Being a Repeat

If you know me personally you'll know I had to repeat a year at school due to sad circumstances. Its one part of my life I haven't spoke much about to people.

Why repeat?
I'll be honest I never intended to repeat the year at all. It was coming up to the final week before St Micks started the new school year. I was expecting to enter year 14 with allot of catch up on the As exams I never had the chance to take. Just a mere 3 days before I was to start back I got called into school and was asked to repeat the year as it was out of my best interests. I was quite taken back since it was one situation I never thought I would be placed in even then. I sat in shock and silence trying to think of what to do. I was being asked to go into a year group I didn't know, to redo work I had already done, to stay an extra year I never expected. I decided to take it on the condition that I got to stay in my old form class and be allowed to interact with my own year in events such as the formal.......a decision I now regret allot. I was given the option of keeping my current As levels or change them up. I decided to keep them. I left in a daze, unable to comprehend what choice I had just made for myself. The main reason I had to repeat was not due to the results I got that year but the quantity of exams I had completed. I had only done one maths exam C1, 2 Physics exams and an Ict exam. Ict coursework was left undone, physics practical was never completed and 2 maths exams were never attempted. Looking back now I wouldn't of been able to do all that work in one year without losing my sanity.

How was it?
I wont sugar coat it. In my first year of it I hated it with a passion. Many wouldn't know but my old year more or less disowned me and I had entered a year group that hadn't accepted me. I never felt so alone and lost. I just got into the attitude I wasn't there to make friends. I was there to get grades and get out of there as soon as possible.
After my mum dying and being in 2 car accidents, I just wasn't in a good place. I was pretty closed off from the world (not the best personality to make friends with). For the first week I didn't speak a word to anyone at all. I just didn't know what to say to people. At the time I just thought everyone would've thought I was lazy and stupid. I didn't want to admit my reasons about being there since it was still such a sensitive topic and generally it just made people uncomfortable when it was brought up. The second week I started talking to what I would call the other outsiders of the year group. They too didn't have many friends and basically they never knew I was a repeat so I felt like I wasn't being judged and I didn't have to explain myself.
The first person to speak to me, just so happened to be a weirdo so I spoke away to him easily. I apparently ended up being one of his only true friends in the school and also ended up being his apparent crush. (Dunno how true that was lol. I doubt it.)

Another one I became friends with started out pretty nice but by the end of the year unknown to others in that year, he managed to tear my confidence down to nil (made fun of my appearance, sensitive subjects I trusted him with, my weight, my As grades and also which is sick, the fact I was a repeat). In that first year I bearly went out of the 3 people I had chose as friends. I didn't speak to them outside school at all but they were all I had. I sat at lunch with my old year, hearing about the formal, uni choices, etc......all that just broke me down. I didn't even know what courses my old friends even applied to, I was that disjointed from them. By summer my grades came and they were much better but I was still disappointed. The year before had docked my confidence and the state of depression I was in without proper friends made my grades slip badly from the high achieving student I once was.
Even though my grades weren't great, I was confident small changes would make me improve. For my second year I had to finally let go of my old year and embrace the new. I had to pick a form class the May previous and due to a certain friend not telling me he was leaving before it was too late I was stuck in a form class I knew no one in. Upon leaving at the end of the year I knew....3 of them. I hated that form class with a passion! I really regret my choice. If I had longer, there was a class I knew many people from and I know I would 've been much happier in it. The formal came up and frankly looking back now it was better than my years formal but I still regret going. It wasn't and never would be my year group. I was an outsider and that was pretty much cemented in my mind. At this point of the year I nearly dropped out. My own teachers had little faith in me. (One telling me to my face that Queens was out of the question and Magee was unlikely).I was scared and beat down with a large lack of friends around me and no one I could tell all this stuff to, not even my own family.
Moving on, not having my old year made me have to socialise more leading to making  proper friends. At Christmas, one Ict trip literally changed my life and gave me the best friend I could ever ask for. Though we didn't properly bond until that easter after the ice was broken. Also around that time my ucas application was sent but I held little hope due to my past. Shortly after though I started receiving offers and i'm not ashamed to admit I cried with happiness because its an event I was sure would never happen. At that moment I knew my mum was there with me, I could actually feel it. Moving on to revising for A2s. I was doing hopeless. My January results were disgraceful and reflected all the hope I had lost at the start of that year. By easter one person changed that and gave me quite the motivation to revise my ass off which made such a difference. Having a goal can change things around so much. One exam in particular C2 is the cause of easily one of my closest relationships with a friend. With that person my confidence slowly grew to the point I thought I could actually meet my offers. I could actually get into queens and thankfully I was dead right. Any moment my confidence dropped and I was on the verge of giving up (do A2 physics and you'll understand) he reassured me and I got that confidence back. Coming up to the end of year school events I just refused to take part. It wasn't my year and I wasn't a part of it. By this stage, repeating the year was the best thing I ever did thanks to a few kind people :D

Do you regret it?
Nope, it is one single thing that was hard as hell to do but it gave me some of the best friends I couldn't live without now. A small price to pay I guess, haha.

What about now?
Well in terms of my old year, once they left I literally lost all contact and haven't messaged any of them since. I was abandoned by that year but after being to uni myself I no longer blame them like I once did. I don't speak to any of them now nor know what they are doing with themselves. The outsider friends I made are all gone now too but the core friends I made in the new year have stuck with me. I will say though probably to some annoyance that I am still ashamed to be a repeat even though I had my reasons. I'm quite subconscious about the age difference but its not a big issue. I'm just thankful it turned out ok in the end.