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Drifting through life & I dislike school

Phenomenon_
Community Member

It’s hard to write this. It’s hard to word something that doesn’t make sense to myself. So I’ll quote lyrics from the song Zombie, by Day6.

“I feel like I became a zombie
Not alive, but I'm still walkin'

Tomorrow I know I'll be
Just the same, you'll see me
Wishing to stop and close my eyes”

I often feel this way: trapped, a lot of the time because of schoolwork. To escape it all, I do whatever I can to avoid work, and have been doing this for years. I’ll browse the internet, youtube, check the fridge for the 5th time that hour, and so on. What makes me feel even worse is how I have other ambitions and goals, such as learning dances, learning lyrics to a song or read a book I’m interested in, but I seem to avoid those too, and again, just browse self care and philosophy videos for a bit, take hours to find an anime to watch, only to instead make Spotify playlists for the next 3 hours. It makes me wonder if I even want the things ‘I’m passionate about’. If yes, why is it so difficult to do them?

And as a result of so much wasted time, my grades have been suffering. Some of my teachers treat me rudely and are much kinder to others. I do my best in class to understand concepts and I believe I am a good person! But I’m slow. It’ll take me days to understand things, but teachers expect homework due the next day. My homework is either half-heartedly done, or not done at all. I put the emphasis on UNDERSTANDING work, but still, I can’t do all of it some days too. From a teacher’s perspective, I must seem very lazy, but reading one page of a textbook is already a huge achievement for me. Everyone is different, yet we all conform to this ONE system. And it’s frustrating that I don’t seem to be in control of my time. I just want to lay down and stop caring. There’s so much to life besides school. But it feels like if you don’t do well in high school, you’re.. done for in life.

If students could be willing and ABLE to do work, they would try! But how much motivation do you expect us to have when we are bombarded with 40 pages of work (literally my biology work this week for remote learning) and piled up work from the last few terms? I recognise there’s no time to stop and help everyone to gain develop study habits and that’s exactly the problem. Students who don’t know any better on how to fix their routines are just drifting through school, through life. The pressure + workload is too much.

8 Replies 8

Amanda2000
Community Member

Hi Phenomenon_

I'm suffering the same. I agree totally - everyday I'm merely existing rather than really living. I can totally relate to the lack of interest/direction/focus/motivation/concentration etc. Everyday feels more and more tedious. Today is the same as yesterday, and tomorrow will not be any better than today.

At one stage, my work was a good distraction until it became too stressful. Whilst you have to deal with rude teachers, I had an incident last week with a very rude and aggressive co-worker.

A strategy that I often use is "don't think and just do it". Sometimes this can distract me and help me feel better.

Just remember each short-term adds up to the long-term. Every bit helps!

There’s something comforting in knowing that you’re not alone. Thanks for the reply 🙂

At the end of the day, these teachers/co workers won’t mean much to us anyway ❤️

Afternoon Phenomenon_

It's a weird world in the school system lately.

Biology can be great, ok, boring... other.

Learning is a process that is highly changing. Some days I can't learn at all, other days I'm nailing it all!

I noticed how you inspired your post with that quote from Zombie. Are there other ways you inspire yourself?

Sophie_M
Moderator
Moderator
Hi Phenomenon, 

Thanks for you post today, it looks like you are a great writer and you have clearly put a lot of thought into this. We can hear that school is stressful for you right now and it it can be hard to connect with your work as well as make time for things you are passionate about. We can imagine it must be draining to feel trapped like that so much of the time. Thank you for being brve and sharing your thoughts with us today, it must have taken a lot of courage to get this all down and the hit post. You never know who will read this and feel less alone in their own struggles. 

We have a few articles linked below which we hope might help with some ideas to help you with your study. You can also give us a call anytime if you are feeling unsure of what to do next and are feeling low or distressd. We are here anytime on 1300 22 4636 and want you to know that you don't have to go through this alone. 

The overthinker's guide to getting stuff done
How to study mindfully

Thakn you again for being a part of this community, please feel free to keep us updated on how you are going if you feel comfortable. 

Kind regards, 

Sophie M

jtjt_4862
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Heya Phenomenon_,

Your story made me wonder, if there was a change to the education system to the modern society, what would it be. I try to recall back when I was put into school, and remembered having little interest in the subjects that I picked other than Visual Communication that involves drawing. I figured, because we're creative individuals, it's hard for us to relate and understand the materials that we're studying at the moment. I even got Specialist Math as a subject, and I still remember thinking "What am I going to use all these formulas for? Why do we even need them?". Did I do well in Specialist Math? Not really, I barely passed, and spent my days day dreaming in class. It's weird how in school, you're taught all these subjects that seem to be a set curriculum, when it doesn't really interest us at all. When we do bad at these subjects, or not behaving the way 'other' students do, we're automatically labelled as "bad" students, and get mistreated by teachers who don't seem to understand us at all.

I wonder if perhaps, it'd be better for schools to teach about, how does an individual find themselves. What I mean by finding; how to be part of a community, helping out one another, while seeking what they want in life. In the earlier years of school you gain social/language/basic math skills, and home economics for survivability. While at middle/high school, you get to pick the elective subjects that you want rather than a set of compulsory subjects that you have no interest in. Though, this is all dream stuffs, but I like to wonder about those things heh...

Anyways, if I may say to you, you're doing a great job and you're trying your best. As you mentioned, you have goals an ambitions of learning dancing, reading books, song lyrics. Those are creative stuffs, and I can understand why you struggle with biology, it's because it's not in your interest at the moment. Why I say "at the moment" is because, it is something "new" and you're finding it hard to relate to. But perhaps one day you may find some relation to it that sparks your interest, and you'll be gulping down biology info like there's no tomorrow. Or, you could find another subject that sparks your interest as long as (like what Amanda said) you just do it, and I know you can.

Happy to listen and chat with you more Phenomenon_, thumbsup

Jt

Thank you JT for sharing, I relate to the dreaming in maths bit lol ! So with the education system, it would be a lot more difficult than changing some things all at once, because there would need to be some sort of universal agreement between educators or at least some planning involved. The system is so embedded into society, that even though a lot of people know something isn’t quite right with it, they can’t really do anything until everyone works together and agrees on something

Thank you a lot Sophie, for the compliments and all, writing this also took time out of your day 🙂

I’ll check out the resources!

Yep! Our brains can only take so much haha

I’m inspired by a lot of people! In real life and some online. Mainly music artists and wise thinkers! They have traits which I consider valuable and special

😄