Wow! Congratulations! It's so strange that I found this post as this is my first time on the Psych Central boards and guess why I'm here? Just the opposite of you--I finally threw in the towel today in regards to my Master's thesis. I was just a week away from the date I was supposed to present my paper, but its been one of the worst experiences of my life.

I had to quite for self care reasons. My gpa was quite good all along, but school drained me and this final paper pushed me over the edge in regards to health--folks here will know what I'm talking about. When you suffer from mental illness and you're pushed and pushed and pushed, you wear yourself out physically and open the door for (in my case) a huge bout with major depression.

To be honest, I should have dropped out last April and I knew it then but I kept saying (3 more months, 2 more months). Recently, I've put in very long nights working on the paper and had not been sleeping. Now that I'm very close, one of my professors signed off but the other would not. She has just recently started to give feedback and frankly its been too late in the game. Half the time, I didn't understand what she wanted which was made worse by the fact that we were communicating by email and not face to face.

Today was the last straw. I had worked until 1-2 a.m. two nights last weekend and submitted a revision. She came back at me yesterday afternoon with a request for more revisions, so I worked after work for 7 solid hours to try to make her happy. I sent it out at 1:30 a.m. and I knew she would send it back yet again. I am a non-traditional student--meaning I'm older, work full time, and have a house to keep up. Additionally, I'm having some medical issues that I;m sure are brought on by the stress.

So I started to think what I would do when she sent her next rejection. I decided that I would not respond (I had responded unpleasantly late last night when she hit me with another request before I had finished the ones sent earlier in the day). I decided that I needed to take care of myself. The degree wasn't going to help me find a better job. I had finished 36 hours of Master's level coursework with a 3.78 gpa so I certainly wasn't "dumb", so why push myself to the breaking point.

Today when her email came, it was filled with snotty and condescending remarks about my academic ability. One professor signed off on my work so I knew it couldn't be that bad. I did not respond to her at all and never will.

I did send an email to the head of the department, my other professor, and the Graduate Studies coordinator and aired my dissatisfaction (and I copied them on her rather snotty email). In the email, though I did point out the difficulty with this one person, I otherwise gracefully bowed out of the program--just one week and two days shy of the day I was to publically present my paper.

I feel a big sense of relief at this point--like a prisoner set free. Yet I haven't talked to anyone about this and am fearful that I may fall victim to major depression again. It's been two years since I've suffered from it, but if anything could push me back into it, its this.

So here I am. I've blathered on too much, but I needed to get it off my chest.

I decided to respond to this particular posting because I know what a big deal it is to make it over the hurdle that you did. Plus it seemed to tie into my issue, though in a different direction. Still, the common thread is the difficulty with achieving academic goals when saddled with mental illness. The toll that academic pressure takes can be draining, whether the goal is reached or not.