#The threat of failure whenever I didn't do my homework or wasn't in school enough

[thetardisisnotourdivision]

You know that bit of year eleven where you've finished all the content for the courses you're doing but it isn't quite exam season yet so it just feels like you're in limbo... how from the very start of the year I just felt like I was waiting for the 15th of May, to start the exams I've been prepared for since I was four... all the threats and practice and now it's real and it's like you just can't process it, something that has been nothing but a looming shadow for so long is suddenly so real and just around the corner. Full circle. It'll all be over and my mind just can't figure out what to do with that knowledge.

#Its very similar to that one specific Neurodivergent™ mood where something's happening later in the day #so you Cannot Do Anything until then #Like I feel like I'll fail if I even mildly divert from doing revision #I've stopped sewing and watching the shows I like #Everything I do now pertains to Passing My Exams #There's something there isn't there #The threat finally becoming a reality #The threat of failure whenever I didn't do my homework or wasn't in school enough #Even when I was seriously ill #“you'll fail your GCSEs” is all I've ever heard #“it'll look good on the exam” #“The examiners want to see this even though they haven't specified that you should include it” so we're supposed to just guess? #Years of mark schemes and “what the examiners want to see” and “how they'll try to trip you up” #Over a decade of being told about these faraway exams that will shape my life #Five years of “you'll fail your exams if you don't do xyz” whenever someone wanted me to do something #Five years of using these exams as an excuse to work myself to death because it was that or face the pain #Five years of having to be perfect and it'll all just be... Over #It's a strange kind of freedom that I know I'll look back on and cry #A strange feeling of being able to breathe for the first time #And simultaneously the feeling of dread #The one constant in my life #The exams I was told I would someday face #Is about to be gone #No more excuses #No more running from my problems #No more endless revision and homework and “your grades will drop if you're ill” #Just silence #It'll be Over and I just can't process that #gcse revision #gcses