FAQ

Find answers to some of the more frequently asked questions on the Forums.

Forums guidelines

Our guidelines keep the Forums a safe place for people to share and learn information.

PLEASE HELP - My parents are going to hate me

RQuartz
Community Member

I just found out I failed my first year of medical school.

Even writing that sentence, I did it with a heavy feeling in my heart. I’m absolutely begging anyone to please hear me out because I desperately need advice.

First, I’ll need to give some context. I’m in my late teens (and considered quite young among my cohort), and my entire life, I have been extremely studious. For this, I must owe a lot of credit to my overbearing father. Ever since childhood, he has always pushed me to study and I’ve always listened. During my final year of high school, I was pushed beyond breaking point. It’s a long story, but over that year, I developed severe anxiety. It got to the point where I could barely eat, drink or leave the house. Even today, I struggle with leaving the house and am slowly going through exposure therapy (it has been a long healing process due to COVID restrictions).

I have struggled intensely, yet all this time, my father never knew. He still doesn’t know. It is hard to describe the type of person he is but he would never understand. He is extremely belittling towards people with mental health disorders. My mother knows, and supports me as much as she can whilst keeping it from my father.

We had all our classes online this year because of COVID restrictions, and I didn’t make a single friend in my new university cohort. The degree is the most difficult thing I have ever undertaken in my life - and my university makes this course notoriously difficult. One thing led to another, and despite my best efforts, I failed. Our results have not come out yet, but I have been informed that I have failed a threshold exam with no opportunity to remediate. I will have to repeat this entire year all over again. I really did not expect it.

I am so afraid. My mother will be disappointed and probably won’t speak to me for days. My father will go back to berating me all year. He might get physical. He might kick me out (I have no income and no family besides my parents in this country, so I would be screwed). I don’t know what to do, and I don’t know what to do after I inevitably let him know. Please, I’m absolutely begging someone to give me some advice here. My mind is going wild and I am considering every option. I no longer wish to exist and I really am holding on with every ounce of my being.

Repeating is going to be awful. Another year stuck on a campus which I am afraid to be in (my anxiety is so awful that I can barely go shopping - imagine me stuck in a room with many other students for hours). My father will hate me. He will unleash his anger on my mother. She will be crying from the way he treats her and it will be all my fault. I won’t have anyone. I don’t deserve anyone. My mother is such an angel and she doesn’t deserve someone as broken and awful as me. I love her so much, and she deserves the best. She says she’s proud of me, but I often wish she wouldn’t. I know I’m worthless, and everytime she says she’s proud of me, it reminds me of how she doesn’t know what it's like to have a child truly worth being proud of. And it’s all my fault.

And despite everything, I love my father. I love the father that I’ve gotten to know this year. The one that tells me how wonderful I am for being a future doctor, the one that smiles with pride when his friends ask about me, the one that buys me treats to reward me for being in medical school. I can’t believe I am going to lose him the moment I tell him I failed, and he will be replaced with the old version, the father that berates me all the time. I am going to miss him so much.

Sometimes, I really do feel alone in this world.

16 Replies 16

tranzcrybe
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Conditional love is not love - the same applies to friendships. Your father loves you for as long as you make him proud; and you love your father only when he praises you.

I wonder if your father is also a doctor, for only one in such position would have any authority to comment. If not, it is time you made a stand (respectfully) to remind him of the trials of this year - even in 'good times' there is a high attrition rate for first year students (and let's not forget those who pass through nefarious means!).

You're a good kid but not living to your own design and repeating a year will give you solid grounding as a way to discover yourself and where your strengths are (perseverance being the topic de jour).

Pursuing your goals is difficult when the credit is vicariously taken away from your achievements and where anything less is contemptible.

mmMekitty
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Hi RQuartz,

I see some great advice coming your way.

I am very pleased you do want to become a doctor. You might emphasise to your parents, that you're not quitting, that you have every intention of pushing through towards your goal.

When, your father starts berating you, could you point out that "this is not helping", & what you need is his support, his & encouragement more than ever, not to be rejected. I'm notsure how anything like this might go down, if you would need to repeat your needs several times before he seems to hear. You know him, I don't, so if you don't think it would be safe to try then we'll have to try something else.

Whatever else you choose, I'd take Hanna3's experience & advice very seriously.

mmMekitty

Juliet_84
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Hi RQuartz,

The reality is that medicine is incredibly hard and not everyone will succeed. It is an achievement to even make it this far and into the course. If this is really what you want to do, then you need to take this failure in your stride and keep pushing on. Medicine is a grueling course and an even more grueling career so you must be prepared to fail along the way and have to repeat and sacrifice etc to achieve your dream. IF this is truly your dream then it will be worth it. However, are you sure that this is really what you want to do (I.e for the right reasons) and you haven’t just internalized that this is a way of making your parents proud? Your father will get over this failure. It’s unrealistic to expect you to be perfect at everything all the time, some degrees are harder than others and so failing is more of a reality. It’s very easy for someone to sit back and expect perfection but he’s not a doctor (I assume?) so he can’t put all that pressure on you. Rather than try and hide it from him, I think that you need to sit down and explain that all this pressure is having an extremely negative effect on you, and in reality means that you are more likely to fail or quit. Although he is placing all this pressure on you, deep down I’m sure that he loves you and it’s his misguided way of making sure you have a “good” future but it’s actually damaging you.

RQuartz
Community Member

Dear Petal22

Yes, you are actually correct - my name was actually based off of rose quartz 🙂

Thank you so much for your reassuring and kind words. It is difficult for me to possess self-love at times due to the way my father puts me down everyday - even if I tell myself that his actions don't reflect myself.

The letter idea sounds amazing! Unfortunately, I can only write in English and this is a language my father can't read. I am planning to see a doctor regarding my anxiety soon. I had a deep talk with my mum about it today, and she is actively helping me through this.

I'm still unsure of what I'm going to do with my father, but talking about it on this forum and hearing all the amazing responses I've gotten is definitely giving me a clearer path going forward, so thank you very much.

Kind regards,

RQuartz

Dear BlueBorder,

Thank you very much for your kind words 🙂

I am still learning to accept that my father's actions are not my fault. It is honestly very difficult, seeing as he keeps bringing me up when yelling at her. Just today, he yelled at her again over financial issues. Long story short, he yelled at her for earning so little (she migrated to Australia knowing very little English yet works extremely hard to make a living... not to mention he gets her to pay him rent every week, despite having paid off the house, and the fact that she is strapped of cash to look after my maternal grandparents - although this is a whole different story) and said how it's unfair that he is responsible for looking after the whole household financially, especially looking after me. Afterwards, I broke down as I felt awful that my mum had to deal with that because of me, and my mum reassured me that it wasn't my fault. I felt better for a second, but right afterwards, he approached me and yelled at me saying that being above 18 should mean that I shouldn't depend on him financially at all. Unfortunately, I absolutely cannot afford to rent a place on my own and neither can my mum. I understand that finding a job would be the logical option here, but even without a job taking up my time, I was struggling to keep up with the work demands of my degree. I had a job for around 2 years during high school and found that was difficult enough - medical school would be a whole different story. Unlike other degrees, failing a year of medical school three times results in expulsion so I absolutely cannot afford to fail more.

As for getting a mental health plan, my mother is encouraging me to book an appointment at my GP. I think I will, although part of me can't help but feel like I really want to resolve it on my own (as foolish as that may sound). I think I'm just a little afraid, as my current GP is quite dismissive and I don't feel she would listen to me. Opening up to a new GP is quite a terrifying thought, and I would have to really think about it before going ahead with it.

I also do not believe I can repeat without letting them know about it, as they know exactly which year I'm meant to graduate and it would arouse a lot of suspicion. I truly wish I didn't have to! I agree that it would significantly ease the burden.

Your reply has been so helpful to me, thank you so much. I can hardly put into words how much I appreciate it.

Kind regards,

RQuartz

Hanna3
Community Member

Hi RQuartz

I don't mean to butt on your conversation with Blueborder, who is being very helpful to you here - but I had to say, no wonder you've been struggling to pass your medical course! The family problems and most especially with your father and the pressure this is putting you under explain a lot, don't they?

This is way too much stress on top of a demanding university course!

Blueborder is giving you great advice but I would also sincerely recommend you go to a counsellor or adviser at your university or medical school and let them know this is going on.

When I was working with medical students this is precisely the sort of thing we would move mountains to try to help the student with. You really should let them know about the stress you are under at home.

I think you said the uni hadn't been supportive during covid but maybe now things are getting a bit more normal perhaps this will improve - things have been bad for universities during covid.

Do please think about letting someone know at your campus.

I'm really sorry you have this to deal with on top of your studies.

Do get some help. You'll need support with letting your parents know you have to repeat the year too. The stress sounds dreadful.

Let us know how you go. Sorry you're having a tough time of it. Hang in there!

In life we all fail and in that you are not alone. How we deal with failure and how we come back from it is what marks true resilience.

I used to manage graduates and many had never failed in their life when they came to my organization. The first time they did (and they would!) could result in significant turmoil for them.

Most students fail subjects - its something you have to learn from even though it is very hard.

So know you are not alone in this.

You need to remember in this time of difficulty your great accomplishments. All that you have achieved to get here and take great pride in that. You have fought your way through another degree to get here and have struggled through immense family turmoil. So few can say this.

If I had to guess your father is imposing his own feelings of failure upon you and your mother. This is unfair - and a burden you shouldn't have to carry.

I pray that in time things get better for you and know the struggle will make you a great doctor.