Self-belief is hard in the face of all these Leaving Cert doubts

Leaving Cert student Ellie Menton describes the anxiety she is feeling ahead of her exams this summer

There are moments when I am actually pretty confident about the Leaving Cert. I take a step back and look at my grades, look at what I’m comfortable with and what I have to work on, and I think: ‘Hey, that’s not so bad! All I have to do is XYZ and then I’ll be just fine!’ I feel motivated, I get things done, and I progress all according to schedule.

These moments are few and far between, unfortunately.

Most of the time, when I stumble into bed at night or rub the sleep from my eyes in the morning, all I feel is a gnawing sense of dread in my stomach. I have so much to do. I can barely keep up with my own life at the moment.

There’s this little voice in my head constantly reminding me of things I have to do, of all the people counting on me or expecting things from me, of all the deadlines I’m supposed to make…the list goes on and on. In case that wasn’t stressful enough, somewhere along the line I decided that if I didn’t excel, then I failed.

It sounds so unreasonable. How are you supposed to excel in every exam you take, or put 100% effort into absolutely everything you do, every single time?

With the pre-exams coming up, this nagging little voice in my head has gotten worse. I got sick recently and instead of looking forward to a day of rest, to allow myself to recover, I immediately got myself hyped up for some extra study. I was so nauseated I couldn’t eat, or sometimes move, but hey, let’s work on some Irish prose!

I don’t know if I’m pushing myself too much or too little; I don’t know if taking a break is actually okay, or if people just say that; I don’t know if I’m supposed to keep working at the same pace even if I feel sick or fatigued. I feel guilty all the time, even if I’ve studied to the best of my ability.

I know where I ultimately want to end up. I don’t mean college; I mean I have an idea — even just a general one — of what kind of life I want. All of the seemingly ridiculous thoughts buzzing around my head stem from the fear that I won’t get that.

Yes, of course I know that, at 17, I can’t possibly fathom how my entire life will pan out, but still — the thought of losing that scares me to no end.

I want to believe that what I’m doing is enough. The uncertainty of exams is nerve-wracking enough without doubting myself, too. I think, with that kind of stability in my sense of self, the anxiety I feel will reduce somewhat. As my very wise grinds teacher told me; if you go in thinking you can’t do it, then you’ll be right. If you go in thinking you can, you might be right! A little belief can go a long way.