I'm not strictly pre-med, but I'm currently following the basic science/pre-med curriculum, and am very interested in medicine as a field. I've had a very complicated few months, and I figure this board could offer useful advice.
Backstory:
I'm a prospective Neuroscience/Chinese major and just finished my freshman year. In January, a very close former friend of mine and I got into a drunken verbal fight at a friend's party that ended in him hitting me in the face with the blade of a shovel. We were both staying the night and were alone on the downstairs, so no one else was around. Basically, he and I were best friends in high school, I'm gay, he's closeted, and he came out to me one night. We hooked up on and off, but he was always insistent on his heterosexuality. I eventually got tired of mistressing, leading to this fight. We were arguing about something pointless, and that escalated to how we both felt betrayed by the other, and then led to petty name-calling. During the fight I took his ipod and refused to return it (I realize my culpability in everything that follows). He eventually left, but came back 5-10 minutes later while I was lying down and threatened to hit me with the shovel if i didn't return it. I *knew* he was bluffing, so I called him on it, but wound up getting my face slashed down the middle. There was a physical confrontation that ended in me, obviously, going to the ER. I was concussed, with two major lacerations on my eyebrow and through my lips.
I decided not to press charges, since he would have served years and wouldn't survive prison. I still feel like this was the right decision, but dealing with the aftermath of all this has been really, really hard and I don't know what to do anymore. I have panic attacks at random times, several times a day. I saw a therapist once, but I lost my insurance and my school's counselors suck, so now I can't see anyone. *I'm not suicidal*, but I'm think about dying constantly, and can't go for more than ten minutes without feeling crushing depression. I've been told I have PTSD, and I have horrible insomnia now, and socializing makes me incredibly anxious in a way I've never felt before. The seemingly weird thing is that these problems only appeared some time after the assault, and they seem to keep getting worse.
The problem you can help me with:
My grades. First semester, I had a 3.9. Second semester, I had a 3.3, with B's in bio and chem, which I need for my major. Obviously that's not too bad given the circumstances, but I also just finished my summer class, and I think I got an F. I'm signed up for a pretty intense schedule next semester, and I want to go on to a PhD and research language development. I know I still have it in me to succeed, but right now I can barely hold myself together, and I don't know if I'll be able to handle next semester. How do I make up for an F if I want to go to a top-ranked grad school? How does it look to take time off for mental health reasons? Basically, how can I minimize the damage this will do to my academic aspirations?
Backstory:
I'm a prospective Neuroscience/Chinese major and just finished my freshman year. In January, a very close former friend of mine and I got into a drunken verbal fight at a friend's party that ended in him hitting me in the face with the blade of a shovel. We were both staying the night and were alone on the downstairs, so no one else was around. Basically, he and I were best friends in high school, I'm gay, he's closeted, and he came out to me one night. We hooked up on and off, but he was always insistent on his heterosexuality. I eventually got tired of mistressing, leading to this fight. We were arguing about something pointless, and that escalated to how we both felt betrayed by the other, and then led to petty name-calling. During the fight I took his ipod and refused to return it (I realize my culpability in everything that follows). He eventually left, but came back 5-10 minutes later while I was lying down and threatened to hit me with the shovel if i didn't return it. I *knew* he was bluffing, so I called him on it, but wound up getting my face slashed down the middle. There was a physical confrontation that ended in me, obviously, going to the ER. I was concussed, with two major lacerations on my eyebrow and through my lips.
I decided not to press charges, since he would have served years and wouldn't survive prison. I still feel like this was the right decision, but dealing with the aftermath of all this has been really, really hard and I don't know what to do anymore. I have panic attacks at random times, several times a day. I saw a therapist once, but I lost my insurance and my school's counselors suck, so now I can't see anyone. *I'm not suicidal*, but I'm think about dying constantly, and can't go for more than ten minutes without feeling crushing depression. I've been told I have PTSD, and I have horrible insomnia now, and socializing makes me incredibly anxious in a way I've never felt before. The seemingly weird thing is that these problems only appeared some time after the assault, and they seem to keep getting worse.
The problem you can help me with:
My grades. First semester, I had a 3.9. Second semester, I had a 3.3, with B's in bio and chem, which I need for my major. Obviously that's not too bad given the circumstances, but I also just finished my summer class, and I think I got an F. I'm signed up for a pretty intense schedule next semester, and I want to go on to a PhD and research language development. I know I still have it in me to succeed, but right now I can barely hold myself together, and I don't know if I'll be able to handle next semester. How do I make up for an F if I want to go to a top-ranked grad school? How does it look to take time off for mental health reasons? Basically, how can I minimize the damage this will do to my academic aspirations?
