Help!

I do not know how to study physics.

So in high school, I coasted through subjects I was good at. Anything I had to think twice about, chances are I didn't. I never learned how to learn because I was too busy doing other things. I was never as much an academic as I made my ideal self out to be. And now? As a midterm approaches and I realize that my mind goes blank (or else Loch Lomond plays softly in the recesses of that great empty cavity) when asked what at what angle theta would an actor fall if he were swinging from above for a grande entrance by some apparatus involving a pulley, a massless rope, and a sandbag, I'm realizing that there are some old convictions of mine that are squatting on territory that I need to reclaim.

What I mean to say is hat I've always believed that there was always a way to do things myself. If I couldn't do it myself, if I couldn't do it by the deadline--I wouldn't do it at all. I never copied homework, I never dug study groups, I never asked questions. I believed I should theoretically have all the tools I needed, and if ever i didn't understand or couldn't pull through, it was because I hadn't worked hard enough or thought long enough or practiced enough. If I reached a limit, I didn't believe that external aid would get me anywhere--or if it could, it would be artificial.

This isn't really just an academic question; these old convictions are like landmines-- they're hidden everywhere, and often I find that they blow up in my face when I think I'm on my way up and out of these same old feelings of inescapable inferiority. What would it feel like to tell somebody about... What if I got someone's advice... What if I asked if... blam blam blam--nobody wants to hear your whining. SACK UP.