I’m a 20 year old third year dental student and I have recently been thinking a lot about taking a gap year from college.

Ever since freshman year of high school, I’ve been studying hard day and night until I got accepted into the uni I’m in now. That’s great and all,but since the second semester of the first year my grades have been dropping slowly, and the the second year of uni my mental health took a toll and became even worse which led to my grades being even worse than my first year. I have tried many medications, been to different therapists, have my family’s support through all this, but nothing has gotten better. It’s getting worse everyday and my grades are getting affected. It has become debilitating, and that’s an understatement.

I also recently got diagnosed with bpd. I started taking mood stabilizers but they haven’t started working yet since this is my second week. I feel like my mind is always a mess and I can’t for the life of me focus on a single task. I thought about taking gap year for quite some time to focus on my mental health and to relax,but I don’t know if it’s the right choice for me since I have to be doing something for the rest of the year and not stay home doing absolutely nothing because that would make my mental health even worse. So what should I do?

(Btw in my country we can take a gap year at any point during the semesters at any year if it’s confusing)