My parents want to come to my college graduation. I don't want to walk at graduation, since I've had a very bad time in college, and almost died. Everything's going to forever be screwed up because of the things I did here, and it's partly because I denied what was going on, and so did my parents.

1) is it wrong to not let them come? it is a lot of money, like 800$, to fly them out here.

2) Should I just talk to them instead of denying them this opportunity to see me graduate, even though it means virtually nothing, OR

3) Do I have a right to refuse to give into more of the crazy denial that caused all this, and in that sense have not walking be the right decision?

Thank you

Mallory (21F) from New York

Hi-

Not to “appeal your decision” or anything, but if you get a chance, here’s some extra information on the question I asked; just wondering if you’d think any differently. Thanks!

So, college – I really can’t think of a good thing that happened here. In comparison to what I know I would have done at another school, anyway. What I did here was so selfish and wrong – and it really had serious consequences. I’m about to leave and consider myself worse off in every respect – socially, academically, as a person – than I was upon leaving high school: in your terms, I was more ready to enter the world than I am now (and I consider myself an optimist!).

I know I was the one who did all of this.

But y’know, I was just 18 and 19 at the time that things started to go awry – I was acting obnoxious as hell, just completely crazy, but God, I SO craved adult advice. ANY intervention would have helped at that point to prevent some of the downward spirling that happened later.

I mean, when I returned home, I (eventually) realized that I had totally incapacitated myself - couldn't write, read properly, socialize, was practically incapable of carrying on a conversation...

(Yes, I do know that it is crazy that I let it get this bad. I can only say that I really did not see what I was doing.)

My parents didn’t see or understand all of this – and they didn’t see how it happened. That I know. But they did see a LOT of the results.

I just can’t understand, on some level, why they were ok with leaving me like that. I mean, I know - *I* “left” myself like that. They did try to support me. But the utter preventability of the situation is so frustrating.

I got through this with the aid of a professor at school. Without that chance interaction, it’s likely that I would be dead. I really wish I were being overdramatic on this point, and I find the evil selfishness of it all detestably repulsive, beyond belief. **But do my parents not realize how serious this all was??**

It makes me crazy that they suddenly want to “celebrate” this as if it’s been anything like a “normal” or even *marginally ok* college education. If I refuse to let them come here, it would just be me saying ‘Agh, you are CRAZY! *HOW* can you think about celebrating this??’ It’s in that sense that it feels like “celebrating” my own death or something equally morbid and loony.

Their silence – yes, compounded with my *own decisions and equal silence/denial* – almost killed me. ?? How can I celebrate that?? I acknowledge what I did, my part in this…is it crazy to get them to acknowledge theirs? I mean, my parents are great parents, but not in the face of this insanity, and, apparently, not in the face of any type of real crisis situation involving myself or my sibling.

I KNOW how insane and irresponsible my actions were. ***I don’t have any desire to get into a situation of blaming my parents for what I did.*** And if you think I am doing that, have no hesitation to let me know.*

But I was relatively young, I could *really* have used some help; for them to suddenly come visit me at this point, when I needed them so badly before, feels like a form of complete insanity. Without the active intervention from that one professor, I’d probably be drunk or dead.

Ok, thanks for reading this far. Some final notes -

1) Wouldn’t it be better for them to “celebrate” something real? Have an optimism based in reality rather than this weird and crazy denial?

2) The most fruitful thing I can currently do is look to the future – and I do try to do that, but everything is overshadowed and just deeply screwed over, by everything I did here. How can I suddenly “forget” things and move past this?

3) I completely change my mind about this every few days: so I’d appreciate knowing what you think, if you have the time. If you think I’m being selfish & evil, or still think the same as before, let me know. Thanks again!