august 11th, 2009

August 11, 2009

Work will be the death of me. It almost was in 10^th grade, so I don’t see why it can’t bother me Senior Year. 10^th grade was an awful situation, though. During that year (Fifteendom, I call it), I was stressed out of my mind. There was too much work, and of course I was too stubborn to drop any classes. Hell, I can handle anything. Oh hell, I couldn’t. I mean, in a sense I did, but I didn’t at the same time. That damn lexapro made me suicidal and apathetic, so I didn’t give a s**t if I had a chemistry quiz the next day. Then, lo and behold, I would frantically study in the morning and fail the quiz. It didn’t matter what I made on the quiz, if it was below an 80, I had failed it. That was my rule. Then came the bad part. What the hell is wrong with me? Why don’t I listen to myself? Why am I so f*****g worthless? And then I would have another quiz later that week, but I was too depressed to care about studying. And so the cycle continued. And of course a B in Honors Chemistry was not good at all to me. I had never gotten a B on my report card in my life. I did not get B’s. And if I did have a B, which happened in my later half of ninth-grade physics, I worked my a*s off until I got an A again. This did not happen in tenth grade, though, because I had been invaded by a monster that made me worry half the time and not care about anything except feeling sorry for myself the other half. And of course, the vicious cycle only made me feel worse.

 

The monster appeared as a sharp pain in my stomach. I felt like someone, or something was stabbing me in the place where I felt the most from the inside. What is wrong with me? I thought. Can this be considered as normal? I didn’t realize that the pain was a side effect of my anxiety at the time. Instead, I was convinced that the stabbing pains were deliberate actions made by the monster. “There’s a monster in my stomach and it stabs me in my guts. Get it out! Make it stop! Why does this have to happen to me!” Despite my wailing and the medications I was prescribed, the monster would not go away. It’s still here today. Every time I get anxious, the stabbing pain is there. I fear that I will never be immune to it, although I know that the actual monster is a figment of my imagination. I am also part of the monster. What I mean is that I do this to myself at times. And until I can figure things out for good, the monster will be a part of me.

 

I cracked in early November. I remember that day vividly. We had an AP World History test that day, and I didn’t study much the night before because I was comfortable with the material. But I saw other people in my class studying during computer apps, and my why-didn’t-you-even-pick-up-a-f*****g-book-anxiety started to kick in. We had a thirty-minute break because it was First Friday mass. I can study then, I thought. But when I looked at the material, I couldn’t absorb it. My brain would not let me transfer the words into thoughts. I saw the words on the paper, and skimmed through them, but they were void of meaning. I’m going to fail. I’m going to fail. I’m going to fail. And I panicked. Tears streamed down my face, and I banged my head on the wall like I did when I was a baby. The pain was comforting, because I felt like I needed to discipline myself. But I got caught.

 

 

I got to meet both of the school counselors that day. It happened during chemistry class. I was rocking back and forth in my chair, bawling silently, and just about every single girl in the room just had to see me do it. And the teacher, too. After Mrs. Olson had successfully interviewed me and realized that I was not in a healthy state to be in a class that I loathed, she presented me with her verdict.

“Sarra, I’m sending you to Mr. Midkiff’s office. Don’t worry about class. Just go.”

Great. Just what I needed, more counselors. But I went, because I would take any excuse to get out of chemistry. I remember feeling like I was floating down the hallway. I remember that I spilled a lot. And I really shouldn’t have.