I know that this is a little off topic but I need to get this off my chest and not to a journal where no one will hear me.

I am suffereing from and extreme amount of disappointment in myself. I have found myself in a place I would never have imagined myself to be. I don't know that I ever really pictured myself anywhere but I know that if I were to, this would not be it.

I am graduating University in a month. Most people are completely excited and most are excited for me but I just can't help but feel completely defeated. College was some of the worst 5 years of my life. And I don't feel like I've come out of it in a better place. Once having the dream of becoming a doctor, I'm now looking back at my transcript and I just cannot believe how I let myself stoop so low in my grades. My transcript is littered with soo many C-, C, C+ that it makes me feel physically ill. THe only A's I have are in classes that aren't relative to my major and the ones that won't ever help me get into medical school. I feel like I've wasted my parents money because looking back I know I didn't try for alot of those grades but I can't really say that out loud because I can just hear the words my mother would say to me. It would be the same old speech I get for skipping class. My GPA is average it's about a 2.9-3.0. I hope to have bumped it up to at least a 3.0 by graduation but I fear that I won't even accomplish THAT. I honestly feel like I've failed.

I'm dreading the actual senior activities and the graduation ceremony itself because I don't want the people who have walked through my life and don't know my now to see me. Because all they will see is how much weight I've gained and how fat I am. They don't know how I've changed as a person. I won't say that the change was necessarily for the BETTER, but it's definitly not for the worse. I just don't want to be that person that everyone looks at and said "oh, she's gotten fat". I know that converstaion that takes place cause God knows I have been a part of a good number of them and now I'm the butt of that joke.

I know that I'm young. I know that there are millions of people out there that have experienced much worse than I have and I know that most people don't even have the opportunity to experience what I have but I cannot help but feel defeated. I blew off a 40 grand a year education and I feel like that is going to be a weight on my shoulders for a long time. The hardest part for me is that I KNOW that I am SO so much better than that. I KNOW that I am incredibly smart person but I have never applied myself. I just can't seem to figure out how to let the past be the past, accept my failures and embrace the future.

I just feel so disappointed and so overwhelmed with self-defeat and at a time when I should feel so accomplished and proud. I just feel so stuck and it's really starting to wear me down...

Thanks for listening, ladies. Sorry I wrote a short novel.

I hear you loud and clear. People always say "Oh, college is the best time of your life!" I always thought, great, now what do I have to look forward to? Like you, the college years accounted for some of the most miserable years of my life.

But you know what? It's only been a year since I've graduated, and yes, I still kick myself for my lack of motivation, my brattiness at being too stubborn to take advantage of the education my parents handed me for free on a silver platter, the experiences so many people can't have. It makes me sad becuase I don't think I deserved it at all. But as time goes on, the grades you got, or the grades you didn't get, don't matter as much. You realize that you've got your WHOLE life ahead of you and you're still young and have time to turn things around for yourself.

Of course the people in your life are proud of you! I'm almost positive that your weight gain matters more to you than it does to them. They want to see you graduate and be happy and successful. You've gotten to the finish line and that's what's important.

I wish I had more to say, but I just wanted to let you know that you're not alone in feeling this way. Regret, sadly, is a part of life. We all have different ways of dealing with it, but just know that it's never too late to turn things around in your life.

Congratulations on graduating! I know the whole ceremony thing and the crap leading up to it really stinks. I didn't even want to go to mine but my parents would have been really upset so I sucked it up and you know what? I'm glad I did.

No matter how crappy an experience is, there's always something you've learned from it, taken from it, ****, even enjoyed. Be proud of yourself and keep trucking!



Also, if you ever want to talk (I know blogging sometimes seems like an empty vortex of space!) feel free to PM me. Like I said, I've been there!

Hello canadian213 and DJS06,

I am a 47 year old female. Been overweight for most of my life. There has been a few times in my life when I was ok with my weight. Most of the time I have just been embarrassed and ashamed to even socialize because I feel that I am just one big fat mess. To the point were I just hate myself and most people around me. I always say that I hate the world and everybody in it. I hate the world because I can not be the thin person that society expects me to be. Just imagine. I am 47 and have felt this way for a very long time.

I guess what I want to tell you is to except yourself for who you are, and love every pound of yourself. If you don't begin loving yourself, you are going to have a very sad life. Also, you need to know how to love yourself, if you plan on loving others. It's hard to make your loved once feel love if your constantly downing yourself. You may want to consider talking with a councelor. The battle of the bulge is a very difficult fight and can be very depressing.

Did you ever stop and think that maybe somewhere deep down inside you really didn't want to be a doctor ... and somehow that realization manifested itself as your grades since you did well in every subject EXCEPT the ones important for medical school?

I think you didn't apply yourself because a part of you knew that being a doctor wasn't what you really wanted.

There is nothing wrong with NOT being a doctor. There are other important and useful careers out there, and your education will lose none of its value if you apply it elsewhere. Not getting excellent grades doesn't mean you learned any less than anyone else in the class. It is your choice to do whatever you want with your education, and hopefully you will choose something that makes you happy.

Go see a career counselor and perhaps take a few tests. You may be amazed to find out what your subconscious apparently already knows.

Graduating college is a very hard time of life for many. I know it was for me. Between trying to figure out how to live as an adult to what you want to do careerwise to learning how to socialize and date outside of a school setting, it can be overwhelming.

Regarding your specific feelings of disappointment, you should realize that it's okay to feel disappointed, but that your worth as a human being is not contingent on how well you did in school or whether or not you're going to medical school. Or on your weight.

If you still want to be a doctor, I'm sure you can still do it, but it will just take you a little longer to get there. That's okay -- I'm pretty sure almost half of most med schools are made up of "non-traditional students" -- i.e. people who are years out of college and have done other things in the meantime. You can meet with a premed counselor now and see what it would take to get into a med school sometime down the road. For example, you could probably get yourself into some sort of internship at a science lab and then to grad school (where you can get your great GPA if you want!) after which getting into med school will be a cinch, especially if you do well on the MCAT. Or maybe you can just go do some totally other career for a few years and see how you like it and then decide at that point whether you want to go back into medicine.