Genevieve Lee expected her final year of high school to be stressful, but the 17-year-old realised the pressure had become too great when her behaviour changed completely.

The vice-captain of Gilroy College in Castle Hill said she felt “so burdened with the pressure” of achieving good marks and pleasing her Fijian parents, it was causing her to procrastinate, forget to eat during the day and completely cut herself off from others.

“I’m such a social person but when stress hits, no one sees me for a solid week, not even my family, she said.

“It got to the point where I was crying every single day.

The stress “got to the point where I wasn’t me” and developed into anxiety, she said.

“I went from being a really confident person to stuttering, feeling sweaty and being nervous about what people would think about me,” she said.

“When that started to happen I realised … this isn’t right.”

Two-thirds of young people are now experiencing “worrying levels” of exam stress, a study by youth service ReachOut has found.

A national survey of 1000 young people aged between 14 and 25 revealed those experiencing worrying levels of exam stress had increased from 51.2 per cent in 2017 to 65.1 per cent in 2018.

– Bellinda Kontominas

Read More: Two-Thirds of Young People Experience ‘Worrying Levels’ of Exam Stress, ReachOut Survey Finds

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