Leavers '22

On the 23rd June, I finished high school- it's bittersweet. The last 5 years there consists of many memories, both good and bad.

5 years ago, little (not like I've grown) year 7 me had hope that in 5 years time, I would have overcame SM, but also believed that I wouldn't be able to do it- both beliefs were wrong. Having gone from a year group of less than 30 to a year group of over 170 students seemed impossible. Seeing people make new friends or stay with their primary friends isolated me more than I knew, but after growing apart from my primary friends, I slowly started to make a group of friends. That group of friends helped to decrease my anxiety but at the same time, I began to realise even more how ignorant people could be. Most of the time at high school, I always said to my friends how much I hated my form, and a lot of that hatred grew in year 7 where I didn't really have any friends and I had my first experience of bullying within high school. Although 5 years later, I can't remember what was said or anything that happened, I know there's still a part of me that will forever hate form because of them. That experience with them wasn't the last, and although they stopped in the end, others began and ultimately it was the pandemic and the lockdowns (year 9) which ended it instead of the teachers. There was countless reports made and as time went on, the reports became less frequent- not because it stopped but because I became less heard. Now, over 2 years later from it mostly stopping, there is still a part of me who will forever hate them and have fear from being around them.

Year 8 basically was a repeat of year 7 but I was surrounded by friends more. Year 9 was a weird year, where so much happened. A geography trip happened which I know my friends will never let me forget it, but I hope the teachers have forgot and it isn't one of those story times that teachers now tell- I mean if it is, then they should be thankful for the story time. One of my closest family members died and we went into lockdown less than 2 months later. Online learning for the 1st lockdown was a weird experience, I didn't see anyone for 3/4 months and is probably one of the main reasons why I lost a couple of friends and overall my anxiety/mental health got worse. Year 10 was another strange year, we had to keep being isolated and then lockdown 2 happened. The self isolations and lockdown 2 was different to lockdown 1 as there was online classes that we had to attend, and couldn't just do the work whenever. Lockdown 2 was one of the main reasons on why my SM got worse, although I wasn't physically communicating, I was still communicating with other people that I wasn't comfortable with, even commenting 'here' in the comments for the registers and being put into a breakout room with my friend increased my anxiety so much. As we went back into school after lockdown 2, I saw it wasn't just online that my anxiety increased, but it had also transferred into actually going to school. At that time, my anxiety hadn't increased that much but it just made me stop answering the register for supplies and form. A couple of months before summer, we had to do our english speaking GCSE... thankfully I didn't have to do it, but I still wrote a speech which was then read out to my class- it was about SM (are we surprised?). It went down pretty well and in the summer my mum emailed it to numerous newspapers/TV new (they've still not replied).

Before I knew it, I started year 11- that was now 9 months ago. The first 2/3 months of year 11 was okay, we were just bombarded with the fact that in however many months we would be sitting our GCSEs and leaving school, which then seemed like forever until we leave. My english teacher got in contact with a charity to try and help spread awareness for SM... they replied for a bit and then stopped (they're genuinely missing out) but it instead got published in the schools newsletter. Until November/December, year 11 was going good, and I'm not sure what happened (maybe it was the mocks, who knows) but my SM got worse fast. I was having anxiety/panic attacks (I don't know what it was to be honest) nearly everyday and there was multiple days where I had multiple but overall I was good at hiding it and no one really noticed them. My SM also started impacting my tests/mocks which wasn't good when I would be sitting my GCSEs in 5 months. I had hope that after the Christmas holidays that my anxiety wouldn't be as bad- I was wrong. Since school started again in January, I haven't answered a single register and most days had multiple anxiety/panic attacks every day.

The countdown of our GCSEs was no longer "it's in ... months/weeks" but instead "it's tomorrow" "you have 30 minutes." The thing that we had been counting down to for the past 5 years now became reality. Apart from the couple mistakes that the exam board made and putting an A-level question on the paper, they mostly went okay. The exams that I normally didn't do that good in, went better than expected. Apart from the literature and RE papers, one of the geography and biology papers, my SM didn't really impact any other of my exams. Soon enough, it came down to the last couple exams and eventually 23rd June. As soon as that 1 hour 15 minutes were up, it was relief that we had all actually done it. The countdown was finally over. High school became a part of our past where we're never going back.

Year 7 me definitely wasn't right with the beliefs of I 'wouldn't be able to do it' and 'having hope I would have overcome SM by the end.' But the belief of 'I wouldn't have been able to do it' would have been right if it wasn't from a couple of teachers and friends- one of the teachers who made me want to carry on spreading awareness for SM even after the past 5 years.