Thank you guys for this post, it has been extremely enlightening and insightful. I flunked out of university multiple times and been struggling to get back. You do want to take your time to figure out if you really want to go back to it and ready for it.

Here's my personal experience about it.

I started university at McMasters in 2008, I flunked it within a week, it was my first time living alone outside of my parents and I had extreme hard time adjusting and made no social contact with people. I withdrew from McMasters at the end of school year and had major depression. The following year I reflected upon myself, went to therapist but was overall skeptical. I figured that mentally fine (Also my family being traditional Chinese we don't believe in mental illness and depression) and everything was caused by my own laziness. so I decide to go back to university in 2010 and enrolled in UTSC.

I started my 2010 full of energy and hope, I tried to make interaction with people, but I made the mistake of overloading myself with too much things. I keep telling myself that I can manage it and that I need to pull myself together, but it was overall too stressful and by 2012 I entered academic probation again.

I reduced my course load but that has given me a lot of stress, compounded by the fact I did not tell anyone that I messed up and has being hiding with layers of lies. The stress got the better of me and soon I was living in a life of recluse and got suspended for four month at the 2nd half of semester.

I became suicidal depressed, but I also needed to keep the lie up. So I enrolled in classes again in 2013. I went to see therapist and was diagnosed with social anxiety. I went to therapy sessions while attending classes, there was small improvements but when it started group therapy I avoided going to therapy and everything relapsed again, by the end of the year and didn't enroll again. My remaining mental health just keep going spiraling down the drain along with my physical health.

As of now I'm just picking up pieces of life together and trying to become both physically and mentally healthy first.