I’ve been told that I loved school when I was younger. According to my mom, I was the one to comfort her when I went off to preschool. I patted her knee with my little hand and told her, “It’s okay Mom. You’re gonna pick me up later,” then guilelessly ventured into the next 14 years of my life. It did start out okay, more than okay really. I was fairly good at school, always kept up my grades, was always told I was “so mature for her age!” and always stayed relatively at the top of my class.
Until the work and difficulty steadily started to pile up. Until I began to struggle more and more. (Math. It was always math.) I can’t remember the exact grade that I ceased to be the bright-eyed scholar, eager to learn and became an entanglement of stress and anxiety, dreading each day.
I could never understand the people who didn’t care if their grades fell below an ‘A’ (yes an ‘A.’ I have issues). I did know, however, that I envied them. They didn’t feel an overwhelming pit of anxiety open up inside them. It didn’t follow them around until the grade was fixed. I don’t even know why I’m so desperate to keep up appearances. My parents have stated countlessly that they’re happy even if I don’t have all ‘A’’s (those side-eyes and upticks in tone say otherwise).
That’s a lie. Yes I do.
Maybe it was in sixth grade when one of my classmates said in a, I suppose, joking manner, “You don’t get this? I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.” Maybe that was when it ceased to be an enjoyment and more of an identity. Or maybe it was all the way back in preschool when my friend was able to read through the book Wishy-Washy flawlessly and I was stumbling over my words, realizing that I wasn’t the top reader anymore (something I prided myself in even back then). Either way, I became trapped into something that was never supposed to define who I was, yet still does.
Because who am I outside of school? Outside of perfect grades, outside of “advanced” classes, outside the image people perceive me to be? I was never able to explore an identity outside of all that because that image is what people have always thought me to be, what they expect me to be. And I was perfectly happy staying inside that little bubble because what else would I do?
But now that I’ve entered my senior year? It’s been stressful at some moments but overall I’ve adapted a “It is what it is” attitude (and if you heard me basically crying over an 84 in AP Calc, no you didn’t). I’m not usually a go-with-the-flow type of person but as college approaches and I still have no idea what my future career will be, I cannot find it in me to care. Honestly, I think I’m so overwhelmed with panic that it went numb. I remember nights where I genuinely dreaded having four more days of school until the weekend only to remember that I have four more years of school and work myself up into an anxiety attack at the thought of having to live with this constant anxiety and dread for longer.
At the start of my sophomore year, the year I officially entered High School in my head, I would get nauseous every morning to the point of throwing up. It followed into my junior year as well. There was nothing physically wrong with me, not that they could find, my doctors determined in bemusement. It must be a psychological problem they decided. And they probably weren’t wrong if I’m being honest. Even though the whole prescribed therapy was a bust (the thought of the therapy was making me more anxious and honestly it was not helping) I knew they were onto something. Because what kind of physical sickness only shows up on school days?
And now I apparently don’t even have “mature for her age,” because according to my 13-year-old brother, liking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and other ‘kid stuff” at my grown age is “embarrassing” and “childish.” Which may be true, but it’s the only thing keeping me sane, so oh well.
I’m hoping college will be a fresh start. I’m hoping it will shape me just a little differently. Personally, I think the cycle is bound to repeat itself. But we’ll see.
