Mental Health and VCE?

[dontworry]

Hi! I'm a Year 10 student in Victoria.

I would like to think I am perfectly capable of school and work. In my maths coursework, I rarely make mistakes and my English learning tasks have not been lower than 90%. I understand topics fairly well and can learn with little difficulty. My teachers tell me that I am completely competent with schoolwork, however, I have a diagnosed panic disorder and during tests and exams completely freak me out. As a result of this my exam and test scores are usually pretty low. I have had this disorder all my life, so it hasn't really bothered me, but we picked our VCE subjects a few weeks ago and I begun to worry whether VCE really will work for me, especially with my mental capability. This has been making me completely stressed through the course of this year, since I'm doing Year 11 VCE Access Maths Methods 1&2 and I recently got a 49% on one of my tests.

My English teacher recommended me to apply for special examination arrangements in VCE. I honestly am not sure if I should, however, as I feel as there are people with worse disabilities that deserve those arrangements more than I. Many people tell me just to, "get better," at tests and, "practice in test conditions," however I have tried many, many times and nothing has worked. Any experience with panic or other anxiety disorders and VCE, doing tests and exam stress, and special examination arrangements?

[Bri MT]

Unless you're in the absolute worst situation out of everyone (which is subjective anyway) there's always going to be someone who "deserves it more" but that doesn't mean you don't deserve help to show your potential. 

I 100% recommend you apply - it's what's more fair imo

[PhoenixxFire]

Definitely apply for special exam arrangements. I didn't have them in VCE, but do now in uni.
I don't really remember what altered conditions they offer for VCE (although from memory they're not as good as whats offered in uni), but if you can get breaks or a room with less people (especially for end of year exams where it's the whole year level) then that can definitely help. If you haven't already, then finding some relaxation techniques/breathing exercises that work to calm you down when you start to panic will definitely be helpful, as you can use these during rest breaks.

re: deserving arrangements. That's definitely something that I used to think. It's easy to forget that the way that you experience things is different to others, especially when it seems normal to you. You might not think that it's bad enough to need altered arrangements, but think of it this way: is it interfering with your ability to do well? Given you've said that you do significantly worse on tests than your learning tasks, I'd say the answer is yes.
Instead of comparing yourself to other people who also need altered arrangements and thinking that they deserve it more than you, compare yourself to people who don't need altered arrangements. Think of some people who are doing about as well as you in your classes, do you expect to be able to sit a test with them and do about as well as them on that test? If the answer is no, then consider why. It's not because they're smarter than you - you're doing as well as them in class. So what is it? It's the test itself. And if having a panic disorder is making doing a test harder for you than for your peers who are doing the same test, then it makes sense to alter the conditions around the test to make it more fair.