3 Signs You Should Defer Your Studies for Your Mental Health

Every school is different, make sure you check what requirements are put in place at your school, college or university for taking a leave of absence. This is more of a guide for figuring out what the best decision is for yourself and your own mental health recovery process.

1.       Your Illness Is Starting To Interfere With Your Attendance   

      Depression often stops you from getting out of bed. Agoraphobia often stops you leaving the house. Social anxiety can make going to class unbearable. You’re going to school to try and improve your mind, if it is negatively effecting your mind, it makes sense to take some time out and return when you are better equipped. If you’re at university, you’re paying thousands of pounds (or dollars etc.) to be there, so if your mental illness is preventing you from attending it is totally OK to defer your studies until you are mentally well enough to get the most out of the education you are paying for.

    2.       If Your Results Don’t Reflect Your Ability

As I’ve said before, you are studying to learn and to get qualifications, if your mental health is preventing you from doing these to your best ability then you should definitely look into deferring your studies if you think that is what you need. If you were too physically unwell to study to your best ability you would recognise that it is more advantageous and logical to take the time that you need to recover and return when your health has sufficiently improvement. You don’t try to run a marathon on a broken leg so don’t try to do exams, assignments or research when you’re not mentally well enough to do them as well as you otherwise could. You deserve as much as a chance as your peers who don’t struggle with their mental health and if you have to defer your studies to achieve this, that is completely understandable. 

     3.       If You Are Worried For Your Safety

      If you feel suicidal, if you are engaging in any self-harming behaviours or if you think you may engage in such behaviours please seek help as soon as you can and definitely consider deferring your studies to get help more consistently. It’s important to put your safety first. What good are qualifications if you’re too sick to use them? You can’t use a degree if you’re dead.

Your mental health is worth more than a piece of paper. It’s worth more than any degree, job or career. Everything we do, we do to try and achieve a state of happiness or contentment. We work hard to get jobs that we think will give us enough success or money to make us happy. There is no point in sacrificing your mental health and happiness for the things we think will make us happy. There is no point in compromising the end goal for the means.

“Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go, they merely determine where you start.”
-Nido Qubein

“I can’t change the direction of the wind but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”
-Jimmy Dean

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