Tomorrow is my graduation. I will be graduating with a Bachelor's in Psychology tomorrow. Although there was excitement leading up to this moment, with perhaps some fear, that excitement has been reduced to near nonexistence, while the fear has been amplified by its absence. The fear isn't alone though, I'm also sad, more sad than I expected. I feel like failure. I don't think I should, you'd imagine I'd be feeling the opposite, but I feel like my graduation isn't enough of an accomplishment to warrant being proud of. I'm not graduating with honors, my GPA of 3.43 isn't nearly enough, and certainly won't be graduating with high or highest honors, of which would require a 3.7 or 3.995 respectively. More than that, its just a bachelor's degree. That was the bare minimum for me; everyone knew that I was gonna get a bachelor's. People expect me to be a doctor, or at least have a doctorate, when I haven't even been accepted into a master's program yet. How can a bachelor's be an accomplishment when its still over a decade away from finally meeting what teachers, professors, friends, and family expect from me. They think because I'm smart I need to show it with degrees and fancy jobs like 'Clinical Psychologists' or even the coveted 'neurologist', of which was expected of me when everyone wanted me to get a medical degree, rather than a PhD. The problem is, they never stopped to wonder if maybe I wasn't smart, and that I could barely get through my bachelor's education, let alone graduate. Maybe I'm not really all that smart? Maybe these expectations will never be met because I'll never be smarter than this? My IQ is a static, immovable variable of which will forever dictate my future, or so my brain tells me. Granted, I've never had an IQ test, I just assume it would be low, since everyone thinks they're smarter than they really are, and I think I'm an idiot, so I must be REALLY stupid (I know this is irrational thinking. Let me hate myself just a little bit, as a treat). At any rate, I don't feel very accomplished, I feel like a failure. My boyfriend is graduating magnum cum laude or whatever, basically 'high honors', because he has a 3.97 GPA or something like that. I can't help but compare myself to that, knowing that my GPA is pathetic in comparison, and likely my IQ is also comparatively pathetic. I've been using IQ as a stand in for intelligence, I probably shouldn't. Its not accurate, since IQ is a means by which intelligence might be assessed, but is not synonymous with intelligence. It would be like saying that a score on a test in school can be used as a direct, and clean stand-in for the totality of your knowledge in that subject. And more than that, an IQ score is only ever useful in relation to other IQ scores, and is meaningless on its own. This is incongruent with most views of intelligence as a factor innate to one's being, which couldn't be if it only existed insofar as it is compared to other people's intelligence. I'm getting side tracked, I just don't like being unclear about issues relating to psychology, since that can give people an incorrect impression about the current scientific consensus surrounding various psychological concepts, which is the last thing I want to do.
Back to the meat and potatoes of this diary entry: I feel like a failure. How fucked up is that? I'm about to graduate with a bachelor's degree, somehting only 35% of the population have done. 56% of people who start a college degree don't finish, so all told I should be proud, but I'm not. I just can't, it isn't enough. How can I be proud of something that is a minimum requirement for most jobs? Its like being proud of having a high school diploma 30 years ago. I have heard people describe the bachelor's degree as the new high school diploma or GED. I wasn't proud when I got a high school diploma, and I don't think I'll be proud now either. God, I don't think anything I've ever done makes me feel proud. I thought maybe I felt proud when I wrote a few books, but everyone in my position has written books, which prevented me from feeling anything but a continual dissatisfaction in myself. Jesus, I feel like Hamilton, 'I'll never be satisfied'. But it feels like I shouldn't be satisfied, like what have I even accomplished? I did the minimum, congrats!!!! Everyone sing my praises and think very highly of me, I did the minimum of what was expected of me!!!! But honestly, if I skipped ahead to like 15 years from now, and I just earned a PhD, I don't think I'd feel proud. I'd feel like I didn't earn it, like I had an easy degree, or it wasn't a real STEM degree, so it didn't count. I'd hear all those people who mocked Dr. Jill Biden about her only having an Ed. rather than an MD mocking me too. And even though I fought against them when they mocked a woman I have never and will never meet, I feel shitty trying to defend myself witht he same vigor, or even at all. I feel like I'll never meet my own expectations, even if I manage to meet the expectations of all my professors, teachers, friends, family, etc. Granted, some of those friends and family, and even some teachers told me I would be a famous writer someday, so unless I manage to get a camal to pass through the eye of a needle, my chances of meeting their expectations seem pretty slim. If I actually managed that, I might make some heads turn. I wouldn't feel any pride though, I'd still just be me, as stupid and boring as ever.
I watched a video the other day about faking mental illness because it was fetishized on tumblr, or something along those lines. The video had some problems, and I largely disagreed with much of it, but in watching it I wondered if I've been faking my mental illnesses this whole time. Maybe this is all just an attention stunt like it was for the OP? It makes me question my own feelings now, because I feel really sad and depressed, but maybe those feelings aren't really, and I'm just making it all up for attention? Maybe I'm so good at faking that I can't even tell its faking anymore. Would it even be faking at that point, or would the original lies had been told for so many years, they became true? I don't know, I just feel like a faker. Like my sadness is just some attempt at attention just like OP admitted hers was. When I attempted suicide, did I really want to die, or was I just trying to get attention? Did I really want the pain to stop, or did I want someone to notice that I was "in pain"? Oh, I should probably mention that I've attempted suicide before, that's a pretty important part of this whole experience of understanding my life and past. It was well over a year ago though, so I'm fine. I don't know, I just feel like I'm a failure, and me feeling like failure is just an elaborate scheme to seem cool or deep. But I'm not cool or deep, I'm just another random idiot on this burning rock flying through space around a blackhole so massive its size is nearly incomprehensible, contained within a universe that is impossibly bigger than the impossibly big blackhole. I'm nothing and no one, and I feel like a failure because I'm not somebody like everyone wanted me to be.
At any rate, I hope that whoever is reading this, whereever you are, or whenever you are, you're happy. And if you're not, I hope you can be soon. I love you, whoever you are, and I'm sorry it hurts.
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