Exam stress? Here's useless advice!

So, the reason why you're stressed is probably this: you procrastinate and therefore you have not done enough work. Actually, right now, I have two essays to write that have to be done by tomorrow evening and instead of working on them, I am writing this. Even if you do a lot of work...do more. 

I know this is boring, but revising (or studying) every single day will help reduce your stress...by quite a lot. Not for long, just one or two hours and try to focus on the things that you don't actually know. The mistake I did an awful lot for my maths exams back in Year Nine/Year Ten (ages 13-16) was revising stuff I knew but didn't know that well and stuff I knew from the back of my hand and that's it. I didn't even bother trying to learn the 3D shape with the X and Y on it and...yeah, I hope you know that one, because I still don't have a clue.

This one is preached an awful lot, but drinking water and snacking on healthy food often will increase your brain's ability to do a better job, put simply. What's the point in revising a lot if you're not going to remember it, or you'll be so tired on the day of your exam that you just want to fall asleep on the desk rather then spend the little hour you have on that essay? Which is another thing, go to bed early and get at least eight hours rest everyday. Finding a place where you feel like you have the most sleep is best, but it's usually about eight. I think, don't quote me on that, but I'm pretty sure *nervous giggle*. 

I have also developed revision sheets (I may or may not show in a future post) that I find quite helpful. I, for background information, am re-sitting my A Level exams and coursework, and one of them is "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde. The other thing we are doing is poetry by W.B.Yeats, which is...quite a lot of poems, at least ten I think. For poetry, I have created summary sheets quickly explaining what the poem is about, any context that goes with it, important quotes/verse form/words etc that would be useful in the exam, and a quote from another Yeats poem for a quick comparison between them, with the full poem attached to it just in case I want to look over it quickly. For "The Picture of Dorian Gray", I have created very similar profile sheets for each major character in the book, the same goes for themes, and also a couple of sheets each dedicated to critical opinion and context. 

Something I found really useful in my high school exams, too, was printing off past paper questions from online websites and just doing at least three or four per week and continuously improving them and improving them, because not only does this help you practice actual writing but as you do it, all the useful information you need will start to sink into your head. Do it in exam style conditions, which would only take an hour per essay for example if you're doing English Literature like me, or however long you'll think will be given per question if you're doing something like science or geography.

I never had any friends in school, so if you're like me on that front, don't worry about having someone there to ask questions to and have them tell you if you're right or wrong, you can do that yourself with study cards! You can get them in a variety of colours so they're pretty useful. Which reminds me, making things eye catching for you (it doesn't matter if they are to anyone else), that will help you take the information in, especially if you're a visual learner. 

Remember, the more work you do, the less stressed you get, I promise. It'll all be worth it in the end.

With that said, I wish you good luck on your upcoming exams and will see you for my next post!

The Life of the Autistic - Depression, Anxiety and Stress.

Really stupid things bother and stress me out, make me anxious and depress me. Although I am aware of this, it doesn't make it go away, it doesn't change anything. There's only a few things right now that are bothering me, on top of the normal teenage hormones that every teenager has.

I have huge anxiety problems, one of the biggest is change in routine and being unable to build a routine. As I have mentioned several times, I'm going to England to see my family on Tuesday/Wednesday. That right there is one thing that stresses me out, not knowing whether we are going on Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning. My mother has already come to explain to me that she can't give me the exact day and has told me the reasons why that is, but it doesn't change anything. I feel extremely nauseated over this, I haven't been breathing properly over the past few days, anxiety attacks are going back to being common and boy...the chest pain is probably the worst right now. 

I can't pack everything right now and yes, I am fully aware it's a week away and packing right now isn't needed but I like to be ready for things, I like to know what's happening. It seems simple but all the clothes need washing and I need some clothes to wear for this week and it's bringing on so much anxiety, and I just want to go to a corner, shut the door and scream while pulling my hair out (yes, caused by the autism) which I have a feeling might happen sooner rather then later at a really bad time, as usual. 

My phone bill isn't paid and if we don't have the money to pay it by the time England comes around, it's going to make things so much harder - my boyfriend Austin lives in Ohio, quite the while away from the UK and if there's anything wrong with the Internet and something happens, I always use my phone and will go to Austin to help myself calm down because he always knows exactly what to say and gives the most useful advice for how I can fix what's wrong or how I can make things better and without having that little safety net, it's a huge anxiety trigger for me. I know, I know, another teenager obsessed with her phone but honestly, I don't care what other people think about that (obviously, otherwise I wouldn't be making this post), it's something that I need to help me. 

Along with the above, I am not in the best home situation. To put it nicely, I have a very bratty younger sister who likes to make things harder on all of us. She's putting a lot of pressure and worry and anxiety on top of me, and all of the anxiety I already had is just making me super depressed. I am not diagnosed with severe depression, so just putting it out there that my main problem is and always has been anxiety, especially socially. My mother is also very very busy and most of my life, I am not ashamed to admit that I have relied on her for most things so during times like this when I need her to be consistent and to know things, she can't do that for me and it's probably driving her as well as me crazy.

My exam is in a month and as you probably already know, autistic kids have a lot of problems with revision/studying and everytime I try to do it, I can't remember anything and I freak out and get too anxious and angry to continue - then the fact I will probably fail the exam if this continues just makes me want to cry because if I try to tell anyone about this, they tell me things like "All you have to do is work hard. You get what you deserve!" but I am trying hard, I really am. I'm not getting anywhere. 

There's also a few personal problems going on with me, too, that I haven't even told Austin about so I'm obviously going to leave that out of here...

Basically, I won't be blogging for a little bit. I might be a couple of days, a couple of weeks, a couple of months, I don't know. It won't be until I have a steady routine going on, and I'm in a situation where I can come up with ideas. I will still be writing a lot of drafts on here as I always do because I do love writing, but they have bad spelling and they're not structured, I just don't have the energy to fix them so they're worthy of being published. I hope you can understand. I will see you when I can.