2025 - Fractured Reflections of Youth
The modern adolescent experience is increasingly defined by a fractured sense of identity and emotional isolation, shaped by internal struggles and external pressures that often go unseen. These narratives reveal how young people can feel detached from themselves, performing artificial versions of their identity while silently battling exhaustion, anger, and despair. At the same time, they highlight how societal systems—whether peer relationships, school environments, or post-pandemic expectations—frequently fail to recognize these hidden struggles. Together, contemporary times increasingly emphasise the urgent need for empathy, perception, and patience, arguing that true support begins not with assumptions or reactions, but with the willingness to notice what lies beneath the surface.
WINNER - Bayley Medlin, Woodleigh
I wake up every day and stare into the mirror, every single day I hope today is the day the person staring back at me is actually me but every time it's just something that looks like me. It isn't me, I usually stare for large quantities of time with a sliver of hope that this shell of aperson will end up leaving and I can finally see myself staring back. It takes all my effort just to simply drag myself away from the mirror, every bone in my body just wants to spend the rest of my life waiting for that thing to leave. I claw my school bag and scrap it across the floor. It takes me such a short time to arrive at my bus stop but it feels like an eternity. I make it on my bus and sit in the back, making zero contact with anyone else. There was a complete radio silence for the entire trip.
The bus driver drops us off, I put on a fake smile and say thanks, my smile fades almost simultaneously as I turn to head to my locker. I throw my bag into my locker as I grab what I need for my first two periods. I hear my friend heading towards me pulling back all my genuine expressions and gathering my thoughts to enter my persona, I greet them with a wide edged smile as I struggle to keep myself together. This is odd due to me usually being able to stay in character with little to no effort, I feel tears about to burst through my eyes and I use every ounce of strength to hold them back and stay composed. ”Are you even listening, you're so selfish” they say, it now takes even more effort to not fall out of character because I'm now not only trying to keep myself from breaking down, but anger was now a substantial factor.
I go to my first class of the day with nothing but negative thoughts, the teacher won’t stop nagging me about forgetting my books and it couldn’t affect me less. It is interesting, someone yelling at me could cause zero response or an extensive response but I just sit through the entire class and wait for the bell to ring. I left class just keen to eat lunch, I brought a cheese toastie so I was quite excited. I finish my lunch and head to my second class of the day and it goes exactly like the last except this teacher was much more lenient with the fact that I kept forgetting my books. I leave class exceptionally tired and use all my energy to stay conscious, but I somehow make it to my last class. After being exhausted all day I'm extremely eager for the day to end. After all, not everyday can be bad, can it? I fall asleep three times in a double period and just merely get away with it, but the bell finally rings. The day is over, I drag myself towards my locker and just wonder how I'm functioning at all. I make it on the bus and sit by myself in the back, this time actually content with where we are headed. The bus stops and I find myself walking the same path I walked before but this time around struggling to stay upright, my eyes keep on drifting closed and I barely make it home. I collapse onto bed hoping when I open my eyes I'll finally be myself again or preferably, never open them again…
RUNNERS UP - Caity Sun, Kennedy College
“Okay, no, this hurts way too much. I’m going back inside.”
“What does?”
“My eyes. The sun.”
In hindsight, the irony of a girl commonly nicknamed as the “namesake sister” of the sun itself
isolating herself in the dim, dark corners of her bedroom for weeks on end, to the point of
squinting and wincing at the sight of a sunray was almost comical.
However, if you were to include this comical joke in a stand up comedy show to a group of
thirteen year old girls in the midst of the year twenty twenty one, the show would turn out to be
the Ted Talk of relatability.
And when you tell the punchline, make sure to wait and listen for the sea of hands joining
together into one fluttering sound, palms slapping together, cheers flying from the crowd.
If you think you’re already the catch of the crowd, you’ve won the hearts of thousands of us
thirteen year old girls, or if you’ve ever told any kid who you thought was young and clueless to
make the most of every minute, you’re in luck!
Welcome! This guide is for you.
Because if you were thinking about the sea of applause as your victorious triumph, an
encouraging act of kindness, don’t let the warm light of the sun beam on you like some god sent
from the heavens. Firstly, because you’re hurting our eyes, which is extremely insensitive given
our unruly, isolated, dim-bedroom living conditions- but secondly, you’re blinding yourself.
You’re blinding yourself from seeing the claps themselves.
Because some claps have wrists and fingers so skinny, it was frightening to watch them slap
their hands together, afraid they would snap. Some girls have colourful wrists. Red and yellow
and white. Some girls have wrists decorated with bandaids.
No, stop right there, don’t go crowd surfing. Don’t run up to each of these girls and call their
parents in a hurry. No, stop - also don’t try and pretend it's twenty eighteen again and everyone
just acts as if a pandemic didn’t swoop down on the planet.
Because a pandemic did. So the world’s different. And that was the problem.
Honestly, you can’t pluck a lion out of the savannah, place it in the jungle for two years and
expect it to go back to the savannah without any concerns.
Stress compiling upon itself as soon as we returned. We had no one month trial period, we had
no transition period - we just went back. Teachers punished us the same way and treated us as
if nothing happened.
So when you hold the next annual Ted Talk, the wrists might look the same. So, what can I say?
Well, if I can be in the crowd, watching the claps, and noticing all this, you can too. Because
these claps actually look a little better, but not substantially. And it's not worrying, it's a process.
Because before you lash out at a problematic student, or call their parents, be perceptive. Don’t
assume. Be patient.
And wow, I think we did this improvement ourselves…
Because the dim, dark, lonely bedroom was our jungle for two years. We know us.
And one day, you could hear the applause again, talking about the art of being perceptive. And
you’d be seeing the same wrists again, but this time, not so alarmingly skinny, not as colourful
and vibrant as before, and not as decorated like a Christmas tree.
Because you’ve watched before you acted, let us ask for help if we need it and given us time.
So act like it.