Here comes the raw stuff because I don't like to have a rose-coloured journal. You might get put off reading this so I urge you to turn back. This has been eating me up for a very long time and I think it might do me some good to write about it.
So for the past few weeks, I've been thinking, well maybe reflecting a tad bit and it's been really getting at me. I don't really know where to start so I'll probably start at last year. Further Maths.
To start us off on this story, I did Further 3/4 in Year 11. Lets just say I worked my butt off where I was having mental breakdowns left, right and centre. This was probably the only subject I've done in my life to date that I've truly understood inside and out, nothing like any of the other subjects I do now. So yeah, the teachers had high hopes and let's just say I became an absolute failure when the scores came out.
What has this resulted in? Nearly every Further teacher in the school ignoring my existence to the point where I would say 'good morning' they would just glare at me and continue walking off. Even better on Year 12 camp when they would downright refuse to talk to me. Like I get it. I understand that I'm a failure for not getting a 50 and that all my work means nothing. I understand that the 80 prac exams you gave me did nothing. I understand that the extra help you would give me during your lunch breaks and afterschool didn't pay off. I know I'm nothing more than a speck of dust. The only teacher that actually believed in me every step of the journey was my own Further teacher and without her, I would have broken down a long time ago🥺.
I think what really gets me the most out of all this is the fact I have no clue to this day where I went wrong. When people say 'you should do more prac exams', 'you weren't good enough', 'you should have tried harder' like what on earth am I meant to do? Was I suppose to be studying constantly in my life? Was I really suppose to have done over 120 prac exams? Was I suppose to be just 'fit enough' on the day of exams? I love getting feedback to help me grow as a learner, but when there is nothing to improve when I really did everything I could to give my best shot, why did I get such a low score?
(I don't want a perfect score, I just want something that reflects effort) To make it all worse, I love comparing myself, in a very unhealthy way. Take Physics for example, I don't get full marks in SACs and every time I don't I always constantly get flashbacks to my past self with Further literally working myself to death to get full marks. To top it all off, my mind sort of goes 'Well since you are not getting anywhere near the scores you got last year for your 3/4 you definitely won't ever get higher than 44' and that makes me snap. I know its not true logically, but somehow the voices in my mind refuse to listen >:( . I've trapped myself into a black hole, and there is definitely no way I'm getting out anytime soon. I have no confidence anymore, I've stopped a lot of my hobbies, gone into my own social insolation, daily emotional breakdowns one after another and thought about things I shouldn't be thinking about. I'm usually good at getting back up whenever I have problems, but this has been the first one where I can't seem to get back up no matter how much I try. Maybe at the end of the year, I might finally return to my old self...or fall deeper into this new persona I've created.
But yeah, that's where my mind has been for the past 6 months. It's just a game of the voices in my head.
OH LORD THAT WAS A LONG PASSAGE. I feel better writing that at least, that's a start.
If you got this far, this is what I've been jamming too in the past 24hrs (I absolutely love the lyrics)
VIDEO