My grades are making me go crazy and it's ruining my passion...
I am 16F in highschool who's about to go into my junior year. For context, I've always been a good student: straight A's, leadership, advanced/gifted kid, sometimes a teacher's pet. Unfortunetly, something that sets me back is my depression, suicidal thoughts, and anxiety. My freshman year however I took pretty basic on level and honors classes (except for AP Spanish Lit because I am a native speaker and varsity orchestra because im pretty killer at the violin), i took on level algebra because I honestly thought I was stupid and bad at math. Fast forward to today, entering my junior year, my schedule looks like this:
Yearbook, Varsity Orchestra, AP Calc BC, AP Bio, APUSH, AP Lit IV
Pretty "advanced" right? All APs. Yeah, I discovered I was actually pretty good at math. Like, REALLY good at math... and other subjects too. I just had a lot of doubt and wasn't confident in myself. I met a guy I really liked and we dated for a long while (Specifically 9 months, then broke up for 3 months, and got back together to finish off a year of being together), this boy was and still is a little genius, he graduated top 3 of his class (I was a freshman and he was a junior when we started dating) and averaged a 3.5 on all his AP exams, and we're talking AP Chem, Bio, APUSH, classes that I have added into my schedule because I looked up to him. Everything changed when I told this boy I wanted to take AP Chemistry in the upcoming year and he straight up told me I "wasn't smart enough for AP Chemistry". He minimized me. It broke me. Sure, I'm not Albert Einstein, but hell, I'm pretty sure I can handle AP chem. I'm aware of its complexity and difficulty but I love chemistry, I am a total chemistry nerd. (The only thing stopping me from taking it right now is that nobody else in my school wants to take it with me.) From that moment I began an "internalized" competition with him to see who is better academically, 80's and 90's aren't good enough for me anymore, I get frustrated when I get anything below a 95. Anything under 90 is a fail. I signed up for all APs as you can see above. He, on the other hand, probably has no idea how much I compared myself to him and even now I still compare everything I do to him. For example, Taking AP Precalculus over the summer? Ha! He never did that! He didn't even take AP Precalculus, I'm so much better than him.
Sophomore year was awesome, I got the role of Orchestra Presidency which is usually only reserved for seniors, I ended all classes with straight A+'s, so I have been doing pretty great so far... until now. My precalculus grade is a B+ which is driving me crazy. I'm supposed to be exceptional in math. Additionally, my summer English course is at a 74 because my teacher has accused me for using AI on an essay when I did not. She is taking points off for things that were never mentioned in the assignment's rubric. I am currently fighting for a better grade, and offering to do extra work or show proof that I haven't used AI, but I haven't gotten a response yet. The thing that's driving me crazy is that I won't get into a decent college and graduate with bad grades and I'll be comparing myself to my highschool sweetheart for the rest of my life. He was a STEM aligned student, who wants to be a surgeon. While I, on the other hand, have always been about the violin, art, and music (with a love for math and science, but has excelled more in music). I have no idea what to do. I know I want to graduate with both chemistry and music, but I will go crazy if this year I get any B's and I might potentially do something drastic if I do. No, just to clarify, I'm not talking about suicide or any self harm whatsoever. I'm talking dropping out of highschool or making the choice to not attend college.
TLDR; my grades have been dropping a little bit even though I'm supposed to be amazing at school as a straight A student
My question(s) are, how much does it matter whether I'm "exceptional" or not? Can I still get into an awesome college even if I fail sometimes? How much does it matter if I'm not valedictorian or top 10 in the long run? Sorry for the long read. It's my first reddit post hehhe
Posted Jul 29, 2025, 6:26 AM UTC