Diary Entry #4: CUT TO TODAY

Today, I am a sophomore. I have a single dorm room. I live a really easy lifestyle. But my panic attacks have been worse. Way worse. Previously, in this blog I've been talking in the past tense but why not blog right now while its happening.


It's 11 am. I have class at 11:20. I'm having panic attacks. No reason why, they are just happening. Suddenly the safe-haven of my single dorm has made me sheltered to now thinking that I don't have to leave my room. I'm becoming dangerously close to a hermit. I really can't tell you why I'm scared. I just get this tight "stuck" feeling whenever I think about class. Today it might be worse because I missed this class last week. Not due to a panic attack. Due to sleeping in. So now I guess I feel like there's no way in hell I can miss two classes in a row so I have to go. But telling myself I have to go is making me not want to. It makes me really scared that I'll fail the class. I'll lose my scholarship. And I will prove everyone right that didn't think I would amount to anything. It's one class but it has the pressure of my life on it. I hate pressure. I really do.


I didn't sleep last night, I had insomnia. Another symptom of my hell. I was awake until 8am and then I had panic attack on an elevator. Then I slept for 2 hours.


I feel like I'm having a heart attack. I feel nauseous, again. I could literally vomit at any second. I can't breathe. But the thing is I know that I can breathe, I just feel like I can't.


Right now I have to go into the classroom, and I will continue this post when I come out. Hopefully, when I do it's the actual time the class is over.


CUT TO: Sitting in my dorm room, days later.


So I didn't continue the post when I came out. I was sleep-deprived and I went directly to a nap after class. But the point is, I made it through class. I should say that I barely made it through that class. I wasn't have panic attacks, I was just 80% sure that I was asleep during that entire 3 hours.


I've realized that the cause of my insomnia was due to a medication I started taking. I stopped taking it and apparently I'm supposed to expect mood swings, panic attacks, and general "out-of-whack-ness". This is great. On top of being a basket-case in general, I have to deal with this shit. Tomorrow I have class again. And I am scared. I missed this class last week. But all I can do is breathe and try. My only other option is to sit in my dorm, become a hermit, and eventually die.


Maybe I'm being over-dramatic.

Diary Entry #3: A History of Being Scared: Part 3

There's always a silver lining. The summer between my sophomore year of high school and my junior year, I started getting better. I pushed myself to my limits and it worked. Every challenge I had got easier. It was always "You did that, so you can do this."


It started small. I pushed myself to go over my friend's house for a half an hour. Then an hour. Then a day. When I started my junior year, I was feeling good. I got a part time job. I had to work up the courage to do it. I started making lists to get myself through things. I would write down everything that I was afraid of happening. Then I would list all of the reasons those things were not scary. And I told myself if the list of reasons that it was scary was longer than why it was, then I would do it. It was always a longer list. 


Then Homecoming came, once again. I made a list, once again. I was going to go to pictures, ride in a car with my friend driving, go to dinner, go to the dance, and go to an after party. It was my biggest challenge yet. I remember waiting for my Dad to drive me to the pictures and holding this worn piece of paper with my lists on it. I was shaking the whole time. And I had a great time. I danced, I laughed, and I felt normal for the first time in my life. It was a beautiful night.


From that point on, High School was pretty easy. Especially, when I started driving and had my own car. I always had a way out. During junior year I started looking at colleges. The world wasn't big enough for me. I was afraid of anything. I wanted to go to school in different countries and continents. I never imagined going to college in my hometown. I was ready for a big change. Or at least I thought I was. 


I ended up picking a school that was 20 minutes from my house. It was because of the program and environment. It was perfect. 


The first time that panic hit me hard again was the day I had my in person interview to go there. I felt so professional. I woke up that morning, got dressed up, drove myself to the trolley, chain-smoked cigarettes, and just felt cool. It hit me while I was waiting for the trolley. I suddenly got scared. What was I doing? It was a very small panic attack that I shook off that day. I went to the interview and rocked it. But that small panic attack foreshadowed the next year of my life very well.


The next time it struck was when I was going to orientation. That was hell. I chickened out the first time I was going to go, but luckily the school had a second orientation. I went to that one. I was scared, on drugs (legally prescribed ones), and shaking the whole time. But I got through it. 


The next time was when I was going to move in. I honestly don't know how I did it. My diary entries from that day still make me shiver. But somehow I made it through.


The problem is that after I moved into college, the biggest change of my life, I thought that I would get better. I thought that panic all together would go away. But that whole "You did that, so you can do this." idea isn't real. Every challenge is a different challenge. It hurts just as much and it's just as hard. I was thinking before I went to college that if I could do that, I could do anything. But I was wrong. Everyday I wake up, I still have the same small challenges that I did when I was a sophomore in high school. It's just a matter of dealing with them or not. Living or not. I choose to live. So I choose to live with panic disorder and deal with it. Sometimes I deal with it well, sometimes I don't. But I breathe, and I live. So I guess that makes me a person.

Diary Entry #2: A History of Being Scared: Part 2

From that point when I was 7, until a second major point when I was 15, I was always known as the girl that got nervous and threw up. I went to doctors. They all told my parents that I just was a little bit more anxious than the rest of us, but I would grow out of it. Ha ha ha....

Every time I had any type of pressure on myself I would get scared and vomit. It was just my "thing".

CUT TO: The beginning of my sophomore year of high school.

My brother had just left for college. I moved into his old room. For some reason, this scared me. Suddenly I felt like my whole childhood had abruptly ended. I was now an "adult" in my mind.

Again, it was my first day of school. I had already gone to my high school for a year. There was nothing to be afraid of. But I felt different.

I got to school and I was shaking. I couldn't breathe. And again, I felt nausea. Insane nausea. I only made it to 4th period until I begged the school nurse to call my father to pick me up. 

I didn't go to school for the rest of the week. When I tried to go each day, something stopped me in my tracks. This time I was aware that I had no illness. I wasn't in any danger. I thought I was crazy. I had to be. Why else would this be happening?

Somehow, I finally adjusted to school. Then came the Homecoming dance. I remember going to get my dress and dreading the upcoming event. I finally sat my mother down in my room and said "Mom, this is bigger than butterflies. I'm crazy. I have a problem." She told me that everything would be okay. I made it to the dance with great difficulty. Then I had an appointment with a therapist.

It was a rainy day when I went to the therapist for the first time. It was on the side of a busy road next to a Sheetz. I saw nurses outside smoking cigarettes through my car window. I felt like I was being committed.

The waiting room was very circular and bland. There were really worn out children's books in the corner titled "The tales of Sad Sally" and "Angry Adam". The newest magazines were a year old. And then there was a wall of pamphlets. I find it weird that the Psychiatric Industry thinks that making a pamphlet about anger, depression, and anxiety will help people. It's just a bunch of random statistics and a diagram or two about god know's what. I swear that there is a pamphlet on anything that could be wrong with you.

After a few sessions with a therapist, I was referred to an actual psychiatrist. She prescribed me pills that were supposed to make me feel better but mostly just made me depressed. I have to say that eventually I stuck to a pill that made a microscopic difference in my ability to leave my house. But really my progression was made on my own. But that's another story.

The story of my sophomore year of high school is me laying in my bed, listening to depressing music on my Ipod. Talking to my best friend on the phone for an hour a day. Only leaving my house for school. And longing to either get better or kill myself.

It's not pretty, I know. But that's how it goes. What I've realized in my short 19 years, especially from this experience, is that you have to hit rock bottom to be able to climb back up. And you're gonna slip and fall back down after that for sure. But you have to hit rock bottom so that in the future you know that   wherever you fall, you can get back up.