Taking care of your health should never require justification, but some families make you feel like it does.

A college student with epilepsy whose symptoms are directly tied to her mental health collapsed during exam season after months of mounting stress, and her therapist told her she needed to rest.

But when she complied, her overbearing parents spent the entire month making her feel like a failure for doing it.

So when she went back to studying and started feeling the pressure build again, she lost all the progress she had been making towards a healthier life.

You’ll want to read on for this one.

AITA: WIBTAH for not studying enough for my college exams?

I (19F) have always been a good student. I’m currently in my second year of college.

I have had epilepsy ever since I was 11.

This hasn’t been easy on her in the slightest.

I’m better now — it’s been four to five years since my last seizure — however, I still suffer other symptoms that sometimes make me unable to walk, as well as causing me tics that can last hours.

Imagine seven to eight hours of tics on your legs, backbone, and neck non-stop, with full involuntary movements.

That has happened to me.

Her condition also impacts her mental health.

My type of epilepsy is linked to my mental health, meaning that whenever my mental health gets worse, my epilepsy gets worse.

Last month, during the second exam period, I suffered painful and strong symptoms.

I collapsed and had involuntary movements and tics in my neck for 10 hours and couldn’t even stand up because the tics made me dizzy.

I had been having trouble with epilepsy ever since 2026 started.

Then a therapist started putting words to her experience.

I had an online session with my therapist.

He said that my brain was in survival mode, and that the human body can only tolerate that state for maybe a few minutes.

My body lasted longer without collapsing because I’m still young, according to him.

He told me to take a break, and so I did.

But some other people in her inner circle didn’t think that was the right decision.

I decided to rest during May and focus on my studies in June.

My parents hated that choice because, even though they care about my health and desperately seek a cure for my symptoms, they care more about my results and success.

I was treated like a family disappointment from the first day of my break.

Her parents just wouldn’t give her a break.

They interrogated me, scolded me, threatened me, and attempted to guilt-trip and manipulate me.

My break in May worked — I didn’t have a single crisis of any type during that resting period.

It is now June and I really am trying to study, but I’m gradually feeling worse and worse.

Then her health started to take a turn too.

It’s really hard to study for the whole day, and I even had another crisis of tics, though it was smaller.

I feel mentally exhausted even though I didn’t study in May.

I’m having trouble with guilt, as well as depressive symptoms.

I really am trying to study, but sometimes I really can’t.

WIBTA for not studying enough for my college exams?

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Her parents need to lay off if they care about her health.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a mom who homeschooled during the day and worked at night, only to have her employer try to change her schedule.

What did Reddit think?

Considering her condition, maybe her college journey needs to look a little different.

Surely there’s something her school can do to accommodate her better.

When life gets difficult, sometimes you just have to move at your own pace.

No one should be considered in the wrong for listening to their doctor’s advice.

Collapsing during exams and then being treated like a disappointment for resting afterward is an injustice no sick person should be forced to face.

Her parents weren’t wrong to want her to succeed, but they also took things way too far, especially considering this student already had a condition that was sensitive to stress.

This student did everything right. She tried her best to fight through, but ultimately she listened to the experts when they told her she needed rest.

Rest isn’t optional — it’s a necessary part of recovery.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a teacher who learns a lesson of his own from his student’s essays about personal responsibility.