I was in high school from 2009-2013.
My freshman year was the worst year of high school for me. It started when I got dropped off home from a friend’s house on a Sunday night. We had dinner and watched TV. Once I got home, I went straight to bed. However, it take long for me to wake up feeling ill. I vomited for hours on and off and I had a bad fever. I ended up staying home from school for a few days and when I got back, I felt great. But when I was sitting in my first class of the day, Algebra, I felt like I was going to vomit again. I immediately asked the teacher if I could use the restroom and once she gave the OK, I ran. I didn’t throw up, though. It was bizarre. I didn’t know what to do so I just stood in the bathroom for a little while. The fear of still being sick began racing through my mind so I thought that going home would be the best thing to do. Thankfully, my mom was a teacher at the high school I went to so I was able to locate her and tell her what was going on. She took me home.
I don’t remember how long I stayed home from school at this point but I would guess at least 2 days. However, I was dating a guy at the time and my mom wondered if I was pregnant. I insisted that I wasn’t and that me staying home was 100% due to panic attacks, she asked that I take a pregnancy test. It was negative. Obviously. It was embarrassing I will say that much. After that was figured out, my mom truly did believe I was simply too scared to go to school. During my time at home, I did not feel sick again. Not at all. When I got back to school for the second time, the same thing happened: suddenly felt like I was going to throw up, rushed to the bathroom, nothing happens. It was very upsetting. What I noticed with the sick feeling was trembling hands, sweating, narrow vision, difficulty breathing, and the overall feeling of something bad was going to happen. What I was experiencing were panic attacks. I did not know this, however, as I had never had one before. I just assumed I was still sick with something. Since this was happening every day regardless of what class I was in, I convinced my mom to let me stay home again. At this point, she was concerned and brought me to see my physician. Nothing was found wrong. The next step? A therapist. I could not explain what I was experiencing to them other than saying: “I just don’t feel good when I go to school”.
The therapist got hold of a psychiatrist and diagnosed me with panic disorder and prescribed me Ativan which is a medication that can be used to treat anxiety. I cannot recall the dosage but it was enough to put me to sleep for hours. I remember going on a family trip and I slept not only the entire 5 hour car ride there but also another 8 hours at the hotel. The Ativan wasn’t helping me properly deal with my anxiety. It was forcing me not to deal with it at all. My parents quickly took note of this and promptly had me taken off of it. When we got back home from the vacation, I straight up refused to attend school. No more. I refused to experience anymore panic attacks whilst there. It was too much for me to handle. Who, what now? I saw at least 9 different psychiatrists to prescribe me a medication that helped me. My parents and I were beginning to lose hope when I was prescribed Lyrica. It is normally used to treat nerve/muscle pain but can also be used to help ease anxiety. It worked wonders for me. I was also seeing a therapist who was quite helpful. She put me through exposure therapy and I was able to apply it to my time at school.
What is exposure therapy? Exposure therapy is defined as any treatment that encourages the systematic confrontation of feared stimuli.
To put it simply, you purposely put yourself in the situation that causes you fear. This might sound counterproductive but it isn’t. It makes dealing with your fear easier, as being exposed to it on a regular basis makes it less and less difficult to deal with. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn't work overnight and it isn’t easy. How did I apply this coping mechanism to school? If I was about to have a panic attack or was currently having one, I would force myself to endure it. I could not run away anymore. I had to learn how to properly deal with panic attacks via deep breathing and other methods such as “distracted thinking”which is basically thinking about something else but with much more detail. An example of this would be listing off all of the 50 states that make up the United States or going over what you had for breakfast. It took me a long time to get even a sliver of control back over my anxiety but school did eventually become better for me.
Things start to go downhill during my junior year. I was in a romantic relationship with a guy who I met my freshman year and I broke things off with him. In short, he became furious and made it his current life mission to destroy my high school reputation. He spread rumors saying that I was pregnant, had a history of abortions, took drugs, and other nonsense. These rumors didn’t bother me too much but my exe boyfriend is what made it all too much. He would call me names like “slut” when walking past me in the hallway, purposely used other insulting terms when he saw me walk by him and his group of friends, etc. He was taking it upon himself to try to make school hell for me. And all for what? Because I left him. Remember, my mom works at the school so she heard everything this guy was spreading around. Her and I reported it to the principal who promptly did nothing. He said he would do something but nothing came of it. Nothing. My mom threatened him with legal action. Since he wasn’t doing anything, my mom asked the deans personally if they would escort me to and from my classes should I run into my exe.
This really didn’t improve the situation and I found myself staying at home again, not wanting to go back to school. I was back to square one albeit for a different reason. My parents surprisingly allowed me to stay home for an extended period of time. I am talking at least 2 weeks. They did not ask any questions. Little did I know, however, that she was planning something. One day, my mom told me she found an alternative schooling program specifically designed for teenagers in my position. It was called Alexian Brothers and served as an outpatient alternative school program for teenagers who reject school due to mental health problems such as anxiety or depression. I never knew a place like this existed.
As you can probably imagine, I was not okay with going here. I had gotten used to staying home and, since I never had panic attacks at home, I considered it my safe place. My parents weren’t going to allow me to stay home forever and signed me up without my consent. I would be going here instead of my high school for 1 month so still 5 days per week starting in the morning and ending in the afternoon.
Schedule:
Arrive at 7:00am Student attendance taken, personal belongings taken, and clothes searched (no cell phones, hats, weapons, etc,) First group therapy session Second group therapy session Break Third group therapy session Lunch Fourth group therapy session Activity such as an art class Homework time (your school would send your homework to Alexian Brothers so you wouldn’t fall behind) Students get picked up and their belongings are returned to them I despised this place for the first week. It also didn’t help that I live an hour away from Alexian Brothers. It takes me an hour and a half to get ready in the mornings, takes an hour to get there, and my mom had to drive an hour back to make it to her job on time which was also an hour away. Do the math! Other than suffering through waking up early, I was having panic attacks at this place. I did not see how coming here was helping me. It wasn’t until I started opening up during therapy sessions about my problem and realized I was not alone. Every single one of the other teenagers were here for the exact same reason and we could all confide in each other. Once I opened up and actually accepted the help, therapy became incredibly helpful. I quickly formed friendships and I am still friends with one of the people on Facebook to this day. Even though I grew used to Alexian Brothers, I was even happier to be done with it all.
What next? Well, I couldn’t just got back to school. I had to meet with the principal, a dean, and my school counselor to go over my experience at Alexian Brothers and how it helped me. This was my way of ensuring them that I was back for good. They agreed to something that I asked for which was having the ability to leave any class at anytime for a 10 minute break if necessary due to anxiety. It used to be I could just straight up wander the halls but they caught onto that so they changed it to only being able to go to the nurse’s office. The nurse also gave me a pass with my arrival and departure time so I could prove that I didn’t go walk around randomly.
Bu the time my senior year arrived, my exe boyfriend had graduated, as he was a year ahead of me. My panic attacks were practically nonexistent. I loved my last year of high school. It was so fun. I am glad I was able to enjoy at least that part of it. I am also proud of myself for not dropping out of that school which I did have the option to do. I wanted to show my exe that he did not have control over me. I was not going to let him win. Sure, I needed help to do it but I came back and that’s all that matters.
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