That’s great to hear your are still passing despite not studying. From what I remember only grade 11 and twelve count towards your final result at the end of school: is this still the case?

Yes procrastination is the worst. To be honest, I am one of them 😜 but as the years go on I am getting better at overcoming it. Part of academic success is dependent on the intelligence you were born with, but part of it is your work ethic. A good thing you can look at is how you study (the particular methods), but a big part is also just how often you manage to sit down and open your books/laptop etc. That hurdle is the part that actually causes the most anxiety (not sure if you experience this), and once you start to focus on the work and not on harshly judging yourself, it’s usually a lot easier on the mind- I have found anyway.

any thoughts on all of that?

I think now its from year 10 as it starts on your ROSA (record of school acheivement) I have found that once I actually start the work I feel a bit better.

Often it can be like the weight of each stress in our life compounds. I certainly feel like the amount of people I can truly count on in life can be counted on one hand. I wonder if that's kind of normal though. Social media is notorious for its representing "fake lives" - all these people filter only the best of their experiences and project this kind of false image of how their lives are online - this is part of what some researchers think has contributed to a rise in depression and self-harm, particularly in girls, and particularly since we were able to check social media all day long. When I was in school, you had to go home and log on to check on your social media. So that can definitely be destructive.

The people who do dislike you, who do you think they are? Obviously the people who have been harassing you have a problem. But I'm thinking what about the others. Sometimes it's not that people dislike us, but - especially when teenagers - they have all kinds of school and social pressures going on themselves, and it's just difficult to navigate that - plus teenagers as a group in general have the reputation for not being friendly anyway :P

What don't you like about your appearance my dear?

Hi again Tamrby,

Good to hear from you :)

It seems like a bit has been happening in your life. Sorry to hear you had an incident with your counselor. It's a code in any kind of health or care or related profession that people report if they reasonably suspect somebody will harm themselves or others; it's fortunate that you weren't in danger, but I guess they didn't know. If you have the motivation to keep writing to me (and want to divulge), how did the counselor cause problems for you in your school life?

The dissociations you speak of are weird, considering that you say you're not super anxious - acute anxiety could maybe make somebody have that kind of thing.. Keep an eye on it I guess, incase it's some kind of medical issue.