Hey Gaf, after reading the replies from my post and the posts following it.
I understand that, while high school isnt a big portion of anybodys life, nor does it define what your future may entail, the importance my parents, teachers, and peers have placed on it paints an opposite picture. This pressure, alongside other pressure Ive felt ever since Ive started this school year, has been killing me.
First Id like to explain the academic pressures going through my head. Naturally, being the final year of high school, your marks, extracurriculars and etc. are imperative for the application youll be sending this December. Wrestling with my dysfunctional brain(anxiety, depression), I often skip out on volunteering opportunities and have never joined a single club throughout the entirety of my high school life. Up until today, Ive decided that I would give those a shot this year. Reading your encouraging posts, Ive set it a goal to join DECA, one of the biggest clubs on business. My parents have pushed me in going into business, and I never protested because even if I wanted to choose anything on my own(and I could), I dont have a passion for anything. This courage Ive developed for getting high marks and filling that extracurricular quota has been shot down completely. While I have a friend that Im sure is willing to help me in 3 of 6 of my classes(hes close and has tried helping me get over my head his own way), the disparity in not only skill, but support between me and my peers came over me once again and discourage me from even trying since I know theyre going to look down on me regardless of how much I try. This thought came over me because of something that happened today.
It was period 3 and it was math class, we had gotten a new student. She was older than us, probably one or two years older since she talked about how she was missing a course to get into what she wanted to get into. She was seated next to me in the same table as I am with two other people. When we were tasked with doing a group activity with one or two people per group, we could choose our own groups. After handing out the questions, the teacher came over to the new student and asked if she knew anybody here, to which she replied by saying no. The teacher then points to the two other members of the table who I guess needed partners too saying that they were nice people and as she was scrolling through my table she looked at me and stopped. That was one hit. Ten minutes had passed. I wonder why I never got a question, and so after looking at the people at my table, I understood that I already had a question and a group with the people at my table(or so I think that it was the implication, she may think I am a slacker or something). My group did the question without even saying anything to me. Its now the last ten minutes of the class and she was handing us homework. When the new person passed the paper to me, I thanked her and she replied, stopping as if she wanted to say more.
This exchange alone showed me how people perceived me. While I understood that people in this school clearly dont like me or find me difficult to approach, it was probably because of mistakes Ive made in the past or whatever. But this, this exchange clearly showed me that, even without any prior knowledge of me, she still saw me as a sort of monster or something. This realization ruined my day, and reintroduced me to a thought I had overcome, the disparity between me and my peers; how smart they were when compared to me, and how much support they had to compensate for their shortcomings rendering my efforts in even meeting them pointless.
The black and white nature of how not only peers and teachers see me as a bad apple and the futility of the efforts I would be able to put forth in trying to meet them seemed overwhelming. Unlike the rest of this first week back to school-- which in of itself had me make big missteps and had me found myself in awkward situations in school, which consequently had me think and overthink the implications of my actions-- this event has turned out to be disastrous in my mind and shot down every single motivation I had in doing anything. While the embarrassing things I didnt talk about shook my mind from time to time, I often brushed them off as something that happened in high school and will be confined there. But this has changed my mind completely.
Losing motivation also lead me to develop anxiety for disappointing and burdening my family. Being shunned by my peers and teachers(yes not just this one) has made me despair, like a kindergartener who was shunned and is able to think and understand complex emotions while still not having the capability of handling them.
The effects going to high school has so far on my mental health has become very apparent. My mood swings now change within a few hours when in the summer it had changed every few days or within a week and have become far more potent. Every time I eat anything I feel like I am eating too much, and despite getting enough sleep(ie. 7 hours plus like 10ish mins), I still feel drained in the morning and in the afternoon. Getting up now--ever since I started grade 12-- feels like I am entering hell after immersing myself in either anime or videogames or something. Its all so sudden, but I feel like I am approaching that last straw. I better consider whatever things Pamplemousse considered before coming to his conclusion and make an at least somewhat reasonable decision.
Thank you to whoever read this, while I may be inactive, I often check on this thread and read your posts. Every time that Neogaf logo is gray, I sort of feel some sort of relief because nobody has had a bad enough day to warrant posting something on this thread.