I really don't know how to handle all of this
This month has been terrible for me. Earlier one of my parent's had a stroke, that could have been avoided had they treated their medical condition. I'm in college and will have to give up getting a minor for my degree and focus on my major so that I can graduate this year to hopefully provide for my parents. This means I will not be able to get into the grad program I had been hoping to pursue and will effectively stop my career at a low level in my field. Additionally I also found out this month that I'm showing signs of a degenerative disorder on a medical test, and will now have to go through that diagnostic process. If I have it, and there's no other explanation for my test results so being realistic I probably do, my only chance at having the career I wanted would be for me to graduate with the minor that has the prerequisites and continue directly to grad school. That's not happening. I've worked so hard to prepare for grad school, and it's all for nothing.
I'm trying to be a bit vague in my post, I don't know if people who know my situation are on reddit or not, and I really just feel awful for being mad about this.
Not to be dramatic but I feel like I'm watching my life end and it makes me so angry. This entire situation could have been avoided. Instead of dealing with the entire family's stress I could instead just be dealing with my own stress of finding out I may have a condition that will either kill me or cause fatal complications. I feel like a psychopath for making this about myself, but I think I'm the one making the most sacrifice here when the person who had the stroke will recover just potentially not before short term disability ends (according to their doctor). We don't know exactly when they will recover, just a vague idea, and I can't consciously take that gamble which would put my family into a really bad situation. So I have to graduate earlier than I was meant to. The way classes are scheduled and the ones I have left, once I change my schedule there's no undoing it even if my parent does recover earlier. They will recover and I will lose out on my chance to live during the limited time before whatever type of the disease I likely have makes me too disabled. I'm so mad and barely anyone knows I've had this test result so no one really knows I've been in a constant state of bad anxiety since the test. I just wish the situation was different so I would have the space to process I honestly don't even know what to write. My future, the end of my life, every single issue that is going to come from this, the amount of testing and appointments I've already been told I'll need to confirm the diagnosis, the fact that I have dreams in life I'll never be able to fulfill due to this illness, the possibility my parents may bury me. I don't have the time or space to deal with it all and I know it's incredibly privileged of me to be complaining about that. That there are people who have it worse, but it still hurts. I am permanently giving up my career for someone who told me they hated me as a child.
I don't even know if this is the right subreddit for this. My apologies if it's not.
Posted Aug 14, 2026, 5:57 AM UTC