The Truth About High School...

Throughout our whole lives, we have constantly been in school, from the days that we had to be in pre-school, not wanting to let go of our parents and eventually growing up as what most consider a "pre-teen" going through the awkward stages of our lives besides our own education, but learning about friendships, relationships and ourselves. While leading up to high school, walking around those huge halls, everything changes within yourself. High school; a place of curiosity, meeting new people, a place where you dreading for the day to be over, where you will get constantly judged by others through every little thing, filled with anxiety and drama and lastly a place where you'll be spending the next four years of your life going through a roller coaster of changes and learning through the mistakes made.

Although it has been quite some time since I was in high school, I've always thought about so many little, mistakes I've done that I wish I could go back and tell myself what not to do. But then there's always moments where I realize certain situations that happened for a reason. High school always has been that way for me while looking back, experiencing all the pain and criticism from others, worrying about disappointing family and friends and most of all the anxiety I felt through those 4 years of my life as a teen. Here are some things I wish I knew before going into high school and knowing how to prepare for the four years that would change my perspective of being in high school.

1. Learning the value of self-love.

From my post that I wrote about my struggle with body image issues, I was dealing with knowing what it meant to be confident and to have a sense of self-love for myself and sometimes still do. In high school, I certainly struggle with it a ton as girls were starting to have that "glo-up" phase in their life physically and mentally, while I felt stuck within myself and still feeling like I was the same. While most of the girls I knew in high school going through changes and boys falling for them and even teachers noticing the changes, it made me felt more insecure due to what I thought the standards of what girls should look in order to fit in to the crowd. However, what did give me that boost was when I did loose weight and tried out new styles of clothes, many of my close friends looked at me as the "Tumblr, hipster, girl" but it lead me to keep caving into that label and that description of what I needed to be. As I was going through so much anxiety and stress with my life, I wasn't able to learn until after high school to learn to look into the brighter side of my imperfections to what it means for me to feel confident but even still to this day, I won't always be 100% feeling confident.

2. How to network for a professional job industry.

During my senior year of high school, I was able to learn to work in retail at 17, going on into 18, and figuring how what my strengths and weaknesses were when it comes to having a job and trying to make a living for yourself. However, when it comes to getting a degree in college, you always want to be able to network within the career path you want to pursue. As someone who was quite shy and introverted, I was always nervous and sometimes anxious when it comes to meeting new people and trying to find connections for internships etc or to even think about getting internships of whether you can get hired or not scared me. Although, there were classes in high school that allows me to learn to get a job and building up your resumes, I felt that after high school, while I started to meet other college students who has some connections with the fashion industry already, I wish I had more connections or learn to find those connections and build upon a good relations with others.

3. Be cautious with who you surround yourself with but still be able to let good people in.

As I had great close friend groups that I knew for many years, there was a struggle when it comes to people I was even once friends with still popping into my life, taking advantage of me for things that seemed valuable and materialistic. This was mentioned a bit in my body image post, where in middle school, I didn't had the greatest of friends before I met the friends I was with in high school as those groups of friends clearly saw what I was dealing with and I blindly shown vulnerability. When it comes to trying to make friends, I was struggling a ton with letting the wrong people into my life as I continuously see the good in others. Although seeing the good was a good intention to have for others, when it comes down to not taking in to considerations of others that clearly didn't see you as a friend, or bullying you for their own personal benefits, judging you, it was difficult for me to let go and move on from those people.

4. Learning that is okay to open up to friends you trust the most. When my anxiety started hit hard to depression, I also was opening up less to the people I was close with and were good people, doubting myself that they felt annoyed about me because I was consistently feeling emotional. It took a while until after senior year that I should have been more cautious about who I let in but also trust my intuitions more with people that truly cared to surround. As I was opening up to people I trusted and knew I can trust, I felt more free and a bit more relaxed as I knew they cared and not judge, I was able to try to better myself later on even if I wasn't always 100% in the mindset of feeling drowned by the high school standards. It's always good to be able to talk to someone in how you feel and that you trust the most and know that they won't stab you in the back.

5. The criticism and judgment said from bullies don't matter.

In high school and life in general, there is always gonna be a lot of When my anxiety started hit hard to depression, I also was opening up less to the people I was close with and were good people, doubting myself that they felt annoyed about me because I was consistently feeling emotional. It took a while until after senior year that I should have been more cautious about who I let in but also trust my intuitions more with people that truly cared to surround. Although there were times where I was starting to open up more (through text because confrontation is a fear of mine, in general) sometimes I was even opening up to people that may be I didn't need to open up to because of how much they benefited into using my vulnerability for what they want but in learning to find those friends that you can trust, takes time and that is okay. criticism, especially from people that barely know you. Though I have had my fair share in dealing with bullying, I did get a lot of judgment in high school from people that I was no longer considering them their friend or acquaintances, which those people were hard to pass by whether they were in the same class as me or I would see them a ton in the hallways while I'm rushing to class. I remember even the first time I was being trolled around and judged online was on a website called Formspring.me which was the MySpace version of Ask.fm and curiouscat.me where someone from my past (still can't confirm who this person is, but sort of had the idea now) was anonymously sending tons of troll messages, telling them why I was acting differently around my friends to questioning my Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus obsession in middles school and of course I wasn't super emotional about it but I was confused and shocked about why they were even joking around with these messages for or the purpose. But life is always confusing as it gets harder.

6. Mistakes and failures don't define your life and future. As stated previously with friendships and life, sometimes in life you make mistakes. However, as I have reflected back on the mistakes and think about those feelings of being a failure effecting my future, it doesn't necessarily need to define who I was when I made those mistakes in high school. When it comes to seeing my grades slipping off or seeing a low test score, it has made define that whatever failure I make, gave me a ton of anxiety of what would happen towards my future. I also had started to doubt myself more when it came to friendships, and developing into meeting new people, thinking so much about if they were to see through or make mistakes, I would be seen differently. But this isn't necessarily the case in life as you learn to grow as a person and develop more thoughts and feelings about life and yourself. I was making those failures be something that permanently becomes part of my life and knowing that I was able to slowly grow out of those mistakes and learn from it but it still a process as I still am continuing to do so.

7. Learning that it's okay for friends to come and go.

Throughout my friendships, I always felt that my friendships with others would last forever, or even a lifetime. Once I went into high school, and seeing how different my friend group was from the beginning of 6th grade, it was very different and even when I was meeting new friends in high school, they all have come into my life and left as "drama" occurs. I would hurt and scared about the thought of losing friendships, leaving the blame on myself if I did something wrong . I kept thinking that I needed them part of my life as I was growing a bond with them but most of the time I was wrong. Through the 4 years of my life in high school, I then had to learn the hard way that the people who did left the friendship, fell out for a reason, even if its good or bad. When I didn't had any friends or people left in my life while trying to go through 6th grade, it made feel pretty empty inside knowing that I was getting more cautious and scare if I were to ever start hanging out with people I knew and knew about how "weird' or "emotional" I am, hearing about issues that I made into the friendship by the girls that I thought were there for me. I realized that I didn't need a huge group of friends to have somewhat of a social life, I learned that it was okay to have close friends that are truly there for you rather than not seeing a group of people only wanting to use you as their advantage.

8. Trying your best at something is acceptable rather than being a perfectionist.

When it comes to seeing my grades in my classes and test scores, I always felt I needed to do better even though sometimes with test I didn't do as well. It made feel doubtful of what I were to do in the future of my career when seeing something that didn't make me feel happy. Not only was I letting my mistakes define me, but I was letting low scores define my success in life. I was putting so much pressure and sometimes still do in college, where I felt like it needed to be a better grade or something such as an essay wasn't good enough for the professor. Though, this is something that I'm still working on, by trying my best at something even if I wasn't good at it, or it wasn't perfect to my standards, all it matter was what I did my best at, its all the effort that makes it through being "perfectly good".

9. You will accomplish in something despite your doubts.

As I try and accept the fact that whatever I do won't always be perfect, I tend to have doubts over if I would ever accomplish something that feels so impossible. Whenever I think about the classes that I'm having the most difficult with to pass, I always get such a low self-esteem, especially when i see my grades at the moment or think that I won't be able to pass. However, it takes time to accomplish a task that you feel is nearly impossible to do. When my senior year of high school was getting closer, the thought of going to college to getting a degree was something that I wanted as I wanted to have more knowledge about the fashion industry, it was a lot of pressure. I felt that because I was considered in a different level of classes from what everyone else in, I needed to be in a good university because I felt scared if I were to take a different route, it would be seen as "downgrading" as I kept living through the expectations of others. Sometimes, I even have those moments where I would give up trying because I felt it was too difficult or something that I'm not the greatest at, which is all okay because I can always improve to get out of the rut of struggling with the class. Though going to a community college was a lot nicer and easier pace in learning about the process of how I learned and transferring into a university, made it less draining for me and felt an accomplishment already.

10. What you will experience throughout 4 years of your life will not define you but will only boost you into the person you will become.

Overall, from surviving the 4 years of a roller coaster, it has allowed me to grow and deal with experiences that I can learn from. From dealing with so much insecurities of body image, anxieties over my life and friendships, mistakes being made, it takes time to be able to get out of those situations or even to grow somewhat stronger as a person, within your life. And don't worry about how others are doing while being in high school as everyone experiences and perspectives of high school will be completely different and you do not need to do what everyone else is doing just to have fun.

Hope this info gives you a gist of what high school is like for those that are going into your first year as a freshman. Though not all these things will apply to your experience of high school, remember that everyone's life experiences are different and not always gonna have the same outcome.

If you like more tips and advice on high school, here are some videos that you can check out!

Franny Arrieta- EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HIGH SCHOOL //

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6jrm3dbxZ8

xsparkage- Things I Wish I Knew in High School (I was a HUGE jerk) //

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlm8xfzR18Q

Anndawg- Things I Wish I Knew Before Going to High School //

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzD12Ys6hIg

#lifestyle #highschool