Why I Haven’t Graduated Yet
The Mental Health Program That Screwed Me
Greetings lovelies! Today is day 13 of writing every day for two weeks. I’m feeling very proud of myself thus far. I really enjoy The Medium Community and connecting to my readers! Thank you all so much. Now, let me tell you about the worst decision I’ve made so far.
As many of you know I have chronic illnesses, and some of these are mental health-related. Now, that's exhausting on its own but paired with the ins and outs of high school it can be excruciating. Anywho, things were getting progressively worse last year and I spent quite a bit of time in my student wellbeing teams office.
The councilors there are as equipped as you might expect, in other words, they aren't equipped at all and they knew it. So, what to do with me? Well, there is a program for students who are extremely mentally unwell, and they thought I’d be the perfect candidate. I disagreed.
But they pushed it like a salesman at a car dealership and although I had refused twice they still didn't stop. The third time my parents brought “The Program” up I caved. I conceded to those around me who thought they knew what was best. They did not.
I was enrolled in the summer term which started in August and ended in November. You might be thinking, “Milly! What about school? You work so hard and it's your last year of high school.” I was thinking the same thing, but, my need to please rings a little louder in my head than my school curriculum and I wanted to do my best.
After all, if I did my very best, believed in the program, and showed up every day what's the worst that could happen? Oh, let me tell you past Milly there's a lot.
Our days in the program went like this, arrive at 8 am for breakfast, group therapy, private therapy, practising anxious situations, lunch, 2 hours of school and pick up at 3 pm. It was a lot. By the end of every day, everyone who attended was exhausted. The therapists were unkind and the program was failing us.
Now let's skip to the end. November rolled around and it was time for me to go back to regular school. Everyone thought I dropped out and all my friends turned their backs on me. The teachers didn't care either. I couldn't be there. My parents were apologetic for pushing the program on me and promised I didn't need to finish high school this year.
I wanted to finish my classes, I wanted to graduate. I started my journey with online learning in January, a month before the second semester would start. I didn't realize how hard administrators make it to get access to these courses. I had to get my doctor to write a letter and get funding to take the courses as well as convince my high school to allow me one more course that the funding didn't cover.
I didn't get to start courses until the beginning of April. For anyone wondering about high school second semester where I'm from starts in February and ends in June, about five months. my counsellor told me I had until the beginning of May to get my courses finished if I wanted to graduate with my class, that's two months.
Long story short, I didn't finish my courses on time. In fact, I still haven't. I’m hoping to finish them by the end of this month if at all possible. If you want to see my plan for how I’ve been coping you can read the story below.
Thank you for reading! If you'd like to hear more from me please leave some claps, a comment, and a follow.
