Once upon a time, I was a kid. A happy kid. In elementary school, I loved to read books, turn in homework before class ended, show off my one and only talent and participate in class. I was off to a good start: I made it into the gifted program in fifth grade and my teacher told me to never stop striving to be the very best.
However, that streak of joy was broken when my grandmother, someone I held very close to my heart, died when I started middle school. I tried to pick myself up from the impact of her death but the multiple stages of grief were being piled upon the awkward years of middle school. However, that was just the first kick to the stomach. It was one thing after the other and soon enough, I realized that I dug my own grave and jumped right in. My depression continues on today and I'm 17.
You see, I am not the only one who has suffered this ungraceful fall from glory. I am not the only one who was once told that they're gifted and talented and an absolute wonder and now... what are we now? We don't want to get up from bed to face the constant disappointment at school. We can't keep up with the work because the motivation we once had just isn't there anymore. We want to be proud of anything we actually do right, despite our confusion and exhaustion, but there's always mistakes and the mistakes take a bigger toll on us than they should. We try and we try and we try, even to the point of panic attacks, but it's never enough. Countless sleepless nights, redoing assignments until they're perfect, procrastinating on assignments because you're afraid of doing it wrong...
The grades never show our efforts and that hurts.
The thing is, stress from life is already a big issue pre-teens and teenagers have to deal with but on top of that, we have stressful situations at school that we can't avoid. An American Psychological Association Survey shows that "teen stress rivals that of adults." Depression can be triggered by high stress levels yet there are teachers who believe that slipping grades are always caused by laziness rather than depression. Slipping grades, an event that usually leads to a stressful conversation with your school counselor, who's hanging these things over your head, reminding you that you have to go to college to be successful. Even if your grades aren't slipping, if somehow you are keeping yourself afloat, if your grades aren't all A's, high schools nationwide rarely recommend you to even look at prestigious universities.
And that makes you feel worse, because if you don't go to a prestigious university like NYU or Georgia Tech, then you're basically a failure. Right? (Wrong.)
Look. I know how you feel. Everything is a struggle. You can't escape this loop. You think you're trying your best but it's never enough. The most important thing is that you're trying your best at the time, even with a ton of stress upon your shoulders, you're fighting. And even if you're not fighting, even if you're the type of "former gifted and talented" student who simply gave up and joined the "average" students, that's not bad either. Your mental health is important, especially as you grow.
You're important. Take it easy.
