If you were to ask me why high school sucks, I could talk for hours. Whether it be embarrassing yourself in front of the whole class, losing your best friends, or feeling like you are an outcast, we definitely all have had extremely unpleasant experiences in high school.

Here are the four main reasons why high school sucks.

1. You never feel good enough

Have you ever felt like you’re not smart enough?

The answer is probably yes.

There are always going to be people who get better grades than you, people who are more popular than you, people who look happier than you are.

As teenagers, we are sensitive to comparisons. Comparing ourselves to others who we think are better than us can affect how we feel. When we compare ourselves to others who seem to be more successful, we often get mad at ourselves because we feel we don’t measure up. Sometimes, the comparison can even lead to self-loathing, and that feeling sucks.

2. Stress

Stress is also a major reason why high school sucks. The first stressful thing that high schoolers encounter is more difficult school work.

Take my experience as an example. In middle school, I rarely stayed up past midnight to study for exams. Because the work was relatively simple, I could go over my notes right before a quiz and still manage to get a decent grade. On the other hand, in high school, there is so much more information and I need more time to absorb and digest it all. Yet, with all my extracurricular activities, I don’t have enough time to focus on academics, and my grades have started to drop.

Furthermore, as you transition into high school, adults start telling you to start planning for college. You begin to hear conversations about your classmates doing all kinds of extracurricular activities that they can include in their college applications. Then you stress about how you aren’t doing enough.

The transition from middle school to high school isn’t easy. You might have to make new friends, develop new study habits, and adjust to a new school environment. All this added up can be overwhelming.

3. All the drama

Fake friends. Nasty rumors. Talking behind your back. Betrayal. Breakups. Being dragged into drama that you never wanted to be a part of.

There is a lot of drama in high school because we teenagers are easily affected emotionally, tend to make bad choices, and make a big deal out of insignificant things.

Sometimes, your peers expect you to act a certain way in response to gossip or rumors. For example, when your friends are deeply invested in hating someone, they may expect you to also hate that person. When you don’t, they may exclude you from their friend group and ignore you.

Having to listen to and experience the drama in high school is exhausting.

4. People judge you, a lot

I often hear my classmates judging others for the way they look, talk, and behave. And sometimes, I do too.

There is a never-ending list of the things people can judge you about. You can be judged for being skinny or being chubby, being tall or being short, talking emotionally or talking without enough passion, talking too little or talking too much. The list goes on.

Sometimes, we are indifferent to our peers’ judgments. Sometimes, their judgments hit us straight in our insecurities. These judgments can make us teenagers, who are already sensitive and insecure, start questioning everything about ourselves.

Judgment and criticism can easily affect how we act because we care about how our peers perceive us. We don’t want to be marginalized or left out when we’re forming our own groups. We want to fit in.

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High school sucks.

I know that because I have first-hand experience. During high school, you will still make long-lasting memories, but if anyone tells you that high school will be an absolutely amazing experience, I’m telling you that they are wrong.

Even though I’m writing an entire article about why high school sucks, I’d still encourage you to enjoy high school as much as you can. Not because it’s supposed to be an exciting experience, but because you only live as a teenager once.