Academic validation: a disorder
Sireen Hajaig, 1ère
“I have to be the best of the best” is something I constantly repeat to myself while studying.
I, like many teenagers, suffer from academic validation, a disorder, where we seek affirmation within ourselves through grades.
We blame ourselves, we always feel guilty, and no score feels enough anymore.
We spend sleepless nights and whole days studying, hoping for the highest mark in class and when it’s not achieved we wallow in our rooms, dark thoughts invade our minds as we see ourselves as failures.
“It’s not enough” “ I need to study more” we are always reminded of the time passing quickly, how we are in our final school days and every grade is to be sent to universities. This sort of deadline that keeps on approaching day after day increases the stress that we feel. We start wanting to excel in every exam, every test just to be one of the few who gets accepted to those big schools. We want to be “the best of the best” and although we do suffer we always push ourselves to do more. How immoral and inhumane right. But we cannot fight it, it is stronger than us. Staying until 3 am studying for an exam the next day is simply unethical, yet we still do it. We would rather study on a Friday night rather than go out, celebrating ourselves and all the effort we give in. But we can’t get ourselves to do that, can we? When nothing is sufficient and all we want to do is stay by ourselves and study incessantly. The so-called “best years of our lives” are only gonna be remembered by all the breakdowns, by the damaged eyes from the screen that we keep our faces plastered against, and by the undereye bags that reflect all the anxiousness and worry for the future, in which we have no say in, that was ruling our lives. We try in a way to pave our fate, our destiny. To ensure the best continuity after school and college.
And when we don’t get a full mark, we only have ourselves to blame “ why didn’t you study more?” “it’s not enough”.
“Look, x got the highest grade in class” this simple phrase can crush one’s hopes and self-esteem. The fight for our academic scores does not lie only in our minds but also between peers. This kind of competitiveness among colleagues takes a toll on one’s already destroyed mental health. The battle and the tension are inexplicable when it comes to grades. Everyone wants to have the best one, the highest one, and when you see other people doing better than you, you start questioning yourself “why didn’t I work more?” “Why didn’t I get a better grade?” “am I even capable of doing this?” “There is no way a university is going to accept me now” This fear of failure eats us alive, it controls us, our actions, our way of thinking. We start associating suffering and overworking with success: the only way to achieve big accomplishments is through assiduous work. And although it might be true there is a fine line between hard work and overworking yourself that keeps on getting crossed. People don’t know when to limit themselves when it comes to studying, emphasizing the slogan “I have to be the best of the best” that motivates them in a way to keep on going without any boundary to ensure having the best rank. We, as teens, rely heavily if not completely on our grades to determine our happiness. When scores reveal themselves while having a mentality where it’s either all or nothing, students face collateral damage where they fall into depression and self-consciousness, “what if my best isn’t enough”.
We, as youth scholars, want the utmost desire to make our parents proud of us, we want constant reassurance from them, the constant affirmation” we are proud of you”. It gives us meaning, a drive, a motivation to keep up with everything to do. We start thinking that by overworking ourselves we can get their satisfaction. In some cases it is true, some parents pressure their kids to be the first in their class, they deprive them of any form of leisures wanting them to focus exclusively on their academic work and excel. So teens, having got their privacy and liberty taken can’t do anything but abide by their parents’ policies and get good grades. The pressure that their parents accumulate, deteriorates furthermore the young person’s psychology. Therefore, as it has been pointed out, this quest for confirmation does not reside solely in one’s consciousness but is externalized due to many factors as we have mentioned previously.
To put it simply why do I categorize academic validation as a disorder. This self-affirmation keeps on running in our minds, whether the outcome is the one we seek or not, in the long term its repercussions are harmful. We will lead a life where nothing we achieve is enough, we would self isolate ourselves to accomplish the impossible and would numb ourselves when faced with failure. We will solely depend on the success and wouldn’t know how to continue living without this kind of validation. Now, I suffer from this sickness and would encourage everyone to just take a break, relax and reflect on the important things in their life aside from studying as we do sometimes envy people who don’t care as much about their grades. You just have to remind yourself that life isn’t just about grades even if it seems like it sometimes.
