I never thought I'd be the kind of person to cheat, but here I am, sitting on an A that I absolutely don't deserve. I'm a junior at UCLA, majoring in English Literature, and I've always prided myself on my writing skills. But this semester, everything fell apart.

Between working part-time, dealing with family issues, and a nasty bout of depression, I found myself completely unprepared for my American Literature final paper. The night before it was due, I panicked. In a moment of desperation, I found an obscure thesis online about Faulkner's use of stream of consciousness and basically rewrote it, paraphrasing heavily but keeping the core ideas.

I submitted it, feeling sick to my stomach. I was sure I'd get caught. But then, a week later, I got my grade back: A. The professor even left a comment about how insightful and original my analysis was.

I should be relieved, but instead, I feel worse than ever. I'm a fraud. I don't deserve to be in this program. Every time I see my professor, I want to confess, but I'm terrified of the consequences. What if I get expelled? What if this ruins my entire academic career?

Part of me thinks I should just be grateful and move on. It's just one paper, right? But another part feels like this is a turning point. If I let this slide, what's next? Am I going to become the kind of person who always takes the easy way out?

I love literature. I love analyzing texts and discovering new meanings. But now, every time I sit down to write, I feel like an imposter. I don't know how to move forward from this. I don't know if I can ever trust my own ideas again.

I know what I did was wrong, and I'm not looking for sympathy. I guess I just needed to get this off my chest because the guilt is eating me alive. Has anyone else ever been in a similar situation? How do you come back from something like this?

TL;DR: Plagiarized my final paper for my literature class, got an A, and now I'm consumed with guilt and feeling like a fraud in my chosen field of study.