Hi there
It seems you have a lot going on right now, you’ve had difficulty with this guy that you dated, you suffer from anxiety and depression and are self harming, you are trying to cope with taking your GCSE’s and then you have all these feelings of jealously and betrayal running around inside.
Lets start with the GCSE’s as its important to do as well as you can. For that to happen, the less stressed and the more relaxed you are the better. Make the decision to prioritise your exams as they are time-limited - you can’t just pause them for a couple of weeks and then come back to them.
What you can do is make some room in your head by acknowledging all the feelings you have in relation to this guy and your friend. Set aside a little time and grab a pen and some paper:
- Think about the relationship you had, list all the reasons you ended the relationship and then all of the advantages of not being in it anymore.
- Think about your friend and what you value in the friendship and what has hurt you. Then focus on your feelings, writing as many of them down as you can.
- Now read what you’ve written and recognise that you have been carrying all that around in your head and that it’s ok for you to feel the way you do. Try telling yourself that you will come back to all this when your exams have finished but really mean it.
- When your exams are over come back to it and look at how you are feeling then. If you keep the piece of paper until then, make sure you keep it somewhere safe.
You mentioned that you suffer from depression and anxiety and self harm so it’s really important to look after yourself. I’m not sure what you do when you self harm but it really important that, if you use self harm as a way of coping, that you do it as safely as possible. There is some information on the ChildLine website about self harm and you can also check out the Message boards to see what other young people say on the subject. The website The Site has some really useful information on Self Harm so its worth having a look.
The other thing to do is to keep talking just the way you have done here. Knowing what your problems are and then sharing them is probably one of the best things we can do to look after ourselves. Talk to your friends, to your family and you could even talk to one of the counsellors in ChildLine either on the phone 0800 1111 or in 1-2-1.
So glad you wrote to me and I hope this helps a little.
Good luck in the exams!
Sam