I joined a sorority in my sophomore year, but its been an uphill battle ever since. What do I do?

Hi, I'm a new member of this sub and I've been in a sorority for about 2 years now. I know it's probably a bit rude of me to make my debut in the community with a super long vent post, but I really need someone to listen and maybe even offer me encouragement/advice if you have any. I tried this with my big but she hasnt responded (probably because she's busy as a recent graduate), so the Internet is the next vest thing 💀

So, my aunt has been a member of a well known (like NPHC level well known) sorority for decades. I'm keeping the sorority's name a secret to avoid any unintended consequences. Anyway, I had thought about joining a sorority for a few years, and in spring 2021, my university's chapter of my aunt's sorority did a rush. She played an absolutely instrumental role in making sure I had everything I needed to get my foot in the door.

One long official process later, I was chosen to move on to membership intake. Although I was thrilled at the opportunity...the membership intake process (taking place through Zoom) started a year into quarantine. And quarantine was throwing a lot of things off for me as a student - from my motivation to my sleep schedule. Unfortunately, the process, while overall enjoyable, was quite demanding of my time and energy. And I didnt always have the energy to give my time (aka I overslept at least once).

I admit that I had second thoughts more than once - especially because the facilitators emphasized that being a member is a "lifelong commitment" and I happen to have major commitment issues. But I convinced myself the road would get smoother over time, even if the work itself still required a lot, and so I successfully completed the process.

Now, I was initiated in spring 2021. That very summer, I was elected as Chapter President, with the former president (my big) as my VP. The reason is because 1) I was the only new initiate for our already small chapter 2) we were the only two financial members at the time. To be fair, our primary advisor did ask me if I was sure I wanted to be president. But after hearing how the previous president had so much on her plate, I felt like it would be cruel to say no.

Now it's time for me to freely admit it: we may have had at least one workshop on officer duties and responsibilities, but it wasnt nearly enough to prepare me for the stress and pressure of the real thing.

I did my best to coordinate with my VP to ensure we fulfilled our various duties and responsibilities, and of course planned and executed chapter events. But I wasnt good enough. Our primary advisor always had something to scold the two of us about. Sometimes it was things we literally had no control over (ex: we didnt complete an important task because we didnt receive the email saying we needed to do it).

I never felt like I was free to make mistakes. Despite my severe lack of experience, I felt like I had to be perfect in everything if I genuinely cared about our chapter. Sure, our advisor has always said we can ask for help, but she sure doesn't seem to make her dissatisfaction with us needing help discrete. And no matter how many times she told me she was "proud of me", I never felt proud of myself. Especially because it felt like I was over reliant on my VP (who was ridiculously understanding and accomodating).

Now, I'm one of those people who procrastinates on important shit when I'm stressed. For example, homework. This wreaked havoc on my grades, but most importantly my GPA. At the beginning of the spring 2022 semester, I became inactive due to low GPA, and was unceremoniously demoted from my President position. Like I literally found out by asking tech support why I couldnt access the officers only page on the member website.

How did I feel when I learned this information? Besides being annoyed that I got no official notification whatsoever, I was 30% disappointed in myself...and 70% relieved. I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Well, mostly. I still had to participate in certain mandatory events. But at least I wasnt in charge of anything. And as much as I hate to say it, it was nice having to deal with less of our primary advisor's scolding.

Now, despite my grades improving quite a bit since then, I have not gotten my GPA back to where it needs to be. And since I am about to graduate in the fall, that means I havent been active since fall 2021. On top of that, I forgot to pay my dues in 2022, so I also lost my financial status...

Skip to the present day. I've attended exactly one meeting this semester. Although the new president is much more capable than I ever was (and seems to have actual prior experience), the other members are struggling to commit. And instead of helping us figure out how to eliminate or ease those barriers to commit, our advisory board just went on a long rant about how we cause our own problems as a chapter. Apparently they're perfect at what they do, in fact they could do our jobs better than us. Meanwhile, they think we put too much work on the president despite having more members now. But they haven't the foggiest idea why we see them as completely unapproachable when it comes to asking for help...

Even when one member tried to explain that she's in a tight spot financially and thus wouldnt be able to attend an event that required her to pay for herself, there wasnt any grace shown. In fact, when I offered to pay for her, I was given praise for my generosity and told it was a "really nice thing I didnt have to do" (even though from the sound of it there weren't exactly other ways to get the job done). It's like they thought she was making excuses and wanted to guilt trip her, when she was literally just being honest about her situation. (If anyone's curious, I gave the member my contact info to discuss this payment and she was quite grateful, but she never got in touch with me, so I guess they figured something out?)

To give my advisors some credit, apparently our chapter has a history of low member engagement and low national recognition in recent years, or something like that. Though I cant quite help but wonder why...

Anyway, recently...things have just gotten to a head. Long story short, our primary advisor seems to think I love making things harder on myself for absolutely no reason. I was telling her some difficulties I had with paying my dues and she was immediately like "why did you do XYZ bad thing? what did you do?" Like I was immediately the one to blame! Like she just expects me to be nothing but a burden and disappointment now! She also seemed to think I intentionally ignored an important message she sent, even after I showed her my phone literally didnt receive it. And although I'm struggling financially at the moment, I'm not sure how to tell her that for obvious reasons. So, I'm willing to put further financial strain on myself just to get her off of my case.

I wont lie, I've wanted to just quit SO many times. I hate how they threw me in the deep end and then got upset when I started to drown. How they shout at me to just try harder to swim, and get even more upset when I only continue to drown. How they can pretend that anything they tell me is remotely encouraging when all it does is remind me that its (apparently) entirely my fault that I'm failing.

But, the main reason I havent is because my aunt and even my mom have invested too much time, money, and effort into making sure I can even be part of this sorority. I do fear that things will somehow get even more stressful once I become part of the alumnae chapter, but considering my aunt is a member of that same chapter...I feel like I owe it to her to continue on. But I'm not sure how I'm supposed to do that...especially because I'm pretty sure our primary advisor is in the chapter too...

Thank you so much for reading. If anyone has any words of encouragement or advice for me, please feel free to share. I'm desperate 😭