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

replies: 0

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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Too ugly to be loved

replies: 13

Hi everyone, I am just here to vent, I don't have anyone to talk to in real life but I need to put it out there. I am too ugly to be loved. I have gone my whole life (I am 20) without a single guy ever caring about me. It is one of the most simple things in life, something the average 14 year old has: a relationship. But I am too ugly for any man to accept, I will never be good enough. It is just so hard because I didn't choose my appearance, I cry every day because it is so unfair that I am missing out on the joys of life because of it. I will never know love and will never get to be a mother. All because of something I didn't choose: my face. What makes it even harder is that one of my best friends who I live with is beautiful. She always has guys wanting her, she has had more boyfriends than I can count. It's not fair. The only guy in my life who has ever come close to loving me wanted her more, he just had to settle for me because she wasn't single. Before we started dating he would tell me he didn't want a relationship with me, but that my friend was so beautiful and amazing and he wished she was single. After 6 months of this I had enough and said I can't keep up the friends-with-benefits relationship we had and he settled for me. He was too embarrassed to hold my hand in public though, or even to tell anyone we were dating. He also cheated on me regularly. I stayed with him because I thought if I broke up with him, who else would want me? No one. Which turned out to be true after we broke up a year ago. Nobody wants me. I need some tips on how to keep going through life without love. How else can I be happy?

i'm failing and my life is being ruined

replies: 6

I'm a Year 12 student right now, and I'd say I'm a pretty good student in most of my subjects. I've always gotten As and Bs. But this year in mathematical methods, I've never been more miserable. I've failed (D and D+) two tests, and I just took another one yesterday that really broke me. I think I failed it. I cried all day, I understood the work so well but the test was nothing like ANY of the questions we have studied up until now. I feel cheated and stupid and I don't understand why I'm failing when I have never had trouble before. I have also a C and B grade for the other two tests, and all the tests are. worth 10%. I handed in a folio draft worth 20%, and I need an A on it to have any hope of passing. I've tried everything, I've even got a tutor. I don't have any time for myself because I'm always studying now, and I think I understand until I get to. a test and inevitably fail it. I have one test left, and an exam worth 30% that I am POSITIVE i will fail. I'm crushed. all ive ever wanted is to go to university. but i cant unless i pass this year and get my certificate. im trying so hard, harder than anyone else, but im not succeeding. i dont know what to do. ever since yesteray ive felt empty, i feel like i dont deserve to exist. i dont deserve the love my family gives me or the food they make. i dont deserve my friends. if i can't go to unversity, i dont know what ill do with my life. it is worth nothing to me if i cant take it where i want it to go. all i need to do is pass but thats starting to look impossible. i cant feel anything but anxiety and pain. if my life cant be the one i imagined, and the one i know i deserve, i dont want it. i deserve. better than. this. i feel like im being punished for something. please help me, i just want to know what. happiness is again. i have to pass. i refuse to fail, i will hate myself if i do and nobody will love me anymore. because i deserve nothing. i cant even be excited for when the year ends bvecause my future feels fake. i only see the pain i feel now. i can never be a person. i will love if i dont pass.

Youth Employment

replies: 2

Hi, I'm just reaching out to see if anyone is struggling to get employed and what use might think the factors to this may be. If you do struggle to get employed how does this make you feel?

School and Hypocrisy

replies: 1

Hi all,End of year has come around and as many school students know the workload from teachers increases. This year is by far the worst i've had. Im in year 11 and have spent the past 2.5 weeks jacked up with schoolwork and have had 0 time to do any sort of extracurricular activities. This past week I reckon i've averaged 3 hours of sleep, staying up as late as 4:00am to get my schoolwork done. Whilst I can accept part of this is how school rolls, the part I can't wrap my head around is the absolute hypocrisy my school indulges in. Since 2020 they have flicked a switch and have had an extreme focus on well-being. Twice a week we get sessions on topics ranging from study support and personal wellbeing to mental illness. Around a month ago they brought in a sleep expert who told everyone about how "you must get eight hours of sleep", and "your bedtime shouldn't be past 12:00am" and all that stuff. I cannot fathom why they would bring in a sleep expert and then dump work on students that requires them to stay up until ridiculous hours of the morning to complete. And it's also not like they're oblivious to it, they run surveys as they are "so interested in the students wellbeing" but upon seeing responses like this, the response is always "you need to stop messing around in class" and "your time management must be terrible". Can anyone provide me with some suggestions for the next week as I am torn between getting my schoolwork done and struggling to stay awake and feel good, or prioritise my well-being and fail assignments, with disciplinary action from the school.

i dont know what to do anymore.

replies: 1

ive always struggled with my social development partially cause of constant bullying throughout middle and high school and partially cause my parents have always belittled, degraded and otherwise called me a "worthless pos thatll never amount to anything" whenever they arent blaming me for everything wrong with thier lives. not to mention daily miscellaneous verbal abuse and occasional physical abuse from my parents over trivial stuff. so i have next to no confidence or trust in people. every time i try to break free and do something to get my life together it seems they find a way to screw it up. i even tried running away years ago before the end of highschool and lived with relatives that werent so toxic for a while but when it came to trying to find employment my parents found out and pretty much made the employment agency i was with find me work near them so id be forced to move back in. fast forward to now, everything hit the fan a couple days ago, cops were involved but since it was father on son and my mother brushing it off as "they just get hot headed" nothing got done. im at my breaking point, and my father despising that he finally messed with the wrong people and almost got dragged away by cops has given me a week. i have no money, no id outside of a bankcard and very outdated student id, no local friends (all live interstate or overseas) and dont know what i can do. part of me is heavily debating running and just taking the homeless plunge cause its gotta be better than here suffering this constant bs but i understand how risky that can be. i just need to get out of the situation and start new but everywhere i look it just looks like a constant state of "you need money to make money"

alcohol abuse

replies: 5

For the past few years I've been struggling with my mental health and recently I started drinking to stop myself from thinking about what's been going on and so I could be happy but now I can't stop myself. I'm losing friends over this and I hate it - like what's wrong with me for turning to alcohol instead of dealing with like everyone else. Even now it feels wrong to reach out because this is my own fault.

School stress

replies: 5

Hi I am a year 10 student currently attending high school, recently i’ve been feeling extremely overwhelmed with the amount of work that i have to do. ATAR has been introduced to year 10s meaning I have to study hard for the subjects I want that will contribute to my ATAR score in the future. I feel like I’m very far behind and I don’t know what to do. I’ve asked for help numerous of times but I’m left unmotivated. Taking days off just for my mental health feels like a big risk of missing out on important information for my subjects. This has been continually building up as I keep on struggling with studying all my subjects at once. I’ve been crying each night about this to the point where I have thoughts of self harming to punish myself. I’m only 15, thinking about what my future holds for me and the expectations from school and my mum have me so under pressure about it. I just wish that my mum didn’t have to push me so hard, I know she means good intentions but she really doesn’t show it well. What I mean by that is that she thinks that I can do this without any mental health consequences being pressured on me. I’ve been working my absolute ass off just to please her expectations of school but it’s almost never good for her. I’m lacking that emotional support from her and it’s affecting me so much, I dread talking about anything to her. This stress that I feel has been draining me a lot, I struggle with getting up in the morning. I hate this feeling, the only days I feel remotely relaxed is on the weekend, but after that I know that I have to go to school the next day. This feels like a big loop I can’t overcome. School makes me stressed, stress makes me drained, being drained makes me not want to go school and not going school makes school stressing again. A big loop that makes me feel helpless and completely vulnerable. I wish my mum didn’t belittle my emotions about this. I know that it’s just high school and all and there’s bigger things to stress about, but right now school needs to be my 1st priority.

Help

replies: 1

Really don't know what I need in life! My partner has know time for me and I feel like I'm trapped and want to start over. I'm so lost I don't know what makes me happy anymore

I feel like I don't have control over myself anymore

replies: 1

Apologies if this post is a little on the longer side but I am really desperate for help and I feel like some context is needed. I'm currently in Year 12 and I feel like my mental health has completely gone down the drain since starting Year 11. I'm not sure what switch flicked inside me that made me sort of destroy myself. I'm not really sure what to blame either. I have always been good in school, achieving good grades and feeling confident in my subjects. However, I really dropped the ball this year. My grades in Year 11 were A-/A but this year I have let both my maths subjects drop to C grades. I really don't know what's happening to me. I have somehow allowed myself to procrastinate to the point where I can barely pass my maths tests and hand in assignments way past their due dates. To show how bad it got, I have a maths exam tomorrow but I also have to hand in a maths assignment that I haven't even started ASAP or else I will get a 0 grade for it. I promised myself that if I took 2 weeks off school I would catch up and everything would be okay again. But some part of my brain wouldn't cooperate. Now I feel like I am trapped in my body, just mindlessly consuming YouTube/Instagram content or just succumbing to a certain vice to relieve stress in hopes of being able to get my work done after. Sorry if this is sort of a trauma dump but I really don't know how I can fix myself. Deep down I really have the motivation/anger to get out of this rut but I can't execute my plans for some reason. I am tired of failing to do things all the time. How can I change? I know I am perfectly capable of doing what I am supposed to but I just can't for some reason. Has anyone been in this position before? I have tried many times to fix my problems but I could only successfully do so for only a few days at a time before failing again. I also got sucked into the self improvement community for 2 years (mainly binge watching a YouTube guru called 'Hamza') in an attempt to fix myself, but I ended up being more confused than before. I just want to be disciplined like I used to and enjoy life rather than always being stressed about overdue stuff. Anyone got any ideas to how I can fix myself and get out of this rut? I really feel alone in having this issue as all of my high school friends seem to not have this issue, always getting their work done on time and having fun. Thanks for your time and I look forward to reading your replies. Thank you.

Letter to My 19-Year-Old Self

replies: 2

Dear 19-year-old Jacqui, You have just been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. Right now you are grieving the loss of the person you always thought you would become. That is natural. There are things that you hoped to do that you will never do, but there will also be many things in store for you that you never imagined or dreamed of, some good, some bad. Don’t be afraid to question your doctors, and the medication they prescribe to you. It takes many years to find the right drug, combination of drugs, or the right dosages, and if you are plagued by side-effects, such as weight gain, don’t suffer in silence. Speak up. There is no one-size-fits-all drug to treat bipolar disorder. Experiment. There’s nothing wrong with being a human guinea pig if it means eventually achieving a better quality of life. Be ambitious. You are intelligent, creative and talented. Your confidence in yourself is well-earned and genuine. Not all ambitions are delusions of grandeur, and what may seem like crazy ideas won’t always be that crazy. Not all excitement is hypomania, and not all sadness is depression. You are allowed to experience the spectrum of human emotion without always second-guessing yourself and interpreting every feeling as a “warning sign” or something to be feared. Allow yourself to feel. It is a fundamental human right. You may be told that creative or spiritual endeavours are just triggers to be avoided, and that indulging in these sides to yourself will always be a slippery slope down a dangerous path. Don’t listen. These things are a part of who you are. You deserve to be loved, fully and completely and not just tolerated. You are not a burden. You are a joy, and a delight. You are not ruining lives, you are enriching them. Hyper-sexuality often comes with bipolar disorder, and it is nothing to be ashamed of. It is something to embrace and be proud of. Throughout your life, you will have both successes and failures. Not all of your failures will be because of your bipolar disorder, and not all of your successes will be despite it. You are still the person you have always been. Love yourself and let yourself be loved by others. Yours faithfully and sincerely, 40-year-old Jacqui.

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

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

Too ugly to be loved replies: 13

i'm failing and my life is being ruined replies: 6

Youth Employment replies: 2

School and Hypocrisy replies: 1

i dont know what to do anymore. replies: 1

alcohol abuse replies: 5

School stress replies: 5

Help replies: 1

I feel like I don't have control over myself anymore replies: 1

Letter to My 19-Year-Old Self replies: 2