i think i’m a couple of steps ahead of you at the moment, i just finished my first year of college so i might be able to help 🙂
i’m naturally talented at english and humanities, but i chose to do chemistry, physics, biology and psychology for college. i tell you now.. BIG MISTAKE. i dropped chemistry within the first term as it was literally driving me to almost suicide, it got me down so much (and after i dropped out, 7 other people decided to too). i still take physics but it is really hard work (i got AAA for triple science GCSE but physics alevel is nothing like physics gcse – you don’t have to just memorize things, it’s really complicated maths on top of all that). i’m currently looking at university courses and i truly wish i had chosen what i was good at, not just what i thought sounded impressive on a UCAS form. if you carry on in college, choose you strongest subjects. alot of people are finding history this year boring, it’s alot of politics and not all that interesting and gory stuff you did at GCSE, and physics is very different to how you probably imagine it to be. i think english is a good sturdy subject to choose if you’re willing to work hard at it and maths will really help you with your physics if you choose it (although quite a few in my physics class are finding maths more difficult than the physics).
your idea of a year out is good but i considered that and it’s not the easiest getting the motivation to get back into it, and you’ll be a year behind all of your friends. i just want to plough forward and get through it all as quick as i can. there is time to change courses when you first start college too. but i would choose to spread my subjects out. maybe pick 2 maths/science subjects to go with 2 humanities or arts subjects, unless you are sure of what you want to do in the future. keep open as many options as you can so theres more than one direction you can go forward. i know that this is a really hard time, so good luck choosing 🙂

(and theres plenty of time to mess around at college 😉 you just need to get your head down at the critical times before exams. if anything, take a year out after college and do something worth while. college goes so much quicker than you expect, seems like yesterday that i started).