For the past few weeks I’ve been constantly waking up at ungodly hours very frequently and have a hard time falling asleep. My parents say it may be due to stress or worries but Im not sure what those could be (or it may be my studies but im just in denial)
But this evening, I just randomly felt like crying. Nothing had happened before this so it was unprompted. I felt very confused as to what exactly I was feeling as I felt a very weird mixture of anger/frustration, sadness, stress. It was a weird situation of me wanting to cry but not being able to and for some reason, ended up in a process of crying for less than a minute, stopping, and then going again. I think that happened 3 times.
I feel like it may just be stress because the exams are coming soon and that they are especially important this time around and maybe I dont want to disappoint my parents. But I want to know why that whole situation in the 2nd para happened and if the first 2 paras are linked in some way.
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Hi @_bananakat, thank you for sharing openly about your feelings. I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve been struggling with your sleep, and that you’ve been crying so much recently. I hear you, it does sound like you’re experiencing a mix of emotions and you’re not sure what’s happening - and it feels like you can’t pinpoint to a particular reason. I want to affirm you that your feelings are all valid - the confusion, stress, anger, sadness, even the weirdness. They are all valid! And it’s perfectly okay to feel a mix of all these emotions altogether at the same time. I also want to encourage you that it’s totally okay to cry. Crying is one of the many ways that we express our emotions (even if we don’t know what they are), and it’s okay to cry 
Sometimes stress can show up in different ways - sometimes we cry, sometimes we feel sick, and sometimes we just don’t know what to do. I’m glad that you’re able to recognise this bag of emotions because it shows that you have a good sense of self-awareness! I encourage you to take it a step further by journaling down your emotions and try to reflect on some questions (e.g. what is causing me to feel this way?) to uncover more about those feelings.
It could also be the exam stress, and perhaps you could try out some mindfulness strategies to calm yourself down whenever you feel anxious or stressed. Here are some wonderful examples that you can try out that might help : https://mindline.sg/online-chatbot/self-care-exercises?category=mindfulness-practice
Most importantly, please do focus on taking care of yourself! Self-care is a basic (but very important!) building block of our lives You can try your best to have balanced meals and engaging in activities that will help you unwind and relax.
I hope you’ll find a way to relief the stress somehow, but please know that this community is here for you too.
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