Hey, so I've intended to make a post like this for a long time and even if it changes just one person's trajectory that'll have justified me making the effort. Basically, I hope to help you push through this year, whether that be year 11 or 12, and realise that despite your initial doubts and anxieties and all the rest of it, you can make it through, you can reach your goals, and you can surpass your goals.
So I finished Year 12 last year. I studied at a regional country town school in Victoria with less than 20 people in my class overall. In year 11 I started fairly strong, I studied relatively hard and the rest of it and did well in mid-years. However, beginning in March some cracks began to form and by May I was falling to pieces. By September I honestly did not want to live any more and did not want to wake up in the morning. I often left doing homework until 2 or 3am, then finally did it to avoid scaldings from teachers or just missed school altogether. This behaviours was due to the work load as well as non-school factors, so when school ended I felt a bit more stable but I was still psychologically broken. I had been keeping a fortnightly diary since the start of Yr 10 and the entries from these times are utterly disturbing to read now.
I did 3/4 English in Yr 12 and got a 33. I was expected to get a 40 minimum and was literally told that I had failed by my friends and mother (usually under the guise as a joke but it made me want to scream and die).
Year 12 started off with me having done none of the holiday homework which initiated utter brutalisation from my teachers. I had thought about, sometimes definitively, giving up on year twelve and heading towards joining the police force rather than going to uni.
I did little work during the first term -bits and pieces to keep me afloat in most of my subjects, but not much. I was doing Literature by Distance Education and was years behind in the work, my teacher was great and extending the due dates to ridiculous lengths but eventually I made the decision to drop it after the first term. As soon as I did this I felt a weight lift off me. I was only doing 4 subjects as a result and had far more time on my hands. I started to catch up in biology predominantly, making a few cue cards and things like that. Shortly after things started to improve a bit in Term 2, I started to see a psychologist. It was probably a bit late by that stage, I was already feeling far closer to my old (pre-Yr 11) form than I ever thought was possible. However, it was great to talk to someone and I really, really recommend it. I think 6 free consultations are provided by the Gov and you probably just need a referral from a GP (that's how I got in.)
Anyway so I did a few bits and pieces of work over terms 2&3, not a lot. A few exam papers here and there, made a set of question cards for psych & bio, but I still didn't feel like I was doing nearly enough. At this stage I was really hoping to be able to get a 70. I doubted that I could make it but that was what would get me into my course and was what I felt would allow people see me as less than an utter failure. However, I was still barely handing in homework and going out a lot on weekends and skipping a few days of school a month due to sleep deprivation and I generally just accepted that I'd destroyed my Yr 12 pretty much beyond the point of repair
The third holiday break started off well, I laid out a schedule and planned to do lots of exam papers and all the rest of it, but of course I didn't do half of what I planned and came out disappointed with my efforts. A similar theme carried into term 4, I did bits and pieces but not nearly as much as I had planned to do. I actually worked a fair bit in the week before my first two exams (Psych Thursday, Bio Friday), but of course nothing felt like enough to really make a large impact. By this stage I was pretty confident that given the scores from my prac exams that I'd be able to secure a nice 75, which made me pretty pleased. I walked out of those two exams relatively confident.
I proceeded to go on a bender the weekend following my two exams. People still don't believe me to this day that I was partying in the middle of exams. I don't recommend it.
My other two exams were chem and studio arts. I had 4 hours sleep before my chem exam because I was texting friends and didn't do more than two hours of study for my studio exam so I felt very, very flat by the end of my exams period. I knew I had put in a sh** effort, and just felt numb, not really even relieved at the end. I partied a bit and within a week couldn't have cared less about Yr 12, and was feeling a bit apathetic towards my impending scores. In fact, in the September holidays I had more or less decided not to check them and just deal with whatever offers I received and put Yr 12 firmly in the past. Please don’t lose momentum at the end of exams like I did, it leaves this terrible anticlimactic feeling after your last exam, mixed in with the usual guilt and regret.
Later, when the scores came in, my friend called me to tell me his score, which a 98.95. I was very, very happy for him, even though he missed out on his 99 goal. He then called me to tell me to check my scores as the teachers had told my brother who told him.
It turns out that my score was 90+. I literally sat there swearing at the screen for two minutes I was that shocked.
Okay, so if you've made it this far, thankyou. You may be wondering what the 'moral of the story' is. I was trying to illustrate that, despite how shocking you think you're going or how much you want to drop out or kill yourself or flee the country, you can reach your goals, you just have to do whatever you can to reduce the stress, whether it be dump a girlfriend/boyfriend, drop a subject, quit a job -just get yourself below that critical level of stress or you'll always be anxious and foggy.
Also don't fall into the pattern of thinking that there's no way you can attain a certain score. I would have honestly bet thousands of dollars that I wouldn't get as high as I did. I just wish I knew I had the capacity to do well the whole time. I don't want anyone, like myself, to make the mistake of thinking they cannot achieve what they hope. So many people have said to be something like 'wow, imagine what you could have done if you'd actually tried.' I don't want anyone to hear those words ever.
I realise that a lot of things I've said sound disgusting and cliche, but I just want to give some life and reality to a fantasy situation. If you a reading this and are feeling depressed or anxious about the year ahead (as I very much felt by this stage last year) just don't give up hope. You can still achieve your goals, you can still do well.
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