below par

ever feel like you're not good enough? like you don't know enough or you don't understand things or you can't do things other people can do so easily? ever feel like people compare you to other people better than you? or think too highly of you so you end up falling on your face?

yeah. me too.

it's nearly exam time and i've had no motivation to do any revision. the subject i need to most revision on is history and i've made some powerpoints to help me revise but theyre not finished.. i've just handed in my english language coursework never to be touched again and i hope to god it's alright.. my work didn't get marked as much as other people's work because our teacher was always busy with other stuff and i thought i could take care of things myself..

i just hate talking to people and asking for help. i hate telling people how i feel and making myself feel small because most people have such high expectations and views of me that i feel like if i slumped and did the smallest thing wrong, they'd be so disappointed and i'd be utterly humiliated for not being the person they thought i was.

i'm not even that special. i'm not a super genious, i'm just enthusiastic about getting things done. i have the confidence to get up in front of an audience and present or perform but i have no confidence to ask for help. i can't even tell mum that i feel ill and i can't talk about how i feel most of the time because i don't want to look like an attention seeker. and then when i come out with average grades when everyone thought i would do amazingly, all i can do is bury my head in the sand until the hype of results goes away.

i'm frightened of going out and being on my own. i need support and praise when i get things right so i can handle it better when i get it wrong. i hardly ever see my mother because she's always out working and a lot of the time we argue because that's what families do - argue about silly things. it's not just a few times i've been called lazy and hopeless when i feel like i put a lot of effort into things and people just don't see.

i dont want to be pushed around and i want to succeed but im afraid of rejection and humiliation, as most people are. i dont want to hide myself away because i do like positive attention, but i dont want people to fuss and look up to me because i know i will only let them down because im never as good as people expect me to be. i'm just average with a little more confidence than the rest.

i get compared to other people a lot - my friends, people who are better than me.. "your friends make you as depressed as them, they have a terrible outlook on life and they drag you down with them", "so and so has done so much work, why haven't you done that?" people just don't understand that i'm not like everyone else and i dont want to be so dont make me into someone i'm not. if i dont want to do it that way then i wont. simple as. stop comparing me to other people and let me be myself and maybe then i'll be able to talk more and do better.

i feel terrible about myself a lot of the time because i feel like i constantly let people down and i cant do anything about it. they just expect too much of me because i'm always smiling. just because i look happy, doesnt mean i will do better than those who dont look happy. charisma isn't everything - and i dont even have that much charisma. i just try to be myself but society wants me to flow with the river and i dont want to = i end up failing. that's not strictly true and that doesn't really make sense.

what i'm trying to say is, even the confident people need support because maybe the confidence is a mask, a cover-up of how they really feel underneath. care more, please.

thanks.