’t get into any, so I decided to do an entrance program in another province, and my parents just assumed I was starting my first official year. My dad paid for everything, including an off-campus apartment and monthly flights back home, because he thought I was depressed (I was). I decided not to go back to that school and stay in my home town as I wasn’t happy when I was away and so I did. My dad bought me a car, paid for half of my insurance, and paid for my tuition for my second attempt at a university entrance program at my hometown university, where all my friends go. Something I should’ve mentioned is Ithat ’m an extremely anxious person and always have been, and for some reason, being back home just heightened that. I’m not really sure what it was but my anxiety was through the roof every time I was on campus or a lecture and it just got to the point where if I didn’t get to campus an hour before class started to have time to calm down and find a washroom and be in front of my class to be the first one in, then I wasn’t going. And that would happen a lot. And so while I did okay in a couple of my classes, I didn’t do the best in the rest. I was also going through extremely difficult home issues at the time, including a mother who has difficulty regulating her emotions and oftentimes takes her conflict out on me, while my father does absolutely nothing about her and my brothers arguing. It was taking a toll on me mentally because as soon as i’d leave the house, they would argue and fight and one of them would leave or say something and drag me into it and so I didn’t want to leave the house anymore, but when I was home they were arguing and involving me and throwing things. It was a lot, and it was happening for months. My doctor ended up prescribing my prozac and then referred me to a psychiatrist who prescribed me zoloft for anxiety and depression. I haven’t told my parents just because they went through so much with my little brother not graduating and then the arguments I just didn’t want to add on and didn’t even know how to articulate how I was feeling and was too humiliated to tell anybody at that point and so I just continued to sink deeper and deeper into this whole in my room and just stopped caring and slowly stopped wanting to live. I was off my zoloft and truly at my worst. I didn’t want to talk to ANYBODY or be around anyone. I just wanted to eat and lie or just sleep and hope I didn’t wake up. That was my entire summer from april until I’d say late July, when I was advised to go back on my medication, and since then I’ve been slowly picking up the pieces. Today I learned that because of my GPA, I am not able to do the entrance program for 12 months. I don’t know what to do. I was thinking of just doing open studies, but now I’m wasting a year of my time and also my dad's money because it wouldn’t be going towards anything I would just be doing it to kill time and say i’m going to school. I was also thinking of upgrading again and just doing a lot better than i did last time and reapplying for fall next year. But do I really want to be taking high school courses AGAIN? I have an appointment with admission tomorrow morning, and so hopefully I can explain with my doctor's note and even let them put me on academic probation idk. I just feel horrible and genuinely want to die.

EDIT: I just wanted to add that my mom and brother are fantastic people and I love them a lot. My mom just came from a hard upbringing (teen mom) and then had us quite young so I just think all that comes out sometimes. As for my brother he’s a teenager who was babied most of his life and now real life is getting to him and he was upset and didn’t know how to deal with that.

I also don’t care to write in paragraphs i’m sorry if that makes it hard for you, but I just found out and just wanted to get it all out :)