Straight A* Student to Straight U Grade Student ??AMA

Hi

I can't say that I have been in your situation, or one similar, but I think it might be important for you to speak to someone who is some sort of professional about this. If you tell a teacher something in confidence, they have no right to tell anyone about it (including your parents), unless you are at risk of coming to harm. If you don't feel comfortable about this, perhaps you could try an anonymous service such as Childline, where they have trained people who can listen and offer advice for your situation? You can do this by phone or through their online service (which, if I remember correctly, has measures so nobody can see that you've accessed the site).

Sorry if that wasn't helpful at all, but your education is so important, and you sound like a very capable student with a huge potential. Nobody should force you to get married at a time you don't want or to a person you don't want.

Revision wise, it must be really difficult, and I would be concerned about how this affects how much sleep you get (which can in turn affect your studies, and mood). Try and ensure you are as productive during school time as possible. You could ask a teacher if there is something that can be done to help you because you can't study at home (there will be lots of people who can't study at home for a whole variety of reasons).
If it does turn out badly this year, you could perhaps repeat year 13? I know it's probably the last thing you'd want to do, but (depending on what happens in the next few months) it may become your last option. I would say though that all is not lost yet. You can still do it this year. But the decisions you make now may influence how feasible that will be.

Hope this helps

Have you thought about calling the samaritans for free to see if they can give you advice?Do your parents not care at all about you doing well in school and going to med school?Do you have any relative or friend you could go and stay with for a couple days or even just visit a relative or friend that you could just go and study in their house?If you take the tube or bus to school you can potentially revise on your way to school and home?Utilise your frees !Have you told your parents important it is for you to study to go to med school,and maybe say something about religion and link it with being a doctor to bring them on board?Speak to any relatives that might give you support?

Do you really think I'll be able to still get the grades I need? I feel like it's too late because everyone's been revising for so long and I don't stand any chance of catching up

I know that there's probably already a lot of threads like this already but please just take a minute, I really need some help. I'm going to make it as short and snappy as possible as I know people have better things to do

A bit of background, I come from a family where girls arent allowed to study. I have been verbally, physically and emotionally abused for trying to pursue an education. My family have tried everything in their power to stop me from studying. In the end, I had to wait until everyone falls alseep and study in the middle of the night. Nonetheless, I love learning and I was more than happy to make the sacrifice because at least I get the privelege of going to school (my friends who are my age have all been married off).

I have worked so hard for the past few years, getting 2 hours of sleep per night all to try and get good grades. Its worked because I got straight A*'s in my GCSE's and Straight A's in my AS'. I am not very smart and the only way I got those grades is by killing myself trying to get revision done.

Anyway, I'm now in year 13 and I feel like I've finally broken. My family have put me through so much crap that I couldnt cope anymore. About 6 months ago (after the AS exams) I became severly depressed. Since then, I have not done any college work. Any time that I had spare, I just wasted watching pointless yt videos. I blamed myself for being lazy but in all honesty, I think I just didnt want to think about the stress of anything. By watching yt, I could zone out and not think about anything - I'd cry myself to sleep for not doing work but in the moment, I just wanted to not think about anything.

Now, I have less than a week of the Xmas holidays left and I feel worse than ever. I feel like I've left everyting too late and that I'm never going to get the grades I need to go to uni. My friends have been hard-core revsing since september and I havent even caught up all the work I missed. I tried doing some work yesterday when everyone went to bed but it took me 8 hours to make notes on photosynthesis alone!

I have not confidence that I'll do well or that I'll be able to get enoughh revsion done before the exams, my attention span is completely ruined (I cant focus on anything, everything is taking 1000 times longer than it used to).

All in all, my family was right, I am a failure and I was stupid to believe that I was worth more than an arranged marriage. I guess what I am asking is whether anyone has any advice? Do you think it's possible to still do well? Do you have any tips for deailing with my inability to focus or the fact that everything is taking me so long?

Thank you so much for your time - it really wasnt as short as I thought it would be

PS: This is my first post and I don't know what AMA means. I saw a few threads like "I just joined TSR AMA" or "I just got 5 offers AMA" and I assumed that it's some form of slang to put at the end of your tittle?

I applaud you for defying your foolish parents (no offense) for this long.

I'll share my opinions and hopefully they can be of some use.

1. Go to sleep on time. Let me prove to you why you should NEVER go to sleep late if you can help it. If you sleep on time, you get about 16 hours in the day, every single day. If you DON'T sleep on time, your body spends time recovering, leaving you with, say, 18 hours of time for that first day, but, then your body actually spends more time recovering, therefore you've actually lost time overall just for recovering. That's a waste of time. Let's take this further. It's a huge problem because of commitments. You need to be ready for school. You'll be late. You'll be less productive throughout the day for everything - any forceful religious studying your parents make you partake in, any studying you want to do, so you're actually wasting time in this way as well because you're not absorbing information effectively.

2. This "community respect" is absolute trash. Don't delude yourself. None of the wider community will give two toilet flushes about what you do. You are not their figurehead and if they care that much to talk about you, it's because they're bored of talking about their tripe. That doesn't mean you should talk down to your family or relatives, but they need to realise that you are not them.

3. There are two clear paths. Either at the age of 40 you realise you wasted your life in a failed marriage with more than 4 poor kids (not their fault) to look after, or you are a successful person in your field paying your parents back 10x. Just do what your future self would have told you to do. Even if they rejected you, they'll happily accept you again if they truly love you, when you are a doctor or whatever you want to be. Parents want security for their children - they want you to do the same pattern that they did. But don't fall for that mediocre delusion of an average life.

4. Tell your teachers what they need to know, that you are really struggling, your parents are (presumably) making you do extra work. They'll probably arrange 'compulsory' after-school revision sessions and give you tips and advice. Believe me, if it's already this bad, not much can be worse. We've already disregarded the "respect" facade. Convince your parents you'll pay them back more than they could ever think of if they let you study, if you haven't already tried this line of persuasion. Just be careful you don't say anything very compromising, otherwise police can get involved - and they don't always do a very good job - they are human after all and many are not educated about this kind of culture.

5. You say your friends are doing hardcore revision? Get them to teach you - after all you remember 90% of what you teach therefore if you do fun activities and quizzes etc. with them, you will learn more (and they will learn even more) - so it's a win-win situation, and you'll learn a lot more than taking boring 8 hour notes for which you'll probably be remembering very little.

Hope that helps. Remember, take action and go against the norm as you have always done. You are probably procrastinating because your heart is being forced to be subservient. You are not that type of person so it just doesn't work out well.

Just wondering if you got an offer for medicine for Cambridge or not?

Sorry for the late reply to everyone (all my electronics were taken away from me because I took too long making my family's evening meal). I don't know how or why but I got an offer from Cambridge to study medicine. I'm overjoyed but I'm also worried as with everything going on, plus the fact that I only have 4 months until the exams, I may not get the grades to follow through with the offer. I don't know whether to feel happy or sad

Sorry for the late reply to everyone (all my electronics were taken away from me because I took too long making my family's evening meal). I don't know how or why but I got an offer from Cambridge to study medicine. I'm overjoyed but I'm also worried as with everything going on, plus the fact that I only have 4 months until the exams, I may not get the grades to follow through with the offer. I don't know whether to feel happy or sad