Help please: everyday anxiety losing my mind

[Sammy_J_]

I feel like I have gone crazy from my anxiety. Every morning I wake up with the most horrible sick feeling of anxiety and dread for the future.

I’ve just finished my first term of year 12 and I’m in holidays. Unfortunately I’ve spent my holidays really stressed and sad. Basically I moved to the school I go to in term 3 of year 9 and stayed until the end of year. I moved because my school was too expensive for my family. I didn’t like the new school because it was really laid back and no one else tried very hard at school. So I moved to a different public school which is really academic and even though it suited that for me, I spent the whole time wanting to leave and go somewhere else. In hindsight it was the fact that I left my original school fuelling this and I still hadn’t gotten over it, but this school was much better for me.


I moved back to the first public school in term 4 of year 10 and have been there ever since. In the meantime I started making friends with girls from the academic school as well as my best friend who goes there who is pretty much the only person I hang out with. I’m going to schoolies with girls from there too and overall I just realised that I should have stayed. My atar would have been better and I know I would have had a much better final year.


At my school now I have two close friends and no one else really. I’m topping all my classes and feel very uneasy about it because I often feel I’m the only one trying, and wonder if my work is even good or just marked that way because there is a low standard. Last term I was so overwhelmed that I’d cry every day/to my teachers. I feel terrible for my mum because she tried so hard to get me into the other school and I really only got in because of my grades. I’m away right now with my best friend and another girl from that school and it’s making me miserable even though I’m trying to hide it. I wake up every morning so anxious just thinking ‘what if’ and thinking about how I’m going to let my mum down so much with my atar and how it all could have been so much better.


I also often think of my sister who had a great final year and got a great mark/had lots of friends at school etc and it makes me so sad.


I know this seems like a really superficial problem but it’s really affecting me each day, it’s the only thing running through my head. Like I’ve had dreams where I go back to my old school. I really don’t know what to do....

[jess334]

Hi Sammy J,

Welcome to the Beyond Blue forums.

First, your problems are not superficial. The final years of school are really tough and changing schools so many times during this period would have made everything worse.

It sounds like you are doing really well academically, but not so great emotionally. Ongoing stressful situations like this can easily cause anxiety and depression.

Have you taken the K10 test? It gives you an indication of whether you are dealing with these issues. If you are then seeing your doctor would be a great first step.

https://www.beyondblue.org.au/the-facts/anxiety-and-depression-checklist-k10

Your doctor can refer you to a councillor or psychologist. This treatment can really help. I have had anxiety since I was 15 and I see a psychologist every now and then when it gets too bad. It really helps to have someone to talk to.

These forums are also a great place to get some support and advice. Please keep posting if you feel up to it.

Kind thoughts, Jess

[JimmyInOz]

Hi Sammy J,

I don’t have any ready solutions, but I experienced very similar feelings at the same age, I had moved states multiple times and I just didn’t seem to fit at the last school I ended up at.

But (much older, looking back) my high school experiences set me up for an accidentally wonderful mature age VCE and an 7th preference university course which changed my life around.

It’s hard to take a deep breath and trust that things will be alright in the end (and if it isn’t alright then it isn’t the end).

Hang in there, it will change...