This may be shocking but it is direct and to the point.... last week I just couldn't handle it anymore.


Statement for Academic Record Review

After 20 years of depression, I am finally seeking help. I am not trying to glorify my position but give you the solid facts. I have been verbally abused in my home for as long as I can remember, and I continue to receive this abuse when at home. Because of this negativity, my psychologist has diagnosed me as having “major, reoccurring, depression.” This has caused a decrease in my ability to focus in school to the point that I am not able to function under a full time schedule. It is because of this that I am requesting to withdraw from Economics 381.

Because I never understood the extreme burden of shame given to me through this abuse, I have carried it my whole life. I never knew life could be anything different. I have lived minute to minute trying to feel happy and subduing the bad thoughts about myself I continually hear from my father. One can imagine that such a burden would cause emotional “break downs,” and finally lead to a solution. Unfortunately, I have always blamed the burden on something else and have never faced the problem head on, until now.

I have been experiencing signs of depression my whole life, but the older I get the harder the shame is to carry around. In other words, the emotional breakdowns I have experienced have gotten worse and more frequent. Before, during, and after these breakdowns, my brain retreats into hibernation to process all the emotion, or shame in my case. In fact, today has been the first time in the last two weeks that I have been able to function. This is one of the worst effects of depression; other effects have been my increasing inability to focus. This has obviously created quite a problem in my schooling. In order to fix the problem, which has finally been brought to my attention, I am seeing a therapist through the BYU counseling and career center and am requesting to drop my economics class.

In order to be able to fully address my emotional issues, I can not continue to put the energy necessary for a full time, 12-hour schedule. The time needed to talk about and process a lifetime of negativity simply won’t allow it. Because I plan on continuing my education I would like to request a W on my transcripts so that I wont have the UW stigma on record. Thank you.

It should also be noted that my father does not belive in such medical problems and if he finds out about my current situation he would only use it to harm me more. Inorder to hide this from him I have to get a second job to pay for medical expenses.