I get this. I cannot overstate how much energy I put toward passing as whatever age I am. It's exhausting. And my attempts at passing fail so hard, so often.

Once again, Buffistas mention something that I had no idea was a thing, and I get to have a moment of, "Holy Crap, me too, it's not just me, yay!" You guys make me feel so much less crazy/weird.

Arrrrggggg. My latest school paper got kicked back by the teacher because the plagiarism algorithm says over 30% of my paper is questionable. I looked at the report and 3 of the items were for direct quotes that were cited correctly, another 3 were from my reference page - sorry I used the same references some other folks may have used. But the majority are "copied from papers submitted by others to CSU-Global". But looking at the items marked, almost my whole cover page is highlighted - the cover page contains very specific information and should be the same for everyone in the class other than our name. Also common words/phrases such as project management (PM) and project management office (PMO) were highlighted. There were a couple of phrases I could tweak to structure the sentence differently with different words, but that only brought my score down to 29%.

I resubmitted and wrote my professor a note citing each of the items on the report and what I was able to change without redoing my research and cutting out direct quotes. So far he has responded with "thank you for your diligence" but I don't have an updated grade yet.

I get that checking for plagiarism is important, but direct quotes and citations on the reference page shouldn't count. And phrases that are part of the major are GOING to be used by all of us.

I'm having an exceptionally high level of distress. If you go to the psych ER, do they admit you? Because I'm not willing to be admitted.

Steph, involuntary admission is a very high bar to clear - very generally, it will only happen if they believe you are going to hurt yourself or someone else - and it usually takes a history of trying to do one or more of those. Even then, to do so without filing an affidavit is really, really rare.

If you think you need help, I want you to get it.

I'm afraid it would create more problems than solutions.

Steph, can you call your therapist?

It is a terrible thing when thinking about getting the help you might need causes you more anxiety. I don't want you to have to go through that.

Have you rejected calling your own doctor? Can I see if I can contact bonny or some other Buffista to talk to you?

Maybe? I've never called her before, so I don't know if it's okay.

I will try her now, and it will be okay.

I'm on the phone with Tim.