Well, I told my parents. My mom was pretty good about it, actually. I told her by herself this morning, and she was fairly understanding and said she'd help me tell my dad. We decided to go for coffee with him tonight so that I could tell him in a public place and lessen the blow up, which I think was a good idea. I can tell he's really angry with me though, because since we got in the car to drive home he hasn't really spoken to me.

The problem is that he doesn't "get" how emotional this has all been for me, and I have no way of explaining it to him because he just doesn't operate that way. He can't wrap his head around it. The other thing too is that whenever I try to talk about my depression and what it's been doing to me and how rotten I've been feeling, I usually start to cry and can't finish what I want to say. Plus my dad doesn't respond well when someone cries in front of him. He just sort of freezes up.

I can tell he thinks getting a general degree isn't good enough. We were always celebrating my graduation for different reasons. For him, it was about the prestige of his daughter having a university degree, and now I've messed that up so he's upset. For me, it was about the fact that I survived university without hospitalization or worse, and that it's all behind me now and I can start fresh. To him, I've failed. To me, it's frankly amazing that I'm even alive to go to the ceremony in the first place. I just wish he could see that too.