MBers at all grade levels have been talking about this lately, so we’re giving the topic its own thread.
Triggered by a comment from Vendaval:
I’m a college freshman struggling with emotional and social issues. It’s problematic, to say the least, but it sounds like I’m not really actually outside of normal. A very popular article recently in the New York Times (“Mental Health Needs Seen Growing at Colleges”) examined the growing need for mental health care on college campuses. They attribute the need to a rising student population and students entering college who in the past would have been precluded due to their problems. But that’s not the whole story. There’s an article on Slate called “It’s Not the Job Market”, which tries to discover American college students’ sources of stress. Drawing on the NYT article and common assumptions (that it is the job market), as well as a recently published study from UCLA, the author makes a convincing case that young people today are simply under an enormous amount of stress because we’ve got too little community, too much information, and no way to deal with our negative emotions. I have to agree. I guess it’s just trying to convince myself that I’m not and won’t be a failure, even if I do in fact fail, but isn’t this ridiculous news? Let me quote the article: “As psychologist Robert Leahy points out: ‘The average high school kid today has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the early 1950s.” I don’t know if there’s a quantifiable way to measure anxiety, but whaaat?
Drawing on more personal experience, I have friends who have already decided that they’ll be going to grad school because they don’t know what they want to do and are convinced that there are no jobs in their majors. I also have very little perspective, but it sounds like this wasn’t common way back in history, like, 50 years ago.
Thoughts?
First post?
I get my report card tomorrow. New semesters are always both stressful and relieving, because I get my report card, and that’s at least a little nerve racking, but I get a chance to start my grades over for the new quarter. And none of my teachers give tests at the very beginning of a new semester, that’s when we start new units.
Second post? I agree that life is WAY too stressful. I recently was searching for 2 papers I knew I didn’t have, and loathed the idea of doing it again, and I know that I wouldn’t have been able to sleep tonight thinking about it if I had not found them crumpled at the bottom of my bag (I am not the most organized of people.)
I’m a freshman in high school and today I had to go on careercruising dot com, take a stupid survey for the fifth time ( “A job that involves handling technology and directing people using technology: Strongly dislike, dislike, does not matter, like, like very much†) about what I like to do. Then I had to create a “career plan†and I’m supposed to be meeting with my guidance counselor later this week or next week about my career plan. I found it immensely frustrating. Thirty-seven questions about what I like to do that I can barely answer, and when I finish answering them, a list of jobs that I’m supposed to research and think about pursuing based on a list of stupid questions. I don’t know what I want to be and I’m going to have to do this every year of high school. What if I change my mind? Why do I have to do this at fourteen years old? Don’t I have awhile to decide? It is definitely a lot of pressure. In sixth grade we toured a college. In ninth grade we did it again. Even my friends ask me what college I want to go to. Today I felt as if I was going to get stuck in an office job in a big corporation because I don’t know what I want to be. I just hate the assumption that we’re supposed to decide NOW and that what we decide now is going to impact the rest of our lives.
I have a friend (actually, I don’t think I can really call him a friend, we’ve never actually met, and he’s sort of a friend of a friend, but also a friend of a friend that moved away in second gra- oh, never mind. It’s a long story.) who’s writing a book on what is wrong with the education system. One of his major issues are the AP exams and courses. I actually don’t know much else about what he thinks, because I don’t actually know him, I’m just getting this through talking to him on social networking site.
ANYWAY
Let’s talk about me. My math grade is 84 because I honestly just gave up. I really screwed myself over. It’s my fault. Okay, and my math teacher’s fault, too. She’s horrible at teaching.
My bad grades in other classes are not from lack of trying, though, they’re from not having time to study. I did rather well on most of my midterms, in the eighties on some, but comparing them to other people’s grades, I did very well.
The thing that’s really eating away at me though is AP physics. I don’t know whether or not to take it.
Pros/reasons to take it:
-Seniors say it’s worth it, and they wouldn’t have enjoyed honors.
-Having another AP class for colleges to look at
-Living up to my expectations for myself.
-I’m really competitive grade-wise, so taking it is going to, I don’t know, make me feel better about myself? I feel that if I don’t take it, I’m going to dumb myself down. I don’t know.
Cons:
-I sort of have this… Expectation attached with my last name. Everyone expects me to do everything amazingly because I’m a (last name). I feel that if I don’t take it, I’m not only not living up to other’s expectations, I’m not living up to mine.
-Not having any free time
-Juniors say not to take it.
-Some people say that you only need to take it if you’re going to major in engineering.
So. That didn’t help me at all. >.< Why can't I just sit home and listen to music all day?
3- Don’t pay any attention to those career test thingies. They’re generally worthless and self-contradictory. People much, much older than you are still deciding what they want to do when they grow up.
Stress? Right now I’m pretty comfortable with where I am and where I’m going. Maybe it’s apathy. Maybe I just don’t worry about things like most people do. But this general attitude has served me well. I’m in the top–something like 1.8 percent of my [rather large] class with about a 4.0 GPA (a tad higher or lower depending on weighted/unweighted). On a smaller scale, all my works gets done one way or another. I don’t really worry about it, and it all turns out fine. To anyone worried about school or anything else, I’d recommend taking a page from Taoist philosophy. Basically, just go with the flow. Or, to quote a Persian proverb, “This too shall pass.” In the long run, grades don’t matter as much as they may seem. Don’t neglect your studies, but don’t neglect your health either–physical, emotional, and psychological. You’re young. You’re supposed to enjoy yourself. “Youth is wasted on the young”, as they say–now more than ever. You’ll have the rest of your life to be an adult. Don’t start just yet.
If I can quote another thing from else-internet:
“Look at you. You’re young. And you’re scared. Why are you so scared? Stop being paralyzed. Stop swallowing your words. Stop caring what other people think. Wear what you want. Say what you want. Listen to the music you want to listen to. Play it loud as [cake] and dance to it. Go out for a drive at midnight and forget you have school the next day. Stop waiting for Friday. Live now. Do it now. Take risks. Tell secrets. This life is yours. When are you going to realise that you can do whatever you want?”
*worships*
Oh wise one…
I just love you, Piggy. You made me feel so much better.
No worries.
I overslept this morning and was in a colossal hurry getting out the door. Totally worth it. I was so much more awake in the morning than I usually am.
3- Don’t worry about it! When I was 14, I wanted to be a journalist or a graphic designer, now I’m 18 and want to be a physics professor. I might not want to be that in 4 years, and that’s fine.
People change their minds all the time. Most people don’t finish college studying the subject they started in.
4- If you think you can handle the work, go for it. I’m in some AP classes and they are totally worth it to me, but I know a lot of people who declined to take them because they didn’t want the added stress. And the last name thing, well, I have a friend who has 2 older sisters. They were both valedictorians and never even got a B on an interim. My friend got her first B last week. It won’t affect her valedictorian status, but because of her sisters she feels like she has to be perfect. I think she doesn’t realize that her sisters felt just as stressed as she does.
5- I totally agree with you. I’m a senior in HS now, and this is my first year in HS getting a 4.0.
I think that my grades are better this year because I don’t worry about them as much. It sounds weird, but around the end of last year I finally learned to stop wasting time worrying and start using time to do stuff.
That’s my advice to people. Worrying does nothing to improve your situation.
When you figure out how to put that into effect, it just clicks, and you wonder why you wasted so much time.
I hardly ever procrastinate anymore. If I’m sitting around my house and my homework crosses my mind, I’ll get up and do it. If I forget to bring my book home or forget to do the homework, I try to do it in the morning or the next day. (yes, even if I can’t finish before it is collected).
I guess this year I’ve really thought about school as a place that supplements my education, not just a place that gives me work and deadlines. I do all of my calculus work so that I will be good at calculus, and the good grades are just a bonus. I do my Spanish work and write notes to my friends in Spanish and listen to the BBC in spanish because I want to be able to speak Spanish.
When I have a class I don’t like, I do the work right away so I can get rid of it faster and have more time for stuff I like.
I’ve been in a pretty bad mental state lately – I guess since mid-last-semester really but lately it’s starting to scare me a bit. I just feel like I have no time all the time and I’ve got too much to do and I’m just not good enough. I try and I try and I still screw things up and I’m still not as good as I could be and I don’t know how to get better.
And I keep telling myself I’m going to stop paying so much attention to academics. This is my third semester, and I have enough credits that I’m technically a senior and a 4.0. And I tell myself it doesn’t matter if I don’t do this or that or if I skip a class and that I should go have fun, and then every night finds me in my room frantically trying to catch up, keep up, study, get everything done, live up to expectations. I’m tired of it and I want to stop but I can’t.
It’s not important. Five years from now I won’t care about my grades. But I’ll still be living with my playing, and maybe it won’t be good enough. And it doesn’t matter even if I were to stop doing all schoolwork and practice because so many people are always going to be better than me. I try so hard and other people work hard also but why do they get everything?
And of course I feel like I have no really close friends and I spend too much time online trying to compensate which doesn’t help with the forming friendships. And I haven’t been in a relationship in several years and whenever it seems like a relationship might be starting I lose interest in the other person. And random hookups make me feel cheap.
And I keep not being able to sleep. I’m really tired of that.
3 – when we did that, mine told me I should be a bus driver or a ship’s captain. I get carsick really really easily. Tell your guidance counselor that you want to be a professional hobo.
We’re doing practice cover letters, resumes, and interviews in English class next month, and I’ve already told my teacher that I’m going to be “applying” to be an underwater astrophysicist or the manager at McDonald’s. Professional hobo would be a good next choice, though. I don’t even like pretending that I know what I’m going to do when I grow up.
I wrote down “storyteller”.
A friend of mine does that. She used to be an engineer.
You mean she’s a storyteller, or she writes down ‘storyteller’ on career finding quizzes and the like?
Sorry! My friend tells stories for a living. (“MuseBlog: Where No Ambiguity Goes Unremarked.”)
I read somewhere that for some people it is stress relieving to think of their future lives if their current plans don’t work. It actually does help me.
If I go to college, and suddenly we don’t have enough money and I have to drop out or I just decide that I hate it and want to get a job, what will I do? I’ll get a job, save some money, get an apartment, and have a normal life. I might not like my job, but it’s ok because I can always look for a new one. Or maybe instead of having a really high-level job that takes up all my time I’ll have a kind of lame but normal job and all my time off will be my time and I won’t have to work from home or anything.
I could just move every few years and live in different places all over, but if I was a professor I would be stuck in the same university for years and years.
So, I still really want to do my college stuff, and I’m still going to work really hard, but I understand that if my life doesn’t run on schedule it doesn’t mean that I’m a failure or that I’ll be miserable. Think about it…if your plans don’t work out, what’s the worst that could happen?
Ohhh god. This.
High school I was very much a stressed person. I took on a lot of stuff, and then took on more. By my sophomore year I was on tennis, a varsity hockey team, a very intense travel club hockey team, tech crew, drama club, National Honor Society, photo club, band/extra flute lessons, and all honors classes. Junior/senior year I traded honors for AP’s and added GSA and a few other clubs. And probably more that I’ve forgotten.
My schedule on weekdays was wake up at 6, school by 7:10, stayed there till 5pm (as soon as tennis season ended, tech crew started, so I never went home before then), was at home for less than an hour and a half before I had to leave for hockey practice, was at the rink doing off-ice training and then on-ice practice until 10pm, and would get home at 11. Then I’d have to start my homework, shower, and get at most 6 hours of sleep (usually less) before the next day.
Weekends without hockey games was hockey practice saturday day (was able to sleep in till 11am to catch up on what I missed in the week), sunday morning i had practice, and then a second practice sunday night for the other team. Homework happened in the leftover time. Weekends with games I’d spend about 5 hours extra at various rinks. Weekends with tournaments (about 5 a year) I would skip school friday, drive/fly out to Michigan/Minnesota/Connecticut/New York/Canada and spend all my time either in transit to rinks, at them warming up, actually playing, or crashing at the hotel/shoveling down food. Homework happened late sunday night when I got back home. Plus there were tennis meets and musicals and plays with hell weeks and papers and all sorts of crap that would just pile up.
It wasn’t good for me. I wasn’t very good at dealing with everything emotionally. I was overwhelmed a lot of the time, but instead of working to make it better or dropping some commitments, I would keep pushing myself until I sort of broke down and would have to just sit in my room for a few hours doing nothing until I was calm enough to start working again.
It was bad times for me. I cried a lot. School was stressful, and for various reasons (not big ones, but little ones that piled up) home was as well. “Breaks” didn’t really let me unwind, usually they just stressed me out more, honestly. By the end of my sophomore year I was very apathetic about everything–I couldn’t afford to care about school and stuff, because I was already teetering on the edge of being too overwhelmed more than half the time. It’s something that still happens, which can be a problem–I realize the day something is due that I haven’t done it, and i just sort of shut down and never do it, and push it’s existence out of my mind instead of dealing with it (like turning it in for a lowered grade rather than none at all). I had a brief conversation with my psychology teacher once (when our class was learning about personality types) about how I’m one of those people that feels things (emotionally) very intensely.
This was sort of tied in with things that shouldn’t matter at all do. When I’m stressing, I like [some/certain] things near me to be arranged in certain ways. When studying, books piled in decreasing hight order, all centered on the book below, pencils and pens lined up parallel to each other but at a specific angle to other things, if there are other things on the desk they have to balance out depending on their placement. If one gets nudged/moved I have to fix it before I can go back to working. When I’m walking, I also like/walk in ways to ensure that each foot gets the same/close to the same number of steps in shadow versus light, or on cracks (especially difficult because I need to step on the in the same place on each foot for it to feel “right”, and it’s harder than you’d think), or in rectangles in a walkway.
On the darker side of things like this, I also sometimes end up doing things that probably aren’t the best for me (hitting hand on counter at a steady rate while working/reading–not really hard, but sometimes bruising), and I go through phases where I get repeating mental images of unpleasant things happening to me or doing them (usually graphic(violence/plain-wise) or self-harm type. Nothing I would ever consider doing to myself, but images of it). And other stuff.
I also form emotional attachments to inanimate objects very easily, and then get frustrated/depressed/guilty if they get lost or something happens to them. When I was little I used to feel bad wen I would walk and my feet would kick rocks around, because I was moving them from where they had been to somewhere new. It’s not as bad now, but still present.
As I’ve said before though, I’m doing a lot better now. I don’t have as much on my plate and am trying not to over-commit myself (although I still do more than the average person it seems). I’ve also made a lot of awesome friends/am in a place that is a lot more accepting of me, and as a result, have become more social.
On the downside this means that my social anxiety comes out a lot more than it did in high school when I just never did anything involving people. I’ve mentioned it on the blog before I think. But I am also working on that.
I also have a panic closet I can sit in when I’m feeling overwhelmed. I actually don’t use it all that often, but it’s good to be able to think “I will go sit in the panic closet later and everything will be okay” during bad days when I feel like I’m going to crack and stuff.
That’s all I have to say for now I think. May add more later. Part of my new year’s resolution was to deal with these sort of issues, and not just keep them all to myself (parts of this post include things I don’t tell people generally/some parts I’ve only told one or two people ever) like I usually do. We’ll see.
Well, stress and anxiety are not my best friends right now. Actually they’d be about my worst enemies.
I told my mom that my panic attacks are getting worse and she thought I was overstating something. Hello? Unshakeable feelings of fear, hyperventilation, uncontrollable crying and self-mutilation? On a 3-7 times a week scale for up to an hour each? Since november with the mutilation coming in the beginning of december? I don’t think I’m overstating anything. But I couldn’t tell her any of that because I was eating dinner, my sister was there, and it wasn’t like she would have listened. She assumes I don’t know what a panic attack is. I think she’s not listening because she’s a psychiatrist and it would be partially unthinkable and partially really embarrassing for her not to notice psychiatric issues in her own house. She said I need to work on control breathing, yoga, and possibly biofeedback. I probably need therapy. She wouldn’t even let me get chocolate, which is one of two things that help me calm down. The other is a person and therefore not as easily accessible as chocolate.
I’m sorry. This is more of a rant than I intended…..point: if someone tells you they’re panicking, believe them. It’s amazing what people can’t or don’t see. I’ve had full-blown panic attacks in rooms full of people where it was 10 minutes before anyone asked if I was alright.
You are getting a hug. Now.
I think she does notice. She’s probably just hoping you are overreacting, that there really isn’t a problem. I can understand that. But you really need help, and I don’t know how much your friends can do.
*hug*
First off, to put this in the right tone: *hugs*
I can second what shadowfire is saying. I have a friend who’s in a similar position- she has PTSD and regular panic attacks. For an incredibly long time, her mother was convinced that nothing needed to change.
You can’t assume your mother wouldn’t listen to you. You need to explain to her whats going on with you, and I do recommend looking into therapy. (The first step into that is notifying parents about what’s going on and why you need it).
I’ve never had a panic attack, but I understand what a terrible thing it is to have one-my heart goes out to you! Good luck out there! *more hug*
That is ridiculous. If someone is panicking, they are panicking, and they need help whether or not you are a psychiatrist. Does your mom do the angsty teenager/hormones/overreacting child thing even when you actually do have a problem too?
Here, then, are my suggestions- I have a similar problem, and although I understand that they will not stop or control your panic attacks, it might help.
Keep a stash of chocolate, Kool-Aid (in my case) and Calvin and Hobbes in your room. Use the Huge Amounts of Homework After-Dinner Escape route. Call your girlfriend as soon as possible and tell her what’s going on (I assume it was she you were referring to). And, because I am cautious, and because I come from a family of doctors, wash your cuts with warm water.
You’ve probable already thought of these, but just in case.
Try the control breathing, yoga, and biofeedback, and if it doesn’t work, go to your mom and ask her for some alone time when you both have nothing to do, and tell her that you tried what she said to do and it’s not working.
What a coincidence! First we were talking about this in Social Psychology, then my normally ridiculously cheerful friend actually admitted she’d been feeling overwhelmed lately, then we had a really long discussion in English over whether or not the Honors English class is a good idea or if our school is just overachieving…
Actually, I wrote a slam poem about how I’ve been feeling lately. I think I’ll post it. *goes to fetch homework calendar* What, where else would I write it? It’s not like I actually use that thing for anything but poetry and practicing my sketching…
Okay, the line breaks suck since I wrote it in one big paragraph originally, but here goes:
Part of the two-track system,
becoming a piston in the machine of squeaky clean
when everything you are depends on the A you get today or tomorrow you’ll pay with tears
but this way we are flayed with fears,
and you must ask yourself who would I rather be? me? or the one preferred by the U of C?
and I don’t understand when did learning turn into the burning pits of hell so I ask my counselor, well
all she does is smile and lie and say you’ll fly if you try don’t know why you still sigh what’s with those red eyes?
what’s wrong that you won’t state that you appreciate the late nights
and why shouldn’t your future depend on whether number 34 was wrong or right?
for to weep in your sleep is the way things ought to be, can’t you see,
the strife and the knife of stress is giving you an F in Honors Life
but why should you care? to care is unfair, for you have opportunities and possiblilities
that other children don’t retain so if you remain unconvinced of the way we say
if a B isn’t your fear get out of here
if you don’t want to overachieve just leave
if you hate the stress want less want us not to press for an A that looks nice no matter the price
if you don’t want to try til you die if you don’t think the idea working too hard is right is true, well,
then obviously
something must be wrong with you.
I get very stressed and when I am stressed I cry.
Unfortunately I want to be a stage manager, so I’m trying to learn to handle stress without tears.
When I am stressed I sing, and sound terrible through my tears, and cry more.
…
Ugh. I have so much to do. I have four tests, a math worksheet, two essays, and the spelling bee tomorrow. I won the spelling bee last year and if I don’t win this year I’ll be terribly humiliated. I’m writing a play to enter in a contest (the deadline is quickly approaching), I have to have three songs and two monologues down pat by Monday, I need to create an original video for Tech class by Monday, and I’ve got ballet. My parents are forcing me to go to sleep at 10:00, and there’s a dance tomorrow night.
…
Oh, did I mention my show’s going on soon?
Uncertainty stresses me out. A lot. Unfortunately, there’s a rather lot of it in my life right now.
But chocolate works.
Stress? Yes!
Anxiety? Yes!
Fear of Failure? Yes!
This is my thread along with rants and plaints.
We knew you’d feel at home here.
Stress, Anxiety, Fear of Failure… Yep.
Clare- I’m sorry about your panic attacks! I hope they get better soon.
I’m an extremely introverted person, and sometimes when I’m in a large group of people (say, dance class) I will start to have a panic attack and shut everything out by drawing my consciousness entirely into my mind and blocking everything else out. I think it’s scaring some of my classmates… Whatever. They think I’m insane in the first place, which is part of the cause of my current anxiety. >_<
Try talking to one or two of them and then they’ll see that you’re not totally crazy.
I’ve thought about what I’d like to write here for a few days…there’s so many different things to say, and it’s hard (for me) to find someone to say that isn’t maybe just me projecting or overconnecting just based on my own situation and so on.
If you want to look at this with respect to the school/schooling angle, I’ve said a lot about that and there is much more to be said. At least in California there is a lot of talk about and stress put upon the need to raise test scores. I think this is fundamentally missing the point; any student can tell you the ways we are taught to game these tests, how you end up guessing in boredom or apathy. Do my SAT scores reflect anything about me? I heard students in my AP classes openly talking about cheating on the SAT, and out bluntly the scores reflect income more than any notion of intelligence or comprehension. Prep classes, in my mind, invalidate the test’s legitimacy and purpose.
I think on the whole school is not structured the right way, but then maybe that’s just naivety speaking.
On the overall subject of a larger anxiety in our generation, however you choose to define that, I would generally agree with that. Too much information and lack of community sounds right to me. I don’t think it’s just the school aspect but I think it plays a large part.
I want to give advice the high school aged people posting here; I want to say don’t worry, don’t think that it matters–it doesn’t. But then I don’t know if that’s the attitude you should have too. I wonder if I was wrong to be so flippant. But the most I can say is: don’t buy into it. Don’t accept the idea that your class choice will significantly alter your job opportunities, or that college is something you need to be certain about at 16. That’s too much to ask of anyone.
stress, anxiety, fear of getting teleported back to the 1960s by giant stone angels. should never have watched blink that late at night.
Oof. Basically just had a nervous breakdown an hour ago while discussing courses for next year with my mom.
Mom: Well, obviously this is all dependent on whether you take Spanish next year.
Me: My Spanish teacher is incompetent, I hate the subject, none of my friends take it, it bores me to no end, and I’m not particularly good at it. However, I should probably take it so that it will look good on my college applications.
Mom: That’s right, honey! What a good daughter you are! Of course, you did get a B+ this year and not an A like your father and I expected.
Me: *tight voice* That’s right.
Mom: It looks like it was the single D on that one test and those assignments you missed that week just ruined your grade for that semester.
Me: … That’s right.
Mom: You know, honey, your father and I were so surprised at that grade. We know you’re such a clever student. We were just expecting you to perform much better. We know you have the ability to get an A in that class if you’re doing well enough. The B+ clearly means you aren’t working hard enough, or you aren’t a good enough student, or you didn’t deal with your teacher’s extreme incompetence well enough, or you aren’t smart enough.
Me: …I know.
Mom: And did I mention you got a B+, which is extremely uncommon for you? And now you don’t have a perfect 4.0 for every year of high school, which is definitely going to limit your college options. And we weren’t expecting this B+ at all, and clearly you are not as intelligent as we thought you were. This is below our standards of what you can do. If you had tried harder, you could have gotten an A, which would have made your college options wider, but now that chance is past and you can never, ever, ever fix it.
Me: *breaks down in sobbing*
Mom: Why are you crying? What, what’s wrong?
I didn’t stop for a good hour. Even just writing this is bringing tears to my eyes.
I hate being smart. I hate it so, so much.
*hugs hugs hugs* I’m so sorry that she said that. *more hugs* Please don’t hate being smart, though – it’s the extreme expectations and pressure that’s the problem, not YOU. YOU are wonderful and YOU are smart, and it’s not your fault if the teacher’s incompetent. You shouldn’t be expected to teach yourself Spanish as a sophomore in high school, anyways.
*hugs* Just remember that there are lots of other things that colleges look for other than straight As. Your future isn’t destroyed just because you got one B+.
*hugs and choklit* My parents have done that too. No parents seem to realize that disinterest and bad teaching are both entirely valid reasons to “underperform”. If I could take classes that truly interested me, I’d have a 100 percent in everything. Thus, if your parents compare judge ability solely by an imagined level of intelligence, they’re going to be perpetually disappointed and try to bring you down with them. You have to learn to ignore them. Yes, ignore your parents. They’re human, and they can be (and often are) wrong. Who cares if they’re disappointed? That’s their own problem. All that matters is that you’re fine with your performance. If you live to please someone else, you’ll never please yourself. They’re just doing what they think is right for you, but in many cases you know much better than they do what actually is right for you. A B+ will not affect your college options in any way whatsoever. I know people that only got one or two A’s a year that have gone onto Harvard and MIT.
What everyone–here on MuseBlog, in the educational system, in the realm of parenting, everywhere–has to realize is that grades simply don’t matter that much. Einstein famously flunked algebra because he disagreed with the teacher. A lot of worthless people do very well in school, and a lot of incredibly intelligent people do horribly; though most people are a mixture of the two aspects. Grades don’t reflect intelligence, talent, interest, ability, anything. They’re empty numbers that describe themselves and nothing else. Don’t worry. Everything’s going to turn out all right. Life’s an adventure–go out and live it.
Piggy, you are on a roll with the amazing inspirational advice posts.
I agree. Thanks for being there, Piggy. (:
There’s been a lot of need for them lately, and I’ve responded in turn.
Although none of have been in reply to any posts of mine, they’ve addressed sone things I’ve been thinking about but not mentioning on the blog, and they’ve made my days better. So, thank you, Piggy. You’re great.
Piggy, you are fantastic.
I know it.
((On a tenuously related mini-rant, I find it troublesome when someone pies a response to one of my comments. It makes it look as though I liked it (as would be logical) when it was actually someone else. Hurm.))
I’m so sorry, Cat’s Eye. Honestly, I don’t think one B+ will matter. I mean, how much can it really affect your GPA?
I’m sorry, Cat’s Eye. I know what it’s like when parents do that. They don’t always seem to realize that we (speaking for high-achieving smart kids) beat ourselves up about these things already and that hearing some of our own (overly negative) reasoning and additional disappointment and surprise parrotted back at us will only magnify and seemingly validate things we’ve already been thinking.
As others have said, though, it’s important to remember that that line of reasoning is often wrong and blows things out of proportion. Grades don’t determine the rest of our lives; indeed, far from it. Most people don’t get all A’s in high school or go to a top top college and still get great jobs and lead happy lives. Some people too don’t get all A’s and still do go to those top top colleges. A lot more goes into a college application than grades, and grades can be so subjective that even try don’t mean anything. College Alma mater bumper stickers don’t either. Everything is so subjective!
You are smart regardless of what any stupid evaluation says, and that is a great thing.
Somewhat like my mom.
Me: my GPA is a 3.9
Mom: that’s wonderful honey, what did you do wrong? Maybe next time you can get a 4.0 like your mom did.
I think she was joking around, but she does lesser versions of that all the time.
Don’t even worry about college. I got some As, lots of Bs, and a few Cs in high school and was accepted by many top small liberal arts colleges.
Also, *hugs*
I always feel like I have to get an A. Even when I get ninety-fours I wish I had done better. However, I don’t feel overly anxious…Which I’m grateful for.
20 – That’s basically what I do to myself. I’m worse than my parents in terms of putting pressure on me to do well. >.<
Gah. Stupid rat race. I can’t wait to leave this American system of continual assessment (ie continual and constant stress). *joins in on the stress condemnation*
I fear I am failing at life.
I stress that no human likes me.
Any questions?
I, for one, like you. I’m probably a human.
dear everyone on this thread
most of it seems to be about grades. grades are certainly important, etc, don’t fail at things, be the best you can be and all that
HOWEVER
grades are not the most important thing in your life. they are not anywhere close. i was fairly depressed and lonely and somewhat miserable in middle school (as i’m sure many of you were/are, middle school is generally terrible). but i don’t think it’s a coincidence that i got over it around the time i got over the need to have perfect grades. not that my grades became terrible or that i stopped trying to do well in school, but i stopped stressing about them, realized that there were things in life i cared about more and that mattered more to me, and focused on my happiness and my social life, which up until that point had been almost nonexistent.
grades are not nearly as important as everyone makes them out to be, especially people on the blog. and my guess is those of you feeling pressure from your family think that your parents have much higher expectations of you than they actually do. i used to freak out about what my parents would think of my grades, until i started having real conversations about my classes and my strengths and weaknesses. they understand that you aren’t perfect, and they understand that you’re not going to do brilliantly at everything. and ask them about failed tests or bad classes. i don’t know a single person who hasn’t done badly in some class in their lifetime. if you mess up one test or class or even quarter or semester it is not the end of the world
stop worrying about grades and you can figure out the things that really stress you out – people. dear lord, people are complicated. and unfortunately they’re what matters.
It seems totally intense in China. ( I’ve been reading articles about Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. ) They all work so hard so you have to really be THE BEST to succeed. There are so many good musicians and mathematicians and the competition there must be so horrible! And they have twenty hours of homework a week. I don’t think I could take it.
Disclaimer: These are all generalizations.
NO NO NO NO NO. Amy Chua has done asian-ameriacns a massive disservice by enforcing negative stereotypes that people already want to believe. i’m glad you acknowledge that those are generalizations but please do not take her account as an end-all-be-all account.
So true. The articles on Chua’s book not only gravely misrepresent the Asian community but Chua herself. Do some research; most response articles to the book are based off an article in the Wall Street Journal that put together the most sensationalist parts of the book and ignored that it was a memoir, not a how-to guide. Most of my Asian friends’ parents are actually far more lenient than my own parents.
Axa – Not just Amy Chua’s book, but other things I’ve read about China. My friend who lives in China – her dad says that if she gets in the top three math scores in her school then he will take her to America to visit us. It’s apparently really difficult. It just seems like a much tougher culture than ours.
I’m not disputing the pressure of Chinese schooling, I’ve heard my fair share of horror stories. I just really hope you’re not taking everything Chua says at face value, because it feeds the “crazy asians!!” stereotype. Also, as Cat’s Eye said, it’s the sensationalist version of her book that perpetrates that more than herself, which I think is even more telling. People want to be horrified by the lengths these crazy asian moms will got to make their daughters learn piano. it’s offensive.
I don’t know, I think I’m probably responding to a greater issue that I have about the way people talk about Asian countries…
Stress? Anxiety? Fear of Failure? *maniacal laughter* Yes, yes, and more yes. So much stuff I have to do, from studying to scholarship essays, to finding a job for the summer (and an apartment and everything else involved in getting residency in this godforsaken state). And as long as I don’t think about any of that, as long as I can keep myself distracted and block it out, I’m okay. But the moment I actually think about all the stuff I have to do, all the stuff I have to learn, I get this completely terrified, overwhelmed feeling that I’m just drowning in responsibilities and how there is no way I’m ever going to succeed and that I am just completely screwed. And that feeling makes me want to do nothing more than curl up in a fetal position and just cry, because stress makes me cry, frustration makes me cry, everything makes me bloody cry. I mean, just a couple weeks ago I ended up sobbing for a good hour or so straight because Alan was in a rather irritable mood (given how much stress he’s under, full course load, plus a 6 hour a week MCAT study course, plus he just got a job tutoring on top of that, and the pressure of the fact that he really needs to get straight As this semester, hell, I can’t really blame him for being in a pissy mood once in awhile), but I ended up crying for over an hour, which succeeded in getting Alan over his irritable mood, but instead had him apologizing for being an idiot/jerk/whatever and making me cry (even though honestly, I don’t know how much was him and how much was just when I at school and stressed, it really doesn’t take anything to set me off into tears), and then he was just being so wonderful and sweet and all that it was just making me cry even more, because my stressed out mind in that state felt that he was just too good for me and I didn’t deserve him, so him being all sweet was just making me cry harder.
It’s just there’s so much I have to do, and the other night I had a mini-breakdown because I just felt so overwhelmed by everything I have to do, and just as I’d finally convinced myself that I’d manage, that I always managed, the little thought that “if you can’t even handle this, how the hell are you ever going to survive vet school?” wiggled it’s way to the front of my mind and just set me off for another half hour or so, because, really, if I can’t handle the stress of undergrad, especially a semester like this where technically I’m taking a very light courseload (11 graded credit hours, and 4 credit hour pass/fail internship, which was supposed to be 4 really easy credit hours and instead is one of my biggest sources of stress, more so than a class would have been, and dammit I’m going to start crying), but if I can’t handle this, there really is no way I’m going to be able to handle vet school, which scares the hell out of me, because if I can’t handle the stress of vet school what am i going to do? I’ve been planning on becoming a veterinarian for more than 13 years, I’ve never even considered anything else, it’s always been “I want to be a veterinarian”, and if that doesn’t work out because I can’t take the stress, because I”m not smart enough to actually learn and apply everything, I don’t have a clue what I’m going to do.
And then my biomed internship, my pass/fail 4 credit hour course that was supposed to be an easy thing. Well, I’m supposed to get an average of 4 hours/week observing at the equine hospital. In order to do so, there has to be a case going on. Let’s just say that there never seem to be any cases, and when there are, they’re never at a time I’m available. So by the end of this week, I should ahve 16 hours. I currently have 2 1/2 hours, and that was got back in the middle of bleeding January. So there’s that I keep stressing over, how the hell I’m going to get all those hours in, and then there’s the fact that I ahve to get a job. Becuase I need to try and get residency down here, to save $25,000 per year on vet school tuition. Which means I need to start looking for a job down here for this summer, which is stressful in and of itself, and made even more stressful in that getting a job down here for the summer means the only time I’m going to be home between now and next Christmas is a very, very short week at spring break, because to get residency, I have to be down here the ENTIRE summer working, I can’t even take so much as a week off for a quick trip home, so I won’t be seeing my family hardly at all for an entire year, and while yes that means I’ll probably be seeing Alan more, as much as I mgiht love him and miss him when he’s not around, he’s not my family and going so very long without seeing my family, and probably still onloy occasionally seeing Alan, because he lives a good 3 hours away from school and I was going to be getting a job in the general vicinity of school, is small compensation for going a year without seeing my family.
And then there’s all the scholarship applications I ahve to fill out, and the fact that I’m already $7,500 in debt and that even if I get instate residency vet school is a minimum of $150,000 and I’m going to be so very in debt. And I have to get an apartment for next year/this summer and if I’mg oign to be down here this summer, I need a car, and all this stuff I have to do to get residency other than just an apartment/job, I’ve got to get a driver’s license in this state, register to vote in this state, and several othe rlittle things, but they all add up, and dammit it’s days like these I almost feel like the one vet I work for back home who said “he never would have survived college without alcohol” was on to something, except I know that going and getting drunk wouldn’t solve anything at all, and really it doesn’t actually sound all that appealing and dammit why the hell can’t I be 6 years old again, not a care in the world except a few household chores and extremely basic, noncomplicated amount of homework?????????
You are intelligent, competent, strong, and compassionate. None of those things are things you have worked at to be. They are things you are. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, or be anyone you don’t want to be. It’s okay to be unsure; you’re human, and it’s easy to forget that. You deserve everything good in your life. Someday all of this will be over, and you will have survived. Today is only today. Tomorrow, today won’t even exist any more, and every second is taking you a little closer to tomorrow. I believe in everything about you.
You can do it, Luna. Mind over matter, you can take this and come out on top.
Luna, if anyone can do it, it’s you. I am always amazed by how much you get done, being something of an amorphous blob myself when it comes to homework and the like. I have 100% confidence in you! *high energy choklit*
I’m mostly worried about not finding an internship at a museum.
Other than that, I’m not too stressed. Sort of.
I think what I fear most is disappointing people. I can deal with it when people are angry with me, but I can’t STAND the idea of disappointing someone I care about; them being disappointed means they had faith in me to start with. I get really upset. (understatement. Actually, I get stressed out about disappointing people which triggers anxiety attacks, then I get stressed that I’m having anxiety attacks triggering MORE anxiety attacks and so on) I think this is in large part why it’s so difficult for me to talk to my parents…I’m worried I’ll disappoint them.
Grades: My last report card was 4 A’s and 3 A-‘s and my parents hardly noticed the A’s and instead spent inordinate amounts of time talking about “improving” the A-‘s. REALLY? REALLY? my school is purposefully set up to make it difficult to get A’s such that many colleges purportedly add .5-1.5 to GPA’s of students from here because we have a reputation for not inflating our grades AT ALL, and it’s my first term freshmen year. Seriously?
my acting teacher/director told me he was worried about me (panic attacks) which is unsurprising but disconcerting. I’m probably going to have to talk to the school counselor, a man who talks way more than he should, because talking directly to my parents would be so nerve-wracking I’d most likely end up demonstrating the panic attacks. Which would be bad. Very. Fortunately, my parents listened and bought me chocolate.
I want to say something about your parents A- ridiculousness but it may or may not be blog appropriate. :/ And you’re right, colleges know about the grade inflation (or lack thereof) at different schools, they have statistics and everything. So even if your parents want to , ahem, complain about that, 1) they’re wrong and 2) ARE YOU KIDDING ME
ugh
okay hold on i just saw that you’re a freshman. what the hell right now? i know it’s difficult but make a note: whenever your parents are complaining at you about something ridiculous like that, imagine me telling them what’s what cause GOD, REALLY?
sorry if that’s rude but stuff like that makes me pretty furious. talk about missing the point…
as for the panic attacks, it could help to talk to the school counselor, at least once. maybe you could even talk to your acting teacher if you’d rather? i think it’s great that you have a teacher like that, also!
Thanks, Axa. I agree.
Five tests in two days.
College applications.
Job applications.
My problem is that when I’m stressed and/or panicked I shut down. I freeze. I waste time. I do things I know aren’t going to help me get where I want. I avoid taking any action that would help alleviate the situation, and then get even more panicked when it just gets worse. It’s a vicious cycle.
Yearbook is evil.
Not completely. It is a wonderful memento to take with you once you graduate. It’s the process of creating the yearbook that’s a pain.
Why did they put me on two committees? WHY?! I’m on Layout staff and Literature. In this case, literature does not mean going through the different entries submitted by your fellow students and deciding what goes in. It means writing the write-ups (descriptive paragraph that illustrates/highlights the qualities of each graduating student, such as their personality, how they are a good friend, etc.)
Having a double load has become especially overwhelming since our final deadline is the 21st and they’re pressuring me to finish the Faculty pages for Layout and the last 3 write-ups for Literature, but I have a term paper to work on and reading for my college class and homework from some of my other 14 courses.
I don’t think I’ve gotten a proper night’s sleep for the past two nights.
I hate being a senior, but I don’t feel like I want to leave high school (mostly for responsibility reasons). I’ll probably be over my denial by graduation, but for now, denial it is.
My friends are more excited about my SAT scores than I am. I got a good score on the critical reading section. Like, 790 good. I’m quite surprised, and I’m pleased, to be sure, but I’m not bouncing off the walls happy. I’m actually having a really hard time believing that I deserved it or that it wasn’t a mistake. It’s the same as when I took the GED practice test, and, I can only assume it will be when I take the actual GED test; I feel like if I can pass it it’s too easy.
(If you’re wondering, the rest of my SAT scores were below mediocre for math and a bit above mediocre for writing.)
Does anyone else ever get that feeling? Not that they didn’t do well enough when they succeed, but that they shouldn’t have succeeded in the first place?
Congrats, luv. 790 is a brilliant score. I “only” got 740 on the critical reading, myself. My lowest was writing, math in the middle.
I know what you mean about that feeling of being surprised, andpleased, but having a hard time feeling that it wasn’t a mistake. I had a rather similar feeling when I got my results back on the AP Chemistry test when i took it, because I really couldn’t believe that I actually got a 4 on it, and that there wasn’t some mistake and I’d actually flunked it awfully…..
I’ve read the thread, but don’t feel I can respond well enough.
My condolences, yet let us all rise ever upward.
So remember that time you won a full ride scholarship plus more to a college in Manhattan but then it turns out that you’re no where mature enough, emotionally or socially, to living on your own (never mind a work ethic), and are then unable to make either friends or the required GPA? And so, understandably, you lose the scholarship and the place in college, and while it’s not like you actually lost any money you have disappointed and confused many people who put too much trust into you, but really it’s your fault for maintaining a facade and not sharing your feelings or thoughts. So now you’re in this place where your friends are all off in the Ivy Leagues and you’re looking at community college which isn’t shameful at all except you should be doing better than all this, what went wrong? Are you really just that lazy and prideful? For someone so ‘smart’ you’re really pretty dumb.
So where do you go from here? There’s the community college option, the find a job option, or apply for an internship. There are also things like travel but I don;t think that’s very realistic, seeing as how I couldn’t keep myself together just an island away. Finding a passion or purpose or goal of some sort makes sense, but I’ve tried to figure something out along those lines, and it’s not looking good. Especially as I just failed out of school.
Now, I haven’t actually failed out of school yet. Technically, I’m here for certain at least until the end of the semester. And who knows, maybe I’ll be able to turn things around before then and stay for all four years. But my current trajectory doesn’t look good. And I don’t think I can turn around my troubles fast enough, although I am working on it.
Ugh. That was a day old, and although the facts haven’t changed, my feelings are more removed. Another option could be an apprenticeship thing at a nautical place. What is this I don’t even.
As unhelpful as it always is to say I know what you mean, I do because I’m in a very similar situation. Unfortunately I don’t have any answers either because of that. I’m wondering that same things.
Is it too late to take a leave and maybe hold your place that way? I’m sorry I don’t have anything more helpful than this to say other than “yup, pretty much”
but yup, pretty much :/
I’m getting rather stressed lately about whether or not my grades are good enough. I only have a 3.3 gpa and last semester I had a 3.48 and I’d like to bump it up again last semester. It seems low now.
Er, what I mean here is that right now, due to last semester, I only have a 3.3 gpa and I used to, the semester before that, have a 3.48 and I’d like to bump it up again this semester.
March10th! I AM GOING TO DIE IF I DON’T FIND OUT IF I GOT INTO THAT HIGH SCHOOL SOON!
Also on the topic of fear of failure. I have been making a lot of comics lately, but will I ever get the courage to make any of them into webcomics?
I don’t give Guinan-level advice, but I would advise that you please, please, please upload your comics! I dunno where too… but still. As for the high school, what kind is it?
Stress… don’t talk to me about stress. I got 3-4 hours of sleep every week day last week. I’m in 5 AP classes and 3 intensive Science Olympiad events – and a captain of the Quiz Bowl team, which is certainly going to nationals.
Remarkably, my sanity has held up incredibly well, despite also being frustrated with some of my friends.
Oh, and I got a 35 on the ACT – 36 reading, 35 science, 35 english, 33 math, and 31 writing. I’ve been told to retake it. I’m retaking the SAT for sure, though – 730 on writing and math, 720 on reading.
-_-
Choklit Orange: Even if you don’t give Guinan level advice, your name is making me feel better ( love those things). The high school is the Commonwealth school. I know a lot of people who go there, but it’s really hard to get in. I also know a lot of people who are applying this year,who are REALLY smart. Then theres that my mom teaches there… Yeah the entire thing is very nervous making and awkward.
I will try to post my comics, since i just discovered the visual arts thread and other people are posting their comics, so maybe I will too…
Today I broke down and cried because of how little time I have to finish three pretty big projects in very little time, with a schedule that just keeps getting busier.
Fortunately I’ve got a lot more for those projects than I previously thought, so I’m feeling significantly better about life, and I’m much less certain that I’m going to fail two of my classes.
Now, back to being a hermit until all the homework is done.
To do list:
-finish 6 page fieldwork project for Music Cultures (almost done, this is good) (due Monday)
-write up skateboarding mini-ethnography (for which I don’t have enough fieldwork done to make me comfortable, people won’t respond to my emails and I havent been able to find anyone out skateboarding to observe. Oh and it’s got to be at least 5 pages. Not good. Also, I don’t really know how to write ethnographies.) (due Tuesday)
-rewrite food memoir (at least 5 pages) because first draft was pretty bad. (due Monday)
-set up, perform in, and break down live art performance tomorrow (includes painting a bunch of boxes, drawing building-like details on them, organizing people, gathering speakers and setting it all up to look and sound like a city. Just the time tomorrow will be three hours, but I may have to do some painting tonight as well.)
-attend a concert Sunday afternoon, perform in a concert Sunday evening, and somehow be at play rehearsal at the same time as the evening performance. Or immediately after.
-finish a book, start work on writing the take-home essay questions for my Anthropology final exam
-write Freshman Letter (due next week)
-write class reflection (also due next week)
-transcribe a recorded interview (also due next week)
-study for exams (which are coming up at an alarming rate)
-and it’s been almost 4 months and I still haven’t gotten to making the CD that I told my grandmother I’d do for her. I feel awful about it, but I have absolutely no time to get it done.
Aaaaand roomie’s been kicking me out of the room a bit more often.
For the past week I’ve been running nonstop from one thing to another from 8 in the morning to 10 or so at night, and then trying to get homework done after that. So I average going to bed at 2am and waking up again at 7:30.
I’ve been getting about half the amount of sleep I need to feel alive and happy, and I’ve been drinking coffee like a deranged chipmunk, only sans the cuteness. Weird thing, apparently caffeine makes you hungry. That would explain why three meals a day isn’t keeping up with the amount of food I want to be consuming. It also could be explained by the fact that I’ve started going by the “why walk somewhere when you could sprint instead” mentality, and I’ve been spending a lot more hours awake that I normally wouldn’t have been conscious for to notice I was hungry.
I’ve been in tears a few times because of how much I have to get done and how little time, and worry over failing classes. Then I get mad at myself for wasting time crying.
Am I just a wuss, or is this all enough to be genuinely stressful?
Now I need to get back to work, but I had to let that off somehow.
Off to be a hermit again, bye guys.
I mean that question seriously, guys. Is this actually enough to be stressed about, or am I just a wuss?
Stress-worthy, definitely. Like most of college life.
Definitely not a wuss. I’d say any one of those things alone is plenty to be stressed over. Add them all together? Yeah, I’d be freaking out. So no, you’re not a wuss.
Sleep deprivation in itself is likely to result in eating more, probably why poor sleeping habits can lead to weight gain. And the lack of sleep will certainly add to your stress in various ways.
“Lack of sleep makes you weak.”
LIES BLASPHEMYGood advice.fiddler — that is definitely MORE than enough reason to feel stressed, omg. good luck with everything!!
ugh, the more i think about how much i have to do, the less motivated i am to do it. it’s so hard to actually get started ugh i have essentially three essays and a research paper i should be working on but it’s just kind of OVERWHELMING and i end up doing nothing and ugh where did the weekend go D:
thankfully i only have one actual final but ugh these PAPERS are driving me crazy fasjkhgskjahsfhl
maybe i’ll feel more inspired if i go get dinner…le sigh
It’s really easy just to get overwhelmed by the quantity of tasks that have to be done. I know it’s incredibly… what would the word be… clichéd? cheesy? stereotypical? to suggest that you break things up and do it one step at a time, but it actually works. Focus on one thing at a time, and recognize even small markers of progress.
Good luck.
And dinner is good. I like food.
Back to what people were saying avout career tests… it marked me as eloquent. I regularly lisp and trip over my words, so badly in fact that it translates to bad improvisation on the sax. Those tests are so inaccurate and will continue to be so until they add an essay portion.
Our teachers made us do one this year which told you what personality type you are and gave a list of careers that suit it. Good news: The personality description fit me quite well. Bad news: The majority of the suggestions didn’t. Also, none of my friends got results anything like mine. Yeah…
Stress….yeah.
I think that I’ve actually had a free floating anxiety thing since I was a kid, but now I’ve just, for really the first time in my life, started having to deal with an overwhelming amount of homework, projects, social stuff, and everything else, and I’ve started having panic attacks a lot, especially in the middle of school. Even when I’m not having panic attacks, it’s hard to put a finger on it, but there are a thousand emotions and hormones and so much stress going through me all the time. I just find myself crying when anything pushes me over the edge a tiny bit. It’s just so overwhelming, and I’ve had no time to adjust and figure it out, I haven’t really even had time to confront it, since I’ve been doing work and seeing people nonstop. I don’t know how to deal with it. My friends are very sympathetic, but no one has given me any really useful advice on how to deal with it. Please, anyone?
I’m really sorry. I’m so, so sorry. It’s so hard to deal with all of that stuff – you’re going through a really hard time. I’m glad you can face it enough to ask for help – that’s really important. I’m also glad that your friends have been sympathetic. One thing I might just suggest (very tentatively) is that maybe the reason they can’t give you any good advice is either that they have similar worries and don’t know how to deal with it themselves (because, as you’ve found, it is really hard), or fill in their own (different) experience, so give you advice that you don’t really need. Friends are a really important part of high school. I would always freak out that my friends didn’t like me or that they liked other people more than me, eventually I realized that it doesn’t really matter. There’s always going to be at least someone – probably a lot of people; I know that I certainly like what I know of you online – who appreciates you without you having to please them. And that’s what a friend is. Honestly, most people are pretty self-centered, and it’s quite likely that if, say, they talk to someone instead of you, it’s nothing personal. And even if it is, who cares? I mean, I’m guessing that if you’re a normal human being, you judge people all the time. It doesn’t mean that you don’t like people. If someone annoys me, I find it matters more to me actually if I like them more.
For academic stuff, it can be super hard not to completely freak out. Don’t be afraid to talk to people. Maybe you could explain to your teachers that you want to be able to take a little mental health day, i.e. you might need an extension on a project or something. Most teachers are a lot more receptive than you think they might be. But that in itself can be really hard too – it feels like you’re admitting defeat, like you’re a failure. So sometimes the best thing you can do is just plan things out. I’m going to give you some very basic advice that you’ve probably heard before, but it really works if you actually take it to heart.
Take things one step at a time. It’s incredibly overwhelming if you just think that you have so many assignments to do and so many things to worry about and when you hand them in you’re just going to get more. It never stops. But you don’t want to do things just for the sake of getting the grade, ticking of the box. Grades are a reflection of how you’ve done, and that’s it. It’s easy to get competitive with other people, or even just yourself, but you are perfect just the way you are. Yes, maybe you make mistakes. Who doesn’t? Maybe that guy thinks you’re annoying. That doesn’t mean you’re a bad person; it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t like you. Live your life for you. It’s not worth it just to get good grades, go to a good college, be successful. It’s important to be happy.
Just keep track of the little things. Take the time to do something you want to do. Let yourself have fun just for the heck of it. Live your life how you want to live it. You are not whiny or annoying or overly-anxious. You are struggling through a lot of stuff… but the important part is that you are getting through it.
If anxiety attacks are really becoming a problem, maybe you should tell someone. Do your parents know? Does any sort of doctor know? They will probably have better advice than I do for that, because it’s not something I have had to deal with.
In general, you may want to take a look at DBT mindfulness and emotion regulation. I’ve found that sort of stuff very useful. I can give you more information about DBT if you want.
Okay. Big giant block of text. Cheesy. Preachy. Whatever.
Feel free to completely ignore me.
oh my god Adeliae are you me
https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=9137 posts towards the beginning of the thread are mindfulness and emotional regulation, some distress tolerance might be useful too for panic attacks? I love love love ABC PLEASE(8, 10) and radical acceptance(20) especially
Whoa. It looks like we’ve kind of had some similar experiences. I love those ones too, especially radical acceptance. Some self-soothing is always nice for me too…
Thank you so much. Your advice was wonderful. I need to clone you and put you inside my mind so I can listen to this whenever I feel this way.
I’m glad that I could help a little bit, and I’m happy to ramble on more if you want.
I want a MB feed to my mind.
Meh. Something will happen (I didn’t get into a class I wanted) that has a really obvious solution that I’ve accomplished before (pick another/see where I am on the waitlist). And yet emotionally I freak out a bit while logically saying “you’ve done this before, class x, y, and z would work, stop panicking.”
Bleh.
First final in one hour. First ever college final. Must not let momentousness of occasion get to me. Have studied all day. Bismillah.
Nothing’s momentous unless you make it so.
Sick for finals! Huzzah.
Normally I only get sick twice a year. This is the third time since arriving here four months ago.
And apparently the Plague of this school never goes away.
Stupid hippies.
I hate my life.
If this keeps going I’m not even kidding I might transfer to get away from constant sickness.
So I need help.
I need to convince someone that a 3.3 GPA isn’t the end of the world, that having a 3.3 doesn’t mean colleges will never accept someone, that 3.3 can be raised and that even if it’s a 3.7 or something instead of a 4.0 it’s much better to try and not completely give up.
Not, of course, that the someone will believe me, cause I’m such a caking hypocrite and need to stop being that and I’m such a mess right now and I’m thinking that I should seriously give up on my social life and become a hermit to focus on studying all day instead (although as a rule, I don’t study) and aghaghaaaaaaaaaaaghhhhhhhhhhh
Four school weeks to finals. Just great.
I slept for 12 hours last night/today and it was glorious.
Also, most of my grades are in, and I did fairly well.
Now I just need to figure out how to memorize lines and get on it because after break were supposed to be off-book for the 39 Steps.
Gack.