Granted, sometimes that word is untimely and I take a while to do good on it, but hey, I try. In regard to my last blogpost (you can read here), I am endeavoring to share with the world the true and honest facts about my struggle with depression and anxiety. Mostly anxiety, because I'm at a point where I can make fun of my anxiety. And, as we know, making fun of my problems is what this blog is all about.
So, without further ado, allow me to present to you my first experience with real anxiety, in full illustrated detail:
It was freshman year here at AU. I was loving life and doing well, and to be quite honest I didn't have any worries. I was definitely the obnoxiously carefree freshman. That being said, apparently my body disagreed with my hakuna-matata mindset, because come finals week I began to have problems.
My first final was for ART105, which is our foundations art course here at AU. Basic principles & concepts, though for a lot of us it was some of our first experiences within the art world. I wasn't worried about my grades, but to be honest sometimes anxiety doesn't need a reason to pop up. It just happens. And whatever "just happened" that day, decided to "just happen" during the middle of my Foundations final.
For art exams we always met in a small auditorium-type room with stadium seating. I was halfway through my exam when suddenly I noticed something.
I had never blacked out prior to this. Apart from the time I got my wisdom teeth removed, I had never passed out or even really felt light headed, so the blazingly obvious signs and signals of an eminent blackout (such as darkening vision, lightheadedness, and loss of hearing) were foreign to me. I just thought I was really hungry.
Thus, I blindly paraded through the remainder of my exam and stumbled in a somewhat inebriated fashion towards the platform where my professor was collecting exams. I couldn't even make eye contact.
By this point I was visibly shaking and very aware of my fading vision, and finally the warning lightbulb in my head decided to flicker to life and I began to understand that I was about to pass out. And in my hazy panic, I forgot all lessons of laying down and elevating one's feet. In fact, in my brain the most logical thing for me to do was walk to the bathroom. It was an arduous and befuddling journey.
After I took refuge in the ladies room, I ended up making a hasty camp in a dusty corner where I immediately curled up on the floor. Words can't describe how much I didn't care. I had my raincoat for a pillow, a water bottle in my backpack, and a toilet approximately five feet from my head. Like an animal that had reached an undesirable but somewhat safe shelter from a predator, I felt moderately accommodated for whatever schemes my body had in store for me.
It was here that I spent the next hour trying not to black out and/or vomit. Luckily for me, the linoleum floor and concrete walls provided a perfect environment to block my cell phone signal, so I resigned to try and sleep until I felt well enough to stand up and find help.
Whilst in hell's waiting room, a lady came in to clean the bathroom. I could hear her scrubbing toilets and mopping on the other side of the bathroom, and patiently waited to be discovered.
Eventually though, apparently cleaning lady's gossip of the Creature from the Linoleum Lagoon spread and one of the ladies who works in the building peeped in and inquired if I was okay.
Apparently, I was not convincing. We were able to contact my sister Maris, who came by to (literally) pick me up and help me get back to the dorm. All the while, of course, I was denying my apparent condition and blamed it on low blood sugar (a very real possibility, I might add), lack of sleep, etc.; basically anything to convince myself that I hadn't come down with the very same problem that plagues almost every other college student in America.
Anyways. The moral of this story is: take care of yourself. If you think something may be wrong, then don't try to brush it off. Tell somebody what's going on. Don't be stupid and deny your problems just because of fear or pride: these things will only prevent you from overcoming your issues. My intimate encounter with the bathroom floor was the first of many anxiety reactions, and I honestly think I could have conquered my stress much sooner and much healthier if I had just accepted the fact that I have this problem. Acknowledging the problem is not the same thing as succumbing to the problem. In any case, I hope this post brought you a smile and, if you struggle with this issue or something similar, know that you're not alone and better days are coming. If I can survive literally the crappiest beginning to my freshman finals week, then who knows what else can be conquered.
P.S. I made a 4.0 that semester.
No comments:
Post a Comment