My Anxiety and Depression Experience in School

[Em969]

Ever since Year 3 I have struggled with school. I hit puberty earlier and when I was about 10 I started to get acne. This eventually became severe cystic acne into my teens. So because I looked different I was

bullied quite a lot. I was even told to kill myself by some kids, and that was in primary school. I never had many friends in school and I never really felt like I “fit in”. All of this led to me having depression and anxiety. I was always in fear of being bullied and oral presentations were things I cried and stressed over for weeks in advance. I hated having attention put on me, I just wanted to be invisible.

In 2013 (Year 10), my depression and anxiety became severe when I went on a drug for my acne treatment. I basically experienced all of the bad side effects of this medication, which led to me being taken off it after 4 months (usual course is 9 months). During the time I was on it, I rarely went to school and isolated myself from the few friends I had. If I did have to go to school, I would be crying and having a panic attack as I walked there, and same goes as I walked home. Even after I went off the drug this continued.

My mum was incredibly concerned for me and did everything in her power to help me finish Year 10. She helped me with my assignments and let me take many sick days (I usually only went for exams and to hand in assignments). My mum looked for other options for me to get my QCE, as there was no way I would be able to keep going to my school.

She found Brisbane School of Distance Education. It’s an online school which uses a program called Blackboard. Students and teachers communicate using text chat, microphone, webcam or telephone, depending on the school subject. This school sounded perfect for me, so we enrolled.

I started at BSDE in 2014 (Year 11) and as time went on my depression diminished and my anxiety improved enormously. I even started exercising and now I do it every day! I still have mild to moderate social anxiety, but I’ve accepted that’s a part of my personality that I’m okay with. It definitely comes with being an introverted person. I got straight As the entire year at BSDE! Coming from usually doing pretty average at mainstream school. I really love school now and I feel so motivated to do my best. The BSDE teachers I had last year were amazing and I'm looking forward to Year 12 this year.

I would be very happy to support others struggling with mental health issues, or answer any questions 🙂

[gibby3794]

hi em969 welcome to beyone blue 🙂

im sorry to hear what youve been through, i went through very similar i was bullied a lot and was always scared of who was lurking around the corner and going to do/say what, i did finish year 10 at the high school and due to moving areas left the school and went to tafe, at school i only just passed my year 10, and my attendance was only like 1 hour above failing level, thank god i didnt skip one or two more classes during the year bahahah, but yeah because of the bullying and that i never stayed at school i would get there and me and my friends would go find something to do for the day....

anyway im so glad you found the online school you are in now and doing better there and your anxiety/depression is getting better, its always a good feeling when you acheive something you werent able to do before.....

hope to see more of you on this site 🙂 

[Em969]

Hi gibby3794! Thanks for your kind reply 🙂

Sounds like you had a really similar experience to me. I only just passed Year 10 too!! hahaha. I was thinking of doing TAFE as well, but then I found BSDE.

I hope TAFE went great for you and that you're hopefully feeling a lot better!!! 🙂 🙂

[gibby3794]

yeah sort of im still working through things, i was starting to get a lot better and then severe financial difficulty rose its ugly head, but am slowly working through that, not really getting debts lower at the moment due to being on centrelink but am now able to atleast talk to the creditors without breaking down now, at he moment i just tell them how it is that i cant find any work have no money or assets to give them and the best i can do is a really small amount each fortnight as i still do need to eat hahah, so far ive been lucky and havent gotten a default yet but id say i will soon, and as soon as im working i will be putting as much as possible on the debts to get rid of them as quick as possible hahah.....

and as for tafe all but me and one other person dropped out of the course so they had to cancel it and in turn never got anything for my time there 😕

[Em969]

Aww I'm sorry to hear that 😞 And that sucks about the TAFE course.

I wish you the best with finding a job and killing those debts! 🙂

You can definitely do it 🙂

[gibby3794]

ive already written this but my computer wiped it so ill start again..

im better now than i was a few months ago so i am getting there 🙂

it does suck but thats life, they cant afford to run a whole course for two people hahah...

a few people have suggested bankruptcy or debt agreement but i will keep fighting as long as i can, there are only 3 companys that will bother defaulting me i really dont think any of the others will, and i personally think i can recover better and quicker financially with a couple paid in full defaults rather than a bankruptcy or debt agreement.

thanks 🙂 i know i will be able to find a job soon just got to persevere and when i do eventually get a job ill start paying as much as possible onto the debts to wipe them fast so i can get on with life, it would only take me about 6 weeks to pay off the small ones floating around that get forgotten about, then after that it will slow down a bit cause ill loose my c-link but still be able to pay things off relatively quickly, worked out it should take about 6 months all up, then ill just start from scratch with my credit rating and save a bit of money get a small secured car loan (from my bank as they will know my income and expenses and savings habit) pay that off in 6 months then hopefully try and go for a house as an investment 🙂

[Em969]

Yeah that's the reality of life hey. There'll always be hard times, but luckily they don't last forever. I try to appreciate the smaller things in life like a nice breakfast or watching my favourite TV show, it makes things a lot easier.

It sounds like you have an awesome plan!! Hopefully it'll all work out in the end 🙂