I don't even know where to start with this. I've been carrying this secret for over a year and my girlfriend is the only person who knows the truth. Writing it out here is honestly the first time I've actually said it out loud in any form.
My whole family has a legacy at one specific university. Every single one of my siblings graduated from the same school. It was never directly said to me but it was always understood, that's where you go. That's the family school. Watching each of them go there and succeed turned it into this pressure in my head where going anywhere else meant I didn't make it. I'd be the outlier.
I started at a local community college first, my parents knew that, and the plan was always to transfer to the family school after. I applied, went through the whole process, and got denied. Instead of just telling them that, I panicked and told them I got in. I told them I was transferring there.
Not only did I lie about the school, I also told them I was studying data science with economics when really I'm just studying economics. Despite all of that I'm still getting a real degree at a real university and I'll be done in 3 semesters, this summer, fall, then spring. My career plans are real, my degree is real. The only thing that wasn't real were the details I gave them.
But that one moment of panic has snowballed for over a year now. Every phone call, every holiday, every casual "how's school going" has just added another layer to it. I became the outlier anyway, I just did it secretly.
I know this was selfish. I know I never should have let it go this far and there's no real excuse for it. But what drove me to do it and what still scares me isn't really about me, it's about the look on my parents faces when they find out. And my siblings too, everyone who went to that school and made the family proud. I don't want to be the one who embarrassed everyone. That fear started this whole thing and it's what still paralyzes me.
My parents are the disappointed but supportive type, they're not going to cut me off or anything. But honestly that almost makes the guilt worse because I know the thing that's going to hurt them most isn't the school, it's that I didn't trust them enough to just be honest with them.
I'm giving myself a deadline. Before June it comes out. I'm planning to tell my sister first since we're really close and she's always been easy to talk to about hard stuff. Then my parents.
I just needed to get this out somewhere before I do it. Has anyone been through something like this? How did it go?