f17 struggling at school, I force myself to go I hate this

before you read: I was on a call with chatgpt when I told it this. It wrote down every single word I said, so that is why this will look like a stream of consciousness, but add em dashes.

I’ve been going through a tough time at school and at home. For context, I’m a 17-year-old female, and—to not bury the lead—what happened is that my grandmother died three weeks ago. And it changed my perspective; like, it changed how I see things, it changed how I see my father, because he has been suffering in silence, because he does not want to worry us, but he has been suffering for quite some months,actually.

So yeah, my grandmother died after fighting against cancer for a year and a half, more or less, and she… I never knew her that well, so I’m not grieving. I am sad, but I don’t feel like I am grieving, and I don’t want to take that word and change its meaning or use it improperly, because it must mean something else for people who lose their loved ones. She is a person that I loved, but we did not have that deep connection that is found in grieving. So, I won’t say I’m grieving, but I am suffering through her loss.

And I am sad about her passing away— and I’m not here to talk about that right now—because it is what it is. But I’m going through a difficult time at school, because I cannot focus. I lose all of my attention in like three minutes, more or less. That is my attention span, and I cannot focus. I am not disciplined; I cannot force myself into doing that.

And I have been struggling for like a whole month now, because I have no motivation at all, and I am struggling. So, for example, what happens is that I have not studied properly in like a month. And now I am struggling, because I have a whole month’s worth of revision material from all of my subjects at school, and I have not studied yet.

And every single day feels like a nightmare, because the teachers might call on me. And in Italy, it works that when you are called on and you answer the question, then you get a grade. And then the mean of the grades is the final grade that you get in the final report of the school year. So it’s not just planned exams, but there can also be surprise tests—basically oral tests.

So yeah, I am struggling with that. And I also struggled because I had a verbal disagreement with a teacher of mine. She yelled at me because I told her that I am struggling. And because I lied to her about my kind of struggle—I told her that something happened one night and I couldn’t study, but since I was so scared of her I worded it wrong and it didn't sound like I planned, so "I don't feel like taking this test because I have not had proper sleep and I didn't get a chance to revise", instead it sounded like "Yeah, I had this accident yesterday during the night so I couldn't study, and on top of that my grandmother died". You can all imagine her reaction.She told me that I had the whole day to study. Her argument was correct, but her reaction was improper, because when I told her that my grandmother died...and I guess I’m not grieving, because I did not have a deep connection with her, like I told you—I just knew her, not from afar, but grew up on a completely different side of the world from where she was living.

So yes, I was not grieving, but the teacher basically called me a liar and told me that next time I want to lie to her, I need to figure it out and rehearse my lie before telling her anything.

And yeah, that made me feel bad. She yelled at me and called me names like ‘foreigner,’ stuff like that. I am visibly a POC.

And then, yesterday, I did not have a period with this teacher, so I was not even going to run into her. But I still skipped school for no reason at all. I was already dressed, with makeup, ready to step outside my door—I was literally on my doorstep—and I decided that I did not want to go.

Not because I was tired, not because I had not studied—because actually, yesterday I did not have any kind of exams or anything—but I don’t know what came over me. I was actually venting to ChatGPT to tell it my side of what happened with the disagreement with the teacher. And I was so anxious that this teacher might give me a bad grade at the end of the school year, or maybe talk to my parents, stuff like that.

So I was really worried, and even though I did not have her class yesterday, I still skipped, because I was scared. I don’t know, I felt like some kind of anxiety took over me. I felt so anxious that I could not go to school. I was embarrassed. I had told her in private that I was struggling and that I needed to only her because I did not want to bring it up in front of my classmates and she decided it was best to yell at me in front of all of them. I just could not go.

And it was really tough for me, because I was already ready to go—fully dressed, everything—but I didn’t. I had this strong sense of anxiety. I was really scared. I don’t know of what, but I felt really scared.

And in the past, I had—like, I guess you could say—two anxiety attacks, panic attacks, like mental breakdowns. I had only two where I was so scared that I was trembling and crying and stuff like that, I couldn't breathe and everything. On top of that, last year I strugfled with depression and binge eating. Now I'm no longer depressed and I have been feeling great until last month, obviously.But yesterday, I was not crying, but I was just really scared. I felt like I was made of stone; I was stiff. I could not move. I could not budge from my place.

I had already had breakfast, I had my backpack, everything. I was ready—like every day. I just needed to step through the door and go to school. But I didn’t."

So, my friend told me today—she saw that I was not at school yesterday—and she was talking about how other classmates often skip. She was saying that they skip because they don’t take responsibility, they don’t study, and stuff like that.

And we even laugh about it sometimes, because they don’t seem to be struggling. At first, they skip just because they want to—like, life is good and they don’t have any worries—so they skip. And then things start accumulating: they skip one test, then another, and then they have to make up for four tests in just one day.

And I understand that it’s difficult, but they put themselves in that position in the first place.

So she was ranting about them, saying how much she hates when people skip school and how inconsiderate they are. And then she said, ‘Oh yeah, well, you skipped yesterday, and you skipped a lot this past month.’

And that was true—I skipped a lot of days. But she also told me, ‘You have your issues, and I’m not going to ask you to explain.’

And yeah, she knows that I have some issues—I’ve told her—but I don’t feel like telling her what happened specifically, because it was not even a panic attack. But I felt like I was made of stone; I could not move yesterday. I was so scared.

So I won’t tell her, because I’m afraid she will judge me.

Am I being overdramatic? Am I in the right, or was I just really scared because I had not studied.

Because, like I said, yesterday I did not have any kind of test or even a surprise test. There was no chance that I would be called on. I didn’t even have that teacher’s class.

So it doesn’t make sense for me to skip... I wouldn’t have skipped—I was ready to go.

And yeah, for no reason at all, I skipped.

I don't know if im in the right or wrong. Is it common or uncommon? Am I just overdramatic maybe...I don’t know—what is happening to me.

I feel like I have lost all focus.