As a welcome post to my very first personal blog, it seems uncouth to start on such a depressing, and frankly, triggering note. However, with the freedom to write and post whatever I want here, I might as well get the bad stuff out of the way first.
Anyone who knows me is probably thinking 'Jesus Hannah, A Levels were like a year ago, get over it', but the fact that I'm sat here now writing this, indeed a year later, says a lot about what an impact that time of my life had on me. Spoiler alert: a bad one. Maybe I should be writing this kind of stuff in a diary or something, but if one person yet to do A Levels reads and takes something positive away from this, I guess it was worth making public.
I believe that the system has now changed and A Level exams all occur at the end of a two year course (and not be scare anyone away, but God help you), but I experienced the more standard AS thing, i.e two years, both with exams at the end. My mistake, and this is one I hope someone will listen to and learn from, is that I got over-confident. That's a hard thing for me to admit as self-deprecation is what I'm more accustomed to, but I did; I thought because I'd gotten rid of all the annoying GCSE subjects that I didn't like, that this was going to be plain sailing. You're good at essay subjects Hannah, you're going to have two years of chilling. Oh how wrong I was. Not only did I spend the first few months of year 12 entirely oblivious of my responsibilities and the amount of work I should have been doing, I just did not revise enough for my AS exams and cried on results day when I got lower than I expected. I literally look back and cringe. Yes, I did well in the only subject I bothered to revise at all thoroughly for, R.E., but foolishly thought the other three would follow suit. They didn't.
Unfortunately, I'm a person of extremes, and I have an addictive personality. So, rather than simply upping my game slightly, working a little bit harder, I decided that exhaustive work was the way to go: don't take my advice on that front. In year 13, the novelty of my new environment of sixth form had worn off, and I spent every day worrying about the next. I'm very good at not asking for help or telling people when I'm stressed, so on the surface I was my normal bubbly (annoying) self. By February of 2016 I was fully into the process of revision for exams that didn't begin until May and June, and was secretly more severely anxious by the day. If anyone reading this does or has ever felt like this, I would now recommend with hindsight that you definitely talk to someone about it.
By the study leave period I was hardcore studying all day, every day, and what made this time even worse, was my time spent in libraries. No offense to attendees of the University of Liverpool or anything, but registering a library card to study A Levels there genuinely ruined my life. SUCH depressing libraries. It's such a bitter sweet time to look back on because I got the grades I wanted, even better in fact, yet I think to myself; why did I have to be that sad, and that stressed, to get where I needed to be?
My entry requirements for uni haunted me so much, and by the time exams finally came around, I honestly had no thought in my mind that I was capable of those achievements. Rather than intense revision making me feel good and confident about myself, the more I did, the more I had convinced myself that nothing was going to be enough. Any social event I managed to attend made me racked with guilt and my parents pretty much saw me as a nightmare teenager, because all I did was sulk in my room and hardly talk to them.
Even when the exams were finally done with, I still couldn't rest at the thought of results day, and the idea that maybe AS would repeat itself and I'd open those results to disappointment, was too much for me to even contemplate. Around a week before results day I was hospitalised with a severe pain in my head unlike any headache I'd ever experienced; so severe that doctors thought I might have a bleed or fluid on the brain. They couldn't find any diagnosis, but the pain immediately subsided when I got my results. No coincidence, I think you'll agree. Anyone who has me on Instagram probably saw the picture I uploaded that day. Man, I looked rough.
If anyone, and I mean anyone feels this way when faced with exams, I want you to know that talking about it is the first and best step you can take. I've come to realise that I was selfish for thinking that I was the only one going through the feelings that I was, and if I had only reached out I would have learned how common it is and how much help is out there. I am not suggesting that you shouldn't work hard for A Levels, because if you want to do well at something, anything, hard work has to be involved. What I want is for people to have a more positive experience than I had, and to understand that hard work can be celebrated and rewarded, rather than having the outlook that no amount of work is enough. You are enough.
As a university student I can say that I have not entirely conquered this 'fear' of exams, if you will, and I am no expert on how to get there. What I can say for sure however, is that communication is key, and help is out there as close as just telling a family member, and what's more, you can work hard for something and feel proud of that work, rather than constantly fearing your own success. You can do it.
H x
Anyone who knows me is probably thinking 'Jesus Hannah, A Levels were like a year ago, get over it', but the fact that I'm sat here now writing this, indeed a year later, says a lot about what an impact that time of my life had on me. Spoiler alert: a bad one. Maybe I should be writing this kind of stuff in a diary or something, but if one person yet to do A Levels reads and takes something positive away from this, I guess it was worth making public.
I believe that the system has now changed and A Level exams all occur at the end of a two year course (and not be scare anyone away, but God help you), but I experienced the more standard AS thing, i.e two years, both with exams at the end. My mistake, and this is one I hope someone will listen to and learn from, is that I got over-confident. That's a hard thing for me to admit as self-deprecation is what I'm more accustomed to, but I did; I thought because I'd gotten rid of all the annoying GCSE subjects that I didn't like, that this was going to be plain sailing. You're good at essay subjects Hannah, you're going to have two years of chilling. Oh how wrong I was. Not only did I spend the first few months of year 12 entirely oblivious of my responsibilities and the amount of work I should have been doing, I just did not revise enough for my AS exams and cried on results day when I got lower than I expected. I literally look back and cringe. Yes, I did well in the only subject I bothered to revise at all thoroughly for, R.E., but foolishly thought the other three would follow suit. They didn't.
Unfortunately, I'm a person of extremes, and I have an addictive personality. So, rather than simply upping my game slightly, working a little bit harder, I decided that exhaustive work was the way to go: don't take my advice on that front. In year 13, the novelty of my new environment of sixth form had worn off, and I spent every day worrying about the next. I'm very good at not asking for help or telling people when I'm stressed, so on the surface I was my normal bubbly (annoying) self. By February of 2016 I was fully into the process of revision for exams that didn't begin until May and June, and was secretly more severely anxious by the day. If anyone reading this does or has ever felt like this, I would now recommend with hindsight that you definitely talk to someone about it.
By the study leave period I was hardcore studying all day, every day, and what made this time even worse, was my time spent in libraries. No offense to attendees of the University of Liverpool or anything, but registering a library card to study A Levels there genuinely ruined my life. SUCH depressing libraries. It's such a bitter sweet time to look back on because I got the grades I wanted, even better in fact, yet I think to myself; why did I have to be that sad, and that stressed, to get where I needed to be?
My entry requirements for uni haunted me so much, and by the time exams finally came around, I honestly had no thought in my mind that I was capable of those achievements. Rather than intense revision making me feel good and confident about myself, the more I did, the more I had convinced myself that nothing was going to be enough. Any social event I managed to attend made me racked with guilt and my parents pretty much saw me as a nightmare teenager, because all I did was sulk in my room and hardly talk to them.
Even when the exams were finally done with, I still couldn't rest at the thought of results day, and the idea that maybe AS would repeat itself and I'd open those results to disappointment, was too much for me to even contemplate. Around a week before results day I was hospitalised with a severe pain in my head unlike any headache I'd ever experienced; so severe that doctors thought I might have a bleed or fluid on the brain. They couldn't find any diagnosis, but the pain immediately subsided when I got my results. No coincidence, I think you'll agree. Anyone who has me on Instagram probably saw the picture I uploaded that day. Man, I looked rough.
If anyone, and I mean anyone feels this way when faced with exams, I want you to know that talking about it is the first and best step you can take. I've come to realise that I was selfish for thinking that I was the only one going through the feelings that I was, and if I had only reached out I would have learned how common it is and how much help is out there. I am not suggesting that you shouldn't work hard for A Levels, because if you want to do well at something, anything, hard work has to be involved. What I want is for people to have a more positive experience than I had, and to understand that hard work can be celebrated and rewarded, rather than having the outlook that no amount of work is enough. You are enough.
As a university student I can say that I have not entirely conquered this 'fear' of exams, if you will, and I am no expert on how to get there. What I can say for sure however, is that communication is key, and help is out there as close as just telling a family member, and what's more, you can work hard for something and feel proud of that work, rather than constantly fearing your own success. You can do it.
H x
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