HSC anxiety

[Guest_9546]

Hello

I do not know if anyone can relate to me or not but I have "educational anxiety" for maybe the past year and 8 months?

So I wasnt allowed to do my desired subject in year 11 (in year 10 I chose extension 1 maths but wasnt allowed)

At the beginning of yr 11 I was told I wasn't allowed to do extension 1 maths. I started to stress because I wasn't told about it earlier and I wanted to do it desperately

I complained to the head of maths (on many occassions) and he then decided to make me sit a test weeks later

Weeks later I did the test and I stuffed it up. I wasn't allowed to do extension 1 maths. I was stressing and tried complaining multiple times to the head of maths. He decided no. He then referred me to the school counciller. He told me this "rubbish" that I only need advanced maths (2U) for uni since it is a calculus course but I felt I needed extension 1 maths

The counciller told me to let it go (and so did he). I tried to let it go but it didn't work. It was then raised to my school principal (through a complaint to the department of education) and he told me to just focus on all my other subjects because extension 1 maths will make things worse (but I thought of it the other way around)

Ever since that incident, I was stressing everyday. I had anxiety (and still do). I have found it very difficult to learn. Did horribly in tests
At the end of last yr, I told the HT maths that I dont care about learning anymore (since he didn't let me in extension maths earleir in the year).

Ever since then I learned to develop a deep obsession of hatred to him (because I think he's ignorant)Even now (which was a year a and half from that incident of not being allowed to study my desired subject) I have suffered anxiety a lot, I have been so stressed out that it has affected my learning, I have developed a deep hatred to the head of maths, etc. I have even cried a lot at home at times because I was too stressed out. Even back then I found a bit of difficulty sleeping

Assuming I have either narcissism, bipolar disorder or some sort of sever anxiety ] I want to apply for EAS (educational access scheme) for my HSC because my learning was affected from this event a lot

I wanted to do extension 1 (and 2) maths at high school because I wanted to pursue an actuarial degree at university (or a maths degree of some sort) as nothing else interested me but not being allowed to do my desired subjects made me stress

I would appreciate any advice from anyone here

[Guest_9546]

Of course in a workplace setting I would need to deal with people I hate because I am working for money to survive but in high school I (and many other young students) are living off their parents and studying. I mean if that girl that flicked me in the ear (or the head of maths) was a customer of mine, I would have to fix up my attitude in the workplace setting because I am doing this for money but in a high school setting does having a good attitude to others benefit me in any way? I don't think so (besides probably building a good habit for the future)

Also day 2 of HSC trials were awful. I had to do a hand in assignment as well as 2 essays for trials. The hand in assignment was horrible. I only had it half completed. The 2 essays were both horrible. Just not even half done. Look at that. If I was let in, I'd do essays as soon as I'd get a module done (e.g. if Module A was done, I'd do a Mod A essay right away, even if our teacher never taught us how to write one, I'd use various HSC sites to find out). I could have just gotten the english hand in assignment done in 3 days (approx) and then get constant feedback from my teacher on how to make it better but I didnt

Day 3 of trials was just as horrible. We had to do a physics presentation and just did it in the morning. A horribly done effort by a student who was affected by an incident in year 11. I didn't mention this but I don't usually stress when I'm doing last minute work but if it's something like studying one week before an exam, I'd lose focus easily because of the fact that I am not in extension maths. Even typing up this sort of post stresses me. We had to build a model as well and I didnt. How embarrassing was it?

I'm going to reiterate this because I think this is one of the most crucial aspects as to why I was consistently stressing and couldn't move one. I wanted to do actuarial studies (it might be different now but will need to think of it). I wasnt in EXT maths, I raised the issue, nothing was done about it, ever since then I had trouble studying. When I would open a book and start revision notes/taking them, I would think about the Ext maths incident then start stressing/getting concerned about actuarial studies in uni. This would usually happen 2 days prior to an exam. If it was like last minute study, I don't know why but I would be so attentive on cramming.

Until I got horrible exam results, I'd start stressing again and feel so much angst/agony.

I hope this helps

[Guest_9546]

Anyways it’s been a while and I just wanted to say today was the last day of trials for me and like the past three trials (today was economics, last week I had physics and the week before I had chemistry and maths) I did horribly because I left all the studying to last minute because of the fact I was too stressed to study. Today I studied economics in the morning (the same for physics, chemistry and maths) and it was awful. I didn’t finish any of my exams on time because I was too stressed out to study (and couldn’t remember things). I messed up all my assessments in the preliminary course as well as the HSC due to not being allowed to try extension maths. I spent most of my time staring at a blank piece of paper and giggling at humours events which happened in the past

Anyways whatever people tell me it won’t change my attitude nor will it stop me from stressing. I had the careers advisor tell me not to stress and that I can take up extra “units” at uni to make up for those lost basics (but I still stressed). I remember at the beginning of yr 12 (term 4 last yr) that the HT English said if there is any issue that affects our learning we should tell her (she cares for us as opposed to the HT maths) but I didn’t tell her because it was in the past and she could do nothing about it. I even had my principal chat to me earlier in the year (he had faith and believed in me) but that didn’t motivate me to study at all. In fact a few weeks after that convo with him I told him I got over it (I felt like I did) but in reality I actually didn’t at all.

I reckon I could get 99+ ATAR if I was allowed to try out extension maths (there was also another circumstance that affected my HSC and I’m not lying about this)

I’ve also tried those online quizzes on mental health and according to those quizzes I have a mental disorder of some sort

To be honest it's hard for me to move on from these "traumatic events" because it affected my learning a lot when I wanted to do well in the HSC and I felt I was unfairly treated. I also feel that my future is affected because of this (i.e. uni) and I wont perform to the max at uni

Such bad memories never go away and painful moments are relived every now and then. I hate like and I'll be honest but I felt my life was worthless during trials and actually wanted to end it

[Hope_for_the_best]

I was busy the past month and can only read your posts now. Your last two sentences sound concerning as you seem to be severely depressed from the "traumatic events". It does not sound like normal exam stress anymore. What my previous suggestions are helpful to change your thinking patterns, but if you indeed have an underlying mental illness, you need to get it treated. As online mental health quizzes indicated that you may have a mental illness, I urge you to seek help asap. If you have a hard time explaining to others because they may not take you seriously, show them your posts.

Your health is extremely important. If you don't have good health, you are not going to achieve whatever you want to achieve. Please do yourself a favour.

[qurz]

Hi tenebrosity,

I'm not very good at articulating my thoughts but I had a similar experience to you during my year 10-11 years and would like to share my journey. I had a mathematics tutor (whom my parents paid) and she told me that I was not up to standard for ext maths and she called me 'academically weak' and refused to teach it to me. Needless to say, she haunted my mind and I cried almost every day because I took her words quite seriously. This led to thinking I was competent enough in anything hence I couldn't find motivation to study. I admit, I did blame her for any misadventures in exams but looking back at it now - I would eventually meet someone like her sooner or later and I'm kind of glad I met her during my high school years. Ironically, I decided to choose education as my uni degree because I want my future students to not experience what I had experienced. I bumped into her recently and she was surprisingly encouraging about my decision - it made me realise she wasn't as bad as I imaged her to be.

One reason why you might be not doing so well in school at the moment is because you developed a hate for your teacher. It's normal to dislike a teacher for various reasons but you need to take a deep breath. If he didn't give you the opportunity to do ext maths, don't give him the damn opportunity to command your mind and be the cause of your anxiety. From an education perspective, teachers sometimes need to be objective because of cohort scaling, teaching staff, resources and time. Teachers are generally happy to teach anything to anyone if they had a genuine interest for the subject but the reality is - data (marks & reports), time and certain school cultures restrain that. This is a problem with the system and not you or your teacher.

Don't pick up a pen if you're not in a calm state of mind. Even the best mathematicians can't study if they're in a distressed state. I want you never let go of your love for mathematics. But, make sure you seek professional help for your health. The purpose of school, believe it or not, isn't actually about learning content - it's about learning to be a healthy individual: resilience, time-management, the ability to accept constructive feedback, the ability to accept professional support in your life, communication, socialising, effort, letting go of grudges, finding the right people to hang out with, respect etc.

[Guest_9546]

@Hope.for.the.best I am currently in contact with UAC on bonus points regarding this. I think the reason I started to think in such a negative manner is that when I couldn’t focus on studying, I did other things and when I looked at youtube videos, I’d look at the date and feel that I was taken back into time and that’s where I felt trauma of not being allowed to do extension maths (it’s quite hard for me to explain). I am always trying to make myself in the mindset of the past but that’s when I know I can’t escape the truth of not being allowed in extension maths

@qurz I am sorry to hear how you feel about that traumatic experience. I don’t know whether your former maths tutor is a qualified maths teacher (and registered) but if she isn’t she doesn’t have the right to say things like that. I believe it’s my excessive stress and negative mindset that costed me from doing my personal best in high school. From an educational perspective (the teachers from my school) I understand that cohort scaling and all that needs to be looked at however let me say this

Cohort scaling-not many teachers in my school cared about cohort scaling (maths didn’t care). Not even the principal cared. The principal cares about people doing their personal best, not what rank our school is in the HSC

Others-the time I wanted to join there was space in the extension maths class (it was originally full at the beginning of the year but like 5 people dropped after term 1 and only 2 came in, it would’ve been 3 if I was allowed. One of the 2 that was allowed ended up dropping at the beginning of yr 12). To be honest 1 extra student doesn’t make much of a difference and there’s like 35 students in extension maths (it kept dwindling throughout year 11 and 12) out of 48 students. I asked if I could at least join the prelim course and if I don’t meet your standards you can throw me out but he said no. I am going to disagree with you qurz (sorry) and say that at my school it’s the fault of the HT maths. It may not be the case at others. I will explain more later if I need to

And honestly I hate high school. I just want uni to start so desperately. I’m hating every second, minute, hour, day and week of high school. Once I reach uni I don’t want to think about high school at all because I’m worried it will bring back all those bad memories. To be honest, I feel high school (and primary school) is an absolute waste of time because no one seems to care about their learning until year 11-12

[Guest_9546]

@Hope.for.the.best I will now need to get a written statement from my school principal (to send to UAC) so then I can prove to them, I’ve been going through a mental breakdown which lasted for more than a year. I am not going to get the head of maths to do it because if I get him, I’m concerned he’ll write a bunch of nonsense

@qurz If what you mentioned was the point of high school, then I honestly think high school is absolutely pointless and a waste of the government’s money (for public schools that is). If that was the purpose of school, then school has taught me absolutely nothing. Most of the stuff you mention would be the stuff I learn out of school-through people I know. I’ve seen people from my school not change at all from year 7 to year 12 so really what does that tell you? And I don’t know if you read my story about the girl who flicked me in the ear but even though she did that like 2 years ago and started annoying the heck out of me like 1.5 years ago, I still hate her (even though she said nothing ever since the end of year 10). And will I ever not hold my grudge against the HT maths at my school? I’ve held a grudge against him and even the school councillor because I think they are both extremely ignorant. Also I do not want to attend high school graduation because of the fact that I hate high school and I do not want to see the HT maths at graduation (although I bump into him almost every single day)

Yes I get the HSC is stressful for everyone because they want to do well and get admitted into uni (and do their desired uni course and I guess apply for a scholarship at uni) however not being allowed to do a subject (even though you are trying to give a good reason as to why and the school is being unfair) makes your HSC journey a lot more stressful (especially in my case and to the point, I’d think about it every day and start stressing and think in such a negative manner)

And you know what else happened, around the middle of the year, the (relieving) deputy principal rang up my mum and said that I wasn’t allowed to sit extension maths and my mum told me that and I started crying. Then my principal had another talk to me (afterwards) and says that if you have any concerns, speak to him, the school councillor or the careers advisor. I will refuse to speak to all 3 because I know I will have this extremely negative attitude no matter what people in school tell me (as I experienced with all 3 in the past)

[Hope_for_the_best]

It is good that you post here and share your thoughts and feeling. However, as we pointed out many times, we are not professionals, and even if we are, there is little that we can do to help you over the forum. I know you had bad experiences with school counsellors but not all counsellors are like them. Go and find one outside of school that listens to you and offers the help that you need. It is beneficial to you in the long run. You need good health to continue your studies. In the meantime, please focus on your HSC. Believe me, you will end up with even more negative emotions if you let the maths incident affects your HSC.

[Guest_9546]

I understand no one here is a 'professional' but rather people who have gone through similar experiences and are here to help those going through bad experiences

Yes I am very skeptical of seeking help from staff within school, mainly because (as experienced in the past) it never helped me with anything (and I am very disappointed with the fact that not even a school counciller trained to deal with mental issues can solve this). I don't even feel comfortable talking to my careers advisor about this (even though he is very knowledgeable) because he hasn't studied a high level of maths at a tertiary level. He told me when he was in high school, he didn't study maths but he did "extra units at uni". I feel more comfortable talking to current uni students because they're more relatable in the sense that they didn't finish their HSC long ago (4 years?). I mean if I did engineering (as an example) and "extra units" then that'd be way to much work for me (I reckon). I went to open day and told the people from the advisory centre (at both Usyd and UNSW) that I'm not in extension 1 maths and am worried and they have told me that if you get a good 2U mark or take a bridging course, you'll be fine but that still didn't calm me down. I feel that I want to do law now (because of open day) but working as a lawyer seems boring so my passion still lies in something maths which is why I am still concerned and skeptical

It's hard to focus on the HSC when I am too carried away with negative thoughts. I just got an email from my principal an hour ago and it turns out that he needs me to see the careers advisor. It looks like I will be going to the psychologist/GP soon (sometime within the next week or 2).

I know there are alternate pathways if you don't get your desired ATAR into a certain uni course (in my case actuarial studies or something maths related) however that isn't going to make me stop thinking negatively about not being in Extension 1 maths.

I feel I have OCD (symptoms seem to match what I feel) but I overall feel I have developed anger issues, become more crazy, believing in weird things, stressing more, feel too much "nostalgic pain", become more sensitive, etc. I've told my mum I feel crazy all the time but she says "stop being like that". And yes I'll say it, the day I wasn't permitted into extension 1 maths was my birthday. I hate birthdays so much (even prior to not being let in) and the fact that it occured on my birthday made it more agonising for me

[Hope_for_the_best]

If UNSW and Usyd say that not doing extension maths will not affect you too much, then current uni students are going to say the same thing to you. In fact, I would trust the advisory centres more than current uni students because they are official. I cannot advice you on whether you should go for maths or law but having an interest in something simply because of an open day is not a good reason. I know you hate me saying that, but I would say a career adviser is a better person to advise. FYI, I have friends that do commerce and law together, so it might be possible for you to do maths and law, but you need to check with the advisory centre.

While you are obsessed with the maths incident, it is difficult to tell whether you have OCD. It is good that you are looking into seeing a GP/psychologist soon, and I hope that you will make the appointment. Going around in circles here is not helping you too much. Finally, I totally understand the pain of something unpleasant happening on your bday. I did very badly in a test back in high school and the teacher happened to return the test papers right on my bday. Nevertheless, you have more happy birthdays to come!

[Guest_9546]

People at the advisory centres (at Usyd and UNSW) are both past/current uni students as well as current university staff. And I don't know whether I've said this or not but I have heard there are people who have done mathematics at a tertiary level and have studied extension 2 maths at high school but have struggled (I remember hearing this from a few people and they were all from UNSW). Assuming they worked hard, that was the main thing that got me stressed about not being extension 1 maths (and 2 maths) and I was worried I'd be one of the one's who'd struggled, because of the fact that I wouldn't have the basics. Although ahw309 said that uni maths is same for all students regardless of high school mathematics level, I know that in uni maths you may retouch on some concepts quickly (such as complex numbers in 4U maths). I also heard that bridging courses (from past uni students) weren't helpful as it was crammed (although most of uni is like that) and bridging courses are quite late imo.

Yes it is possible to do Law/Science. I know someone who does Science (majoring in physics)/law at UNSW and he loves both. Law/arts is usually the most well known double degree then it's law/commerce and then I think it's law/science as for all the remaining degrees with law, I have no idea what is a popular combo

I personally believe I have OCD, mainly because a lot of the symptoms match what I feel. Going around in circles while blabbering my thoughts may not seem helpful but I personally believe that when my principal, careers advisor and UAC see this, they can understand things better (I've linked this convo to all of them)

I already hated birthdays prior to 2016. The reason why I hated them was because (I thought) they were absolutely useless and a waste of time and even though you're a year older, you don't physically and mentally feel a year older. There are many more reasons as to why I hate birthdays but the list is endless so I won't name them. And whenever teachers at my school say it's my birthday, I have the temptation to lash out in rage towards them (but don't want to get in trouble) and since I wasn't allowed into extension 1 maths on my birthday it just made everything a lot worse. And I do not need any happy birthdays to come because I honestly don't care about my own birthday. There are far more important things in this world than my birthday. Who on earth cares about my birthday? I'm only one person out of 7 billion (and something) in this world