When education becomes toxic…
I failed to take my own advice… It ended badly.
I think I'm all done with @duolingo . I'm uninstalling this app for my mental health. Nothing is worth this much stress. I was so angry and frustrated tonight that I was ready to hit things and yell bad words. And you know that is NOT me.
I failed to take my own advice and tried to go for the #1 spot in Diamond league. It ended badly. That spot is not for people who have full time jobs. I've actually said this to others. I thought I had learned my lesson early on.
But the group I was in this week was pretty relaxed. After three days, I realized I actually had a real shot at first place if I dedicated myself. I knew that if I spent a full day where I didn’t have to work, or if I went without sleep, I could get over 2000 xp. Twice, I pushed it to almost 2500 xp, but it stopped being fun long before that.
So against my own better judgement, I did it. I stayed up way too late and pushed myself in to the top spot. I lost an entire weekend to this thing, because that one push wasn't enough. I knew anyone else could do the same and overtake me. They tried, but I did 2000 per day for three whole days. By the end of the third day, I was 1000 points in the lead. However, another person had put in 1340 the day before, and 1859 today. That's hard work! I was going to have to spend my entire Sunday keeping ahead of him. And I did.
Most of my day had felt like I was running for my life.
I hated it. I got behind on my chores. My fingers hurt from screen tapping. My back hurt. It was pure torture. But it might have been worth it to finally get this last achievement. I would have stopped at 2000, but that's when I noticed this person was logged on and COMING FOR ME!! Why was he bothering?? He had second place pretty much locked up. The person in third was so far behind him that they had no possibility of catching up. I was 1300 in front of him. But if he really wanted to try, I figured I could work the final two hours of the week. I was in the zone. I was doing everything right! It was real hard work, but I wasn’t missing a beat. I even found and used a 15 minute double xp bonus! Perfect! Maybe he could see this was futile and would give us both a break.
So I checked.
He was still working AND NOW HE WAS GAINING ON ME!! Only 800 away now. I went right back to it. I don't know how he was gaining so much xp so quickly, but I was going to do my best to stay ahead of him for the final hour. I stopped checking. I was approaching 2700xp for the day, completely shattering my old personal record!
The last two hours felt like I had been in a fight with someone far above my weight class.
Down to the literal final hour, I was starting to run out of lessons that I could even do. I spent SO MANY GEMS on heart refills that night. I was beyond exhausted. Just as the temptation to check on my nemesis. But I didn't have to. I got a notification that I had just lost the top spot. I was crestfallen to say the least. How was he going that fast? I could not do 3000 xp in a day, but this guy was approaching 4000 in two hours!!! Was this a bot? Why didn't he do this at the beginning of the week. No one would have bothered to challenge him them! I could have had a relaxing week. But no... this sleeper put in a weeks worth of lessons in at the very last part of the whole week just to rob me of everything I had done. All the time lost, all the effort, all the physical pain... it all came crashing down on me.
I feel beaten and helpless.
Have you ever been so mentally stressed that your body felt physically beaten? I was fighting back the tears. Most of my day had felt like I was running for my life. I felt like I was being chased by wild animals. The last two hours felt like I had been in a fight with someone far above my weight class. I suppose I had been. I wanted to punch something. I wanted to throw my phone and shatter it against the wall. It had been years since the last time I was this angry and frustrated. I swore I would never let anything get to me this badly again. I put the phone down and walked away. I left my house and walked through the darkness in the neighborhood. I couldn't march far enough or fast enough to get away from that feeling. I never want to feel like this again for the rest of my life. I don't care about my 13000 gems. I don't care about my 523 day streak. You couldn't pay me to go back to this thing.
I feel beaten and helpless. I feel like crap. And I did it to myself because I let myself get roped in to that kind of competition..
I hate this. I'm out.
(This actually happened six months ago, but I didn’t decide to post it until now. I uninstalled the app either that night or the next day, and I never looked back.)
Edit: I’m coming back to the almost two years after the indecent to add that I feel that that the impact on my mental health was minimal and the experience is now firmly in the past without any lingering effects. I have been advised that it's important to reflect that in my article. While I initially described feeling angry, frustrated, and stressed during the experience, I pretty quickly moved on from it and it no longer occupies much space in your thoughts or emotions.
I hope that provided a more complete picture of my journey. I hope that in some way, knowing that I was able to gain perspective and successfully overcome the negative impact it had on my mental well-being can be an empowering message for you, my readers.
Take care.
At least I made it to the end.
