Hi Kylin,
I understand how you feel about feeling anxious all the time. From what you said it looks like this anxiety comes from the hard school life you had. Maybe that’s where the solution is too. Do you feel anxious about making friends too? Do you feel people may not respond to you nicely? So then you don’t try anything.

Maybe you should make a few friends. Not because that makes you cool and popular but because you have someone to talk to and relax with. And you have the freedom to be friends with people who you want. You don’t have to force yourself to be around someone whose company you don’t really enjoy. Maybe people who are not going to judge you and are easy going and happy go lucky are for you. Perhaps in their company you’ll learn to become easy going and carefree too.

You can just start with a ‘hi’ and a smile when someone approaches you. Does it make sense to you?

Ankita

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Ankita.

Hi Kylin!

Most people overestimate how important an exam, or other such result, is for their feelings and future.

Even if you were to fail, would that change who you are? Would it make you happy if you passed, even if the lectures wouldn’t change your skills or personality? Do you know how many certificates sit on shelves and mean nothing in the end? They’re pieces of paper, only there to help you get an idea where you stand, not to define who you are.

Is there maybe a reason that you focus so much on the paper result? There are so many other things to think about, like the good things that you have learned, on who you want to be and what you can do to get there.

Behind every lecture, every exam, every exercise, there is a greater idea, a concept that it really is about. What these mean to you is what matters. Compared to this, all the cult on pieces of paper is an afterthought at best.

In other words: exams are but an attempt to tell you about a tiny bit of yourself. Why be afraid of that?

Dear kylinc:

You are very welcome and I appreciate your gracious post above.

You wrote that you are studying overseas and this anxiety started 4 years ago, when you were in High School.

When you told your parents that you were bullied in High School, how did they respond? Did they try to help you? How?

And now, living away from home, are you in contact with them? Are they helping you?

anita

Dear kylinc:

Do you mean that you hid the bullying from your parents so to not burden them? Kept it all to yourself?

If so, when did you start hiding your troubles from your parents so to not burden them?

And if it was not you who burdened them, what has it been that burdened them so much that you didn’t want to add to it?

anita

The following is a re-post of something I wrote a few days ago. If you see the post three times with minor variations, I’m sorry, the older posts are not visible to me and blocked for editing or re-posting by what looks like a spam filter gone rogue.

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Dear kylinc,

you’re welcome! But please excuse that I’ll go at it again, because I want to make sure to convey the message properly. I sometimes struggle with that, so let’s try a quote, from the ESA’s beautiful short film “Ambition”, said to a pupil who was doing a test in a science-fiction simulator:

Nothing has changed. We fall, we pick ourselves up again. And we adapt.

I was watching you earlier; you actually did everything right.

*I* destroyed your rock. I needed to see how you would react.

You could watch it on YouTube (link removed; please search online for ESA Ambition the Film), it’s less than seven minutes long and I think it’s quite on-topic here. To be honest, I think you should watch it, because from what you’ve said, I’m not sure you would pass the test shown in this little story. There was never a way to pass the first time; the only way to pass was to fail, then to try again, to question and struggle, to remain open – to have ambition.

So many people focus so much on what people do, and so little on the reasons why they do it. There is an endless supply of stories how people do the things that look right, but for the wrong reasons, or do things that look insane, but for good reasons and with great results. So:

Why are you studying?

Is it out of fear of failure, anxiety? Because you feel you owe it to those who expect it of you? Or is it your curiosity driving you, your sense of self, your ambition, your passions? Will you walk on through the storms and fires of life when they try to block your way?

When you talk to friends about your studies, what is that like? Is it a story of timetables and grades, or a story of challenge and ambition?

Dear Kylin:

You are welcome. I am glad you studied for your exams and chose to dedicate your time to what was most important to you at the time.

If there is any future input I can give you regarding your anxiety, please let me know as I am very familiar with my own anxiety and have been healing from it for some time now, an ongoing process.

anita