Young people

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Eeep! When study is overwhelming! - Tips, ideas and coping strategies

replies: 51

Hi! Just thought I’d make a post with some tips for study. I know this is something we can all struggle with. These are all suggestions so feel free to take them or leave them! Hope they help! If you only remember one thing, let it be this: You are important. Your grades don’t define you. (support) Studying can feel isolating but know you’re not alone! Reach out – and find or make friends that can support you along the way. If you’re having trouble finding some friends, join some local communities or clubs! They have lots at Uni’s and even stuff like open days are great ways to meet new people and find out what’s happening. Study groups can also be a great way to meet people and stay motivated. Also remind yourself why you’re doing this; inspirational wallpapers or quotes can be super inspiring. Remember the saying about the oxygen mask? If you can’t take care of yourself first studying will be harder. You are important. You know the drill - water, food, exercise, sleep. Try to stay calm. Stuff that might be able to help include mindfulness, breathing exercises, colouring in, going for walks, journaling, listening to music… If you’re struggling – reach out. See a therapist. Talk to your student counsellor. If you need help, don’t be afraid to ask for it. Also lots of Universities and TAFE offer disability services – which includes conditions like Depression and Anxiety. (study) Find the right study space for you. Maybe that’s in your room, or a coffee shop, or the library. Some people find that noise helps; other people not so much. If you like particular kinds of noise, you can find ‘coffee shop’ noise or ‘rain sounds’ to help concentrate. Make a plan. It helps to do it often so it becomes a habit. Anytime you get a due date, write it down. Maybe you could use a diary, planner, bullet journal or an app. I find the 30/30 App helpful - study for a bit and then break for a bit. You can also get add-on’s for your computer to block sites like Facebook if you find them too distracting. Find out what study technique works for you. Do you like cue cards? Mind maps? Colour coding? Does highlighting stuff help you remember? Charts, maps, diagrams? Recorded lectures? Goals! These are so important – not just writing down deadlines but rewarding yourself for meeting them. Even making smaller goals like ‘read two pages from a textbook’ can help. Break it down into bite size pieces, and don’t forget to reward yourself after!

NEW TO THIS FORUM? Please read this first

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The Young People space is a sub-forum within the wider Beyond Blue forum community. 1. Its purpose is to provide members aged 25 and under a space to discuss anxiety, depression and other related life issues. If you are aged over 25, please be mindful that this forum is a space for younger people to connect and provide peer support for each other. 2. Content from this sub-forum is displayed on both the beyondblue and youthbeyondblue websites. 3. Please bear in mind that some members find content relating to suicide and/or self-harm distressing or triggering. If you would like to post on these topics, please do so in our Suicidal Thoughts and Self Harm section. Please see also our guidelines for making posts on this topic. Posts made here in the Young People sub-forum containing content relating to suicide and/or self-harm will be moved. 4. These forums are moderated, so your posts may not appear straightaway. Information on how our system works can be found here. Being familiar with our community rules can help ensure that your posts appear online as quickly as possible. 5. This is a peer support community, and to get the best out of being here we recommend that you 'give support to receive support'. More on how that works here.

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Anxious about university

replies: 2

I have only just signed up these forums so not really sure what I am doing but I really need some advice. I started university two weeks ago and I am finding it really hard to have the motivation to do anything. I am too scared to leave my room (I am staying in a residential college) so I have missed some lectures and keep missing meals. I went to my first tutorial today and I was late because I was too afraid to go into the room, then I couldn't take notes because I was too afraid to move. I keep having panic attacks and I'm not really sure why. I am a fairly quiet person but I have never had a problem walking to class alone but suddenly leaving my room is too much for me. I have tried talking to my mum about the situation but she just tells me to 'get over it' which doesn't really help all that much. I really don't know what to do so any advice is appreciated!

New school, incredibly unmotivated

replies: 2

Hello, Recently, after moving to a new school, I have felt depressed and lonely. Over the past two years, I have had depression on an on/off basis. It has gotten quite bad at times. In primary school, I was horribly alone and had no friends at all, for six years. Now that I’ve moved schools again, I feel afraid that I’ll have no friends and no support network. I moved from an IB school to a VCE one, so I find tests and lectures very frightening and intimidating and I can’t cope with the levels of homework. I don’t know how to stop procrastinating, and I can’t find motivation to because I feel that I’ll fail in everything I do anyways. I am never satisfied with what I do and I only ever see faults. No one really understands me as they think I’m ‘smart’ (I got a scholarship to my new school) but I’m really not; I’m just consistently lucky. I don’t know how to change my attitude and improve my self esteem or how to find motivation. I’m consistently tired and I have headaches often. I’m really slow and I feel like I’m on the brink of panic attacks a lot. To top it all off, every year in Term 3 I have a really bad mental breakdown. If I’m like this now, I fear that that breakdown will make m insane... it also occurs around the same time as exams (which I’ve never written before). Advice? Thanks for reading, snard

A melancholic 25th

replies: 2

So I`m turning 25 on the 9th and have been feeling down the last few weeks as I've been looking back on my life since year 12 all the way back in 2012 and haven`t been happy about it at all. I feel like my unfinished courses, heartbreaks, and friendships cut short. I know that worse things have happened to me and I've had some successes too. But as i'm now back home with my family with no tertiary education or career to my name I feel like the last seven years being a total waste and that I have achieved much more in the last two years of my secondary schooling. Now I have no idea what I want to do with my life nor where to go from here apart from knowing that I want to stay alive and have a reason to more than just not wanting to hurt those I care about. That's just how I feel that's all.

Anxiety

replies: 2

Hi, My anxiety is destroying my relationship. We have been together for just over a year and it has been amazing but the last two months there has been a spike in my anxiety and I am literally ruining my relationship without being able to help it. I just started studying which I think may be triggering a bit of it due to stress. The main trigger that causes me to tip over the edge is that my boyfriend has a best friend - who until about 3 months ago was really nasty to me and my boyfriend never said anything about it - but I am constantly feeling like the second option when it comes to spending time etc... A couple of months ago I realised that my boyfriend never asks to see me any more so I stopped asking him to hang out and he didn’t ask to see me once. I am just constantly in fear that he prefers to see his friend more than me, which never used to be the case. i just helped him buy an old car which he is doing up at the moment so he never wants to hang out with me because he is always too busy working on the car, he explained to me that he wants to get it done so then we can go on a holiday with it together. But I heard him say to his dad the other day that he can’t wait to get it done so him and his friend can go on a holiday together - to the same place he told me he would take me. i was going away last Saturday and I hadn’t seen him in 3 days and he had spent every day that week with his friend. His friend was also going away on Sunday. He is a fisherman so he works every day and starts work early in the morning so we haven’t slept in the same bed together for 3 months. Last Saturday he had his first day off in 3 months, and we had plans to hang out on the Friday, when he told me he had the day off I got really excited because it meant that we would get to sleep in the same bed before I went away, but instead he told me that I would need to go home in half an hour because his friend was coming over for drinks before he went away. there are many many other examples of what have made me feel anxious and insecure. Whenever I try and speak to him about it he just tells me that I am jealous of his friend. Our relationship never used to be like this, it’s only been since his friend has got out of a relationship. I don’t know whether I am over reacting or if it’s acrtually worth getting upset over, but my anxiety has caused me to get upset and say some things that I have regretted immediately after. I just don’t know what to do

What is happening to my boyfriend..?

replies: 1

Hello I’m new here and am really confused .. that’s why I thought it might be helpful asking for some advice or answers.. My partner (25) who I have been with for two years, has lately been really really down and said he doesn’t know what’s wrong with him and feels like he’s drifting trough life .. well then last Friday we had an argument about me saying that I don’t get what’s up with him and he’s changed and also if he really loves me - well it turned out that he was asking for a break and needs time by himself .. I was in shock and heartbroken. A few days after we talked and he cried and said he doesn’t feel like himself anymore and doesn’t even like himself, that he doesn’t know what to do in life and also needs a break to figure out if he loves me the way I do, he didn’t change his behaviour ( like I didn’t sense or felt that he wouldn’t love me at all). I’m really worried if he’s suffering a form of depression or is just going trough a stage of freaking out because he doesn’t know what to do in life. He said to me he loves me but he could only fix himself by being alone.. that he needs to start loving himself again, on the other hand he was telling me that whenever I would feel like I could text him and we might be able to catch up. Yesterday then he came to visit me after my wisdom teeth removal to check if i was okay and then I asked him again if we’re breaking up and he said no i don’t see it as a break up but we’ve no relationship, he was very emotional and I don’t know what he actually needs or wants and I feel so unable to help him.. he said to me I should focus on myself too and not wait for him in case things don’t change or he doesn’t want to be with me any longer. But still wants to keep me in his life. I had to make a big step and sent him away and said I will not contact him, but will be there once he feels the need of seeing me.. he looked kinda shocked and was crying about it but I didn’t know what to do anymore as I felt I can’t take this limbo. Theres so much more I would love to say, anyway maybe someone here dealt with something similar and can just give me some advise or their opinions. Thank you

HELP centerlink issues interview tomorrow 😏

replies: 3

Hi everyone, im not sure where to go or what to do im a mess... been going through 10mnths of centrelink hell rejection after rejection with no pay. I have no money, in debt, no family, im at rock bottom and not coping in anyway. i suffer extremely bad depression and anxiety, im not "disabled' enough for DSP, dont qualify for sickness (was thrown off 10mnths ago) also told i cant get newstart or anything else. Yesterday someone mentioned just apply for new start again i did, ticked i cant work currently. They will do a phone interview and assessment tomorrow now. How and what are the 'right' things to say? Can someone please help me, im so lost thank you

I no longer enjoy school

replies: 3

This is my first time posting, so hi everyone!! So basically, I used to enjoy school a lot. I had friends and I never really had a day when I believed that I didn't like school at all. But this year sort of hit me like a truck, and I've been separated from my friends and my core class sucks. (I'm a yr 10 by the way). At first, I tried to think positively like, I might as well make some new friends, but everyone already has their own friendship groups and they're all sort of intimidating. Then I thought I should at least focus on my studies, but now whatever my teachers say don't make sense to me anymore and I constantly find myself confused. (I also feel like a majority of my teachers don't like me so that's great) I find myself crying for hardly any reason and everyday I just can't find the motivation to go to class and enjoy anything. At first, I thought that it was because I was cut off from all my buddies and that was the reason I was feeling down, but then whenever lunch comes around (which is basically the only time I see them), I always seem to get really annoyed at them for hardly any reason at all and I just want to be left alone, to be by myself. Then when I'm in class, I become sad at how lonely I feel. My home life's good, and home is really the only place I like being in, but when I'm go to sleep, my head suddenly reminds me that I have no friends, there's hardly anyone I like and then I just start crying again. I want to tell my parents, but for some reason, I can't find the guts to tell them. Sometimes, I just feel like I'm overreacting, like this is just me being hormonal and attention-seeking and that it's just school. I need to toughen up because everyone else adapted, so why can't I? I realised I basically wrote an essay but yeah, that's about it ... Advice? (Thank you if you've read this far)

I have no motivation.

replies: 2

At this point in my life where I am constantly tired and unmotivated. Finished uni last year with my degree, grades were average due to health complications. Spent 14 months looking for work, had over 30 interviews, keep getting told that I don't fit. Went for a prestigious job, beat 99% of the applicants on the testing, had a good interview, didn't get the job because "You would not fit in our organisation". This has destroyed my confidence, my motivation and my drive to improve and do activities that I used to enjoy. Got my first full-time job 6 months ago, already in a leadership position. The money is garbage, I could care less about the industry and only took the job due to not having any other choice. I just don't fit, I refuse to conform and have zero tolerance for bullshit. I literally do nothing on the weekends, my hobbies bore me and I don't have much of a social circle. I would say I'm a misanthrope and just can't stand modern people. No relationships too speak off and being extremely conservative in my behaviour (due to my negative health in my childhood), I don't really mix with most people my age. I am thinking about doing another course but at the same time, what is the point? What is the point of spending money to learn skills and improve your knowledge when you can be dismissed so easily? What is the point of earning money if it is just going to be taxed from you anyway? Even if you make decent money, what is there to buy? A co-worker that I am training had a conversation with me yesterday regarding this. He asked me why I wasn't in another job such as finance or banking or whatever other things I seem to be knowledgeable about and I told him it wasn't due to a lack of trying. I would like to learn to paint or code or learn new languages but I just don't see the point. Maybe it is silly to seek that all things I do, need to make some return on my initial investment, whether it is career progress or financial gain but I feel stuck now that I cannot make progress in that direction. How do I fit in when my very core personality is anti-conformity and completely individualistic? I don't want to fit in but this is impending my career progress and my job opportunities. I don't think it would be a good idea to pretend because that is only going to make me more dissatisfied with life. I have been wanting to write a book for a long time, but again, what is the point? It is not like I am going to achieve anything with it.

My Problems. I Need Some Help And Opinions.

replies: 3

Hi. I'm a teenage girl who has no idea what's happening to them. Yes, I'm young, and yes, maybe these emotions are just from hormonal changes and puberty. Even so, I wanted other people's opinions, as I can't seem to discuss this topic with my friends, who don't take mental issues seriously. I don't really understand how I feel. But, I just really hate myself. I constantly feel so low and tired and I stress over the fact that I have no one to talk to. I don't want to go to school, I don't want to talk to anyone, I'm losing interest in most of my hobbies. To be honest, I do think there's something wrong with me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suicidal. I don't want to die, or hurt myself. I just hate being where I am. My friends kind of make fun of these kinds of things and ironically take online tests. I know they won't prove anything but my results are 100% always moderate depression, OCD, anxiety, social paranoia, all those things. I just don't know anymore. Sometimes, I cry, for no reason at all. When I'm crying, I always wonder: 'What's my body trying to tell me?' Is this... A bad thing? Do I actually have a problem? I hate the fact that people would try to help me, I just feel like a waste of space and a burden when people try to help me or ask me if I'm okay. But deep down, I don't know, maybe I wanted someone to just... Understand? Where I'm coming from without me having to say. Know when I'm not feeling well and just help me without a word. But, I know that's all just an unrealistic child's dream. But is this just because of puberty? Am I just 'being my age'? I just wanted some opinions. Thanks.

Dealing with emetophobia and being in highschool

replies: 3

I don't know how my fear of vomiting started but it's been really hard, especially the past few months. Everyday I think about whether or not I'm going to be sick. Most days I experience digestive upsets (don't know if this is from anxiety or a physical problem) which fuel my anxiety and lead to a seemingly never ending cycle or feeling sick, worrying I'm going to be sick and having a panic attack. It's been hard going to school and I don't really have friends that I can talk to about my issues which makes going to school even harder. Lately I've been feeling like there's no point. I just want to know if there's any young person out there going through the same thing as me? I know I'm not alone I just need someone to talk to about it.

Eeep! When study is overwhelming! - Tips, ideas and coping strategies replies: 51

NEW TO THIS FORUM? Please read this first replies: 0

Anxious about university replies: 2

New school, incredibly unmotivated replies: 2

A melancholic 25th replies: 2

Anxiety replies: 2

What is happening to my boyfriend..? replies: 1

HELP centerlink issues interview tomorrow 😏 replies: 3

I no longer enjoy school replies: 3

I have no motivation. replies: 2

My Problems. I Need Some Help And Opinions. replies: 3

Dealing with emetophobia and being in highschool replies: 3