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How are you?10/22/2021 CW: mentions of anorexia I dropped out of my undergraduate degree in engineering (returned 3 years later to finish it) due to severe depression. I was on antidepressants and attending counselling, but we hadn't yet found the right combination that worked. It was my last semester and I simply could not muster the energy to finish it. In addition to struggling with depression, I was dealing with extreme pain from endometriosis and was in recovery from anorexia nervosa. I was also struggling with an undiagnosed periodic limb movement disorder that left me extremely fatigued. Many days I couldn't even find the energy to get out of bed or to attend my counselling sessions. I ended up having to pay a lot of money for those missed sessions. In my degree, I dropped down to one course and passed it with the lowest mark on my transcript. None of my professors asked how I was doing. The one professor in the one course that I kept (but I missed lots of class due to the depression) never checked in on me to see what was going on. Once I found the right medication and the right counsellor, I was able to recover and return to finish my degree. I am now a PhD candidate in a different field. If I had had more support or understanding on depression, maybe I would have been able to finish my engineering degree that last semester. There is such a stigma around mental health, we need to work at being more accepting of mental health challenges in higher ed. Thank you so much to our anonymous author for sharing their story.
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