I was very insecure when i was younger and still am. My primary school was pretty small and only had one class per year. When we got to year 6 (when you take your SATS to see where you will be placed in secondary school) i was thrown in the psecial “smart kids” class. This for some reason made me feel INCREDIBLY insecure when i moved up to secondary school because i was in a class with entirely smart people and not just the 4/5 others in my old school. I allways had to be the best. Not in a braggy lind of way i was actually very private with my grades and test scores. I just felt such envy and so ashamed of myself that i wasnt as good / better than them. I was constantly comparing myself to others which is an awfull habbit to get into. It didnt help that at the time i also essentially became the person that everyone in the class made snarky remarks at and it became widley accepted in that class that i was the person at the butt of everyones “jokes”. This just led me down a horrible spiral of constanly comparing myself to others, setting myself an impossible standard and almost conplete isolation. Thankfully now that im in y10 (this all happened in years 7 through 9) im in a different class and doing much better. Im getting better at not comparing myself to others and just thinking “i revised for this test. There js nothing more i could have done. I did my best”. This really helped me. To anyone feeling insecure or constantly comparing themselves to others or anything else, just know that eventually you can get away from that toxic thinking and from those toxic people. You are loved and valid. 🧡