u/Effective_Poetry6511

I’m sure some students from less advantaged backgrounds (first generation, low income, childhood trauma etc.) will relate to this particularly, but I’m also sure there’s a lot of people that have felt this that don’t necessarily relate to those labels.

I’m in my third year as a psychology major at Unimelb (Arts, I’m female and a domestic student) and I often suffer from severe anxiety, perfectionism and imposter syndrome. I can’t help this feeling, it’s like no matter how many times I prove to myself that I can do well, I just go straight back to putting off starting the next assessment and becoming anxious because I feel like I won’t do well or that I don’t have the skill set to score well, and I’m going to let myself down, and I have no hope for my career and a spiel of whatever thoughts come next. It’s like the longer I’ve studied the less confident I am in my abilities, despite that not having any real reflection in my grades or in reality. I feel like I strangely was much more confident in my first year and I’ve only become less confident— probably due to life difficulties and becoming jaded and exhausted over time honestly.

16 out of 20 undergrad subjects so far have been either H1’s or H2A’s, I’ve only ever scored below an H2A a couple of times and it was primarily due to struggling with the changes in exam format when everything went online during COVID. For some reason MCQ open book exams completely destroyed me and dragged my grade down every time I had one, which luckily was only 3 times, but the damage was done. I personally do really well with classic exams because my recall/memory is one of my strengths, and I went from scoring all H1’s in exams and having them reliably push my grade up to tanking them and having them drag my entire grade down. I honestly felt like I’d never know what to expect no matter how much I studied for online exams, it was so disorienting and upsetting. This was a big hurdle for my confidence. But I digress.

Over the course of my degree, I have been so hard on myself that I could barely function, and eventually completely stepped away for years. I convinced myself that without an insanely high WAM I had no future, and the two H3 grades I copped due to those online exams in Covid hung over my head like a dark cloud. To me, my high 70’s H2A WAM wasn’t enough.

Trust me I know I am too hard on myself. But this is something I’ve struggled with for so long, and I’m just exhausted by how much it has broken me down, and many times sabotaged my potential. I was meant to graduate many years ago which makes me feel even worse, because I feel like I’ve wasted so much time being destroyed by my mental health, and like I could have been so much further in life. I’ve returned to finish my third year because I am determined not to let my anxiety and mental barriers beat me, but sometimes it’s just so hard. I am constantly battling with the monster that is my anxiety and my expectations. Last sem I had a good semester and scored all H1’s and H2A’s, but I still feel insecure about my skills and abilities.

I’m a first-generation university student, from interstate, not from an elite school, not from money. I come from a trauma background and left home young with no family support, and my academic dream felt like the shining light, the way I could differentiate myself from the mess I came from. I’ve never fit in at uni, or really made any friends, which made the journey very lonely. I worked full time for a lot of my degree, went through a traumatic DV relationship and experienced so much housing instability, even sleeping in my car while actively studying at one point. I know I should be proud of myself for having an H2A WAM, but I can’t help but feel like I’m not good enough and like all this has been for nothing and I have no future or career. I often feel like I don’t belong or I’m never going to be competitive enough because I don’t have the stability, support and familial academic background that a lot of other students here have. I feel ashamed every day of how long it has taken me to get to this point.

I feel disappointed in myself despite knowing I shouldn’t. I’ve been here for years and years on and off and in many ways, uni has been isolating, lonely and miserable. Long hours sitting alone in the library battling my anxiety and imposter syndrome, with no one to talk to or share content with or bounce ideas off. Despite this, I do truly love what I study, and I feel passionate about it and enjoy the rush of learning and generating ideas. I just wish I could love it without all the baggage that comes with it.

This is a bit more of an emotional/mental health confession for those who can relate or might offer some advice. Sometimes just hearing other people have felt the same is really comforting. The academic environment of this place is tough, and I think sometimes we all get too caught up in tunnel vision about grades and end up missing the forest for the trees.

TLDR; I’m a first-generation university student that suffers from imposter syndrome and anxiety, I have an H2A average/WAM and I have trouble feeling like I have any hope for the future or a career. I know deep down that I should be proud of myself but sometimes I can’t help my catastrophising mindset.

The whole conversation around this annoys me. “It’s CPTSD” “it’s childhood sexual abuse” “it’s BPD” no it’s bad writing. The writers changed her entire personality essentially overnight in a way that was highly unrealistic and no, it doesn’t make real-world sense and there weren’t “signs”. This is not an accurate depiction of anything. As a childhood abuse survivor with CPTSD (and a psych student) I’m tired of this conversation. Yes some people who suffer abuse as children go on to become sociopaths but the signs of this are evident by adolescence, people don’t develop personality disorders overnight or even over a year. Her personality shift was sloppy and made no sense, just accept that the writers were messing around to cause drama and because they got bored with Jenny’s arc and wanted to create a cartoon villain. There was a point in time that she actually represented a sensitive storyline for a childhood sexual assault victim that added value and nuance to the show and her origins in a Midwest orthodox Jewish family was one of the most interesting background representations in a show that predominantly depicts privileged middle class LA types, so it’s disappointing that they threw that all away to create a one-dimensional villain. The writers probably never intended for their laziness to be psychoanalysed to this extent, and it just gets to the point where it’s harmful to real world victims to act like this is representative of anything people are talking about in relation to it.

Even to the point where people in the fandom laugh about how she took her own life and no one cared because she was such a “bitch”, but she was only a bitch because the writers wanted drama and decided to use the only character with severe childhood sexual trauma, which is such a harmful narrative to project. People forget that as creators of entertainment content (especially mainstream content) they do have some responsibility and should have some manner of care around how they depict certain issues as these characters will inevitably come to represent real people in one way or another. I understand it’s natural to want to psychoanalyse characters, but my opinion is that truly there isn’t much here to psychoanalyse here except lazy writing, especially when it comes at the cost of involving real disorders and real traumas that real people have to explain someone’s lack of effort in a character’s growth. That’s why all this “I hate Jenny Schecter” memes and t-shirts and whatever else in the wlw community annoys me after finally watching the L word, it just bothers me that this character became a perpetual punching bag for the rest of time because of sloppy writing and people STILL use her character as a case study for childhood abuse victims.

Random rant but why do stockings literally barely reach my crotch even when I buy 1-2 sizes up. To the point where I nearly returned it because how couldn’t possible be marketed as “T to XT”, I’m the shortest out of almost all my friends. Lately I’ve been fed up with how fast stockings rip. I am 164cm tall and usually buy one size up just to allow for extra movement space so the material isn’t stretched to capacity and therefore more vulnerable to runs, but even wearing tall-extra tall sizes I’m shocked at the fact that the gusset barely reaches my crotch even when stretched to the point of nearly ripping. I’ve been investing in the more expensive “Italian” brands from Myer rather than the Kmart ones because I had a really good experience with Calzedonia tights but can’t purchase them in Australia, but it only seems to be getting worse. I wear an Australian size 8 so being plus size isn’t the issue.

Has anyone else noticed this? It’s honestly bizarre and I don’t understand who these tights could possible fit if even the “tall” size isn’t long enough for a five foot four person that wears a size S. Fed up after I spent $47 on 3 pairs of tights (30% off too!) 2 were even marketed as “anti-run and reinforced” and ripped all 3 on the first wear, before I’d even arrived at my destination, 2 of them didn’t reach my crotch without stretching so thin that any tiny movement set off runs.

Does anyone have any recommendations for brands that are actually good quality and fit a normal human being the way they are advertised? Because in this case buying more expensive brands with claims of quality or “anti run technology” has proven to do nothing but increase the amount of money I waste on each pair.