Diary Entry 22 January 2021
Yesterday was the first time I had a panic attack again, after a long time. And since then, everything around me feels dark.
I was already totally nervous and my whole body shivered, before we had a Zoom call for science class. You have to know, he is a really strict teacher. He expects us to know everything right after we learn it for the first time. He exerts an immense pressure with his voice, as he speaks so loudly and dominantly. It is as if he were thinking of us as computers and he can just type things into us. During my first year of attending this school, I was always really afraid of the classes with him. I shivered, couldn’t think rationally anymore and nothing existed in my world, except for him and the answers I had to say when he asked me questions.
During that year (which is 2 and a half years ago) my fears increased more and more. We always watched the news in German class which extremely scared me. The science teacher talked about various illnesses, things in the body, life-threatening situations and various ways in which you can die. We had big exams and had to learn a lot. Apart from that, I had no friends. I was alone, got bullied and I couldn’t bear the people I was together with at all. I always felt their energies and with that, I lost mine. Night after night I cried, had hour long conversations with my mother and like this, my negative energies grew.
After one year I had so many negative emotions that only a ‘small’ thing had to happen until the bucket overflowed and I couldn’t do it anymore. Though, it wasn’t something ‘small’. It was the coronavirus, which was all over the news. Everyone talked about it and the whole world was affected. I got panic attacks, became depressed, I fought a lot with dad and at some point the conversations with mom stopped helping, so I stopped talking. I was alone. Lonely. I cried again and again and I felt more and more pain.
It wasn’t until I went to a psychologist that I found out I was having panic attacks and was depressed. Because no-one told me. I didn’t know what depression was, and I didn’t think about it a lot. I was just scared I would never feel alive anymore. That’s how I always described it; not feeling alive, because I didn’t know it was my rational thinking not working anymore, due to my fears and problems.
It helped a lot to talk to the Psychologist, but that was only once. And then I continued going to ‘Cahms’ so they could make my school life easier. And there, it also helped a lot to talk, but they didn’t do anything for me which the principals hadn’t done already. After two visits there, I didn’t continue either. The option of home-schooling wasn’t an option after a shorter or longer period of time either. And for me it wasn’t in the cards to change schools, I had done that too many times in my life already and I didn’t have the strength to start from the top again.
So I worked on myself. Every day I listened to Katie Byron’s CD’s. I prayed, did mantras, meditations and stuck notes with positive messages onto my bed, which I read through every day. After all this I felt better and I had gathered the strength I needed to go into the third year, at the same school. At break time, I didn’t sit with Amy and her friends anymore, who didn’t speak to me anyway. I noticed how strongly I had pulled Amy down with me in my second year and it was time to go my own way in school, without having to be with Amy the whole time. And she deserved to live her own life and find her own friends, without me commenting on what I think of them. I always commented on them because I felt their energies and I know what people are like before fully knowing them.
The first few weeks in third year, I sat alone in a classroom, until Rina persuaded me to walk around with her sometimes. ‘Sometimes’ became ‘always’. I don’t find it so bad (I am talking in present tense because I am currently in third year and what I am talking about is either currently like this or it happened not so long ago) but I could never truly be friends with her. Still a lot happens in school where I lose my energy or where I don’t feeling well. I often write it into this diary, but I think I will never have an easy school life. And I think I will never say the school day was ‘good’ or that I enjoyed it.
Now I’ll get to what happened yesterday. Because the next class was Science and that teacher just picks students randomly to answer the questions, and because he is so strict and so on… I was really nervous. I tried to distract myself and therefore went on my phone. My stomach tingled and it felt like I had to use the toilet the entire time. I read through all my notes we had taken down the week before.
Then he called. And like always in corona time, where we are at home, he asked every single one of us a question. And like always, I hoped he didn’t have enough questions for me to be asked. But it wasn’t the case. I was sweating, my fear increased and therefore it got hotter and more tingly in my body, but my skin was really cold and sticky. He picked me. Of course. I felt how my rational thinking stopped, as now, only he and my answer existed in my world. My question required the longest explanation, in comparison to the others. It felt like he asked me a million questions about it. Thankfully I had read through that shortly before the class started, but my rational thinking was gone, so after a short while I didn’t know what I was saying anymore. It came to this point of not thinking straight, because I didn’t quite answer his first question correctly. “What!!!” he shouted loudly and strictly. As if he were disgusted by me answering wrongly. So he asked the same question again, and I paused for a while until I answered, because I didn’t know where I was anymore. I didn’t even know my own name in that moment. And if it wouldn’t have been my turn to answer, the tears would’ve shot into my eyes right away. My body was like electrified, everything trembled, I was burning inside, and freezing outside. I had so many thoughts at once, but none at the same time. My lips spoke before my head realized. Now I had answered correctly and he was satisfied. Then he fired more questions my way before I started explaining the process of why you need sunlight for Photosynthesis. Once my unsteady voice with short breaths stopped talking, I turned off the microphone as quickly as I could and then I couldn’t hold back my tears any longer. They flooded down my cheek in streams and no matter how often I dabbed them away, my cheek didn’t stay dry.
If he would’ve asked me anything else during the class, I wouldn’t have been able to answer because my energy was gone, I couldn’t think rationally or concentrate. I didn’t catch much of what they were talking about because I was only focused on my panic attack. I cried during the whole class, none-stop.
I tried to think of something nice, for example my aunt Julia or the movie ‘After’ but that didn’t take me back to reality. The worst for me wasn’t even the fact that I got something wrong or that he annoyingly and meanly put me on the spot, but how my panic attacks returned after such a long time and I couldn’t see anything else except for the situation I was currently in.
I didn’t attend the English class and thankfully after that the school day was over. Mom saw me and hugged me when I explained what had happened. I continued crying for a long time afterwards and the shivering didn’t stop, it just got a little calmer. Even right now there is still a tension in my body and I know if something were to scare me, I will get another panic-attack, as my whole body is charged and ready for a command.
In the evening, while watching TV, the shivering got worse and my fear grew with every thought about school. I find it so sad that I worked on it so much and suddenly I fell backwards again. Hopefully I will get out of it faster this time than last time.
I rushed while getting ready for bed and when I was alone in my room, the tears came again, but not out of fear, – out of sadness, because so much happens to me at once.
Mom came in to say good night and she wanted to know what is going on with me at the moment. She kept repeating the question. I couldn’t and didn’t want to talk and explain everything. She just didn’t understand why I couldn’t simply say what was going on. And she only kept talking about my panic-attack, and about how I can get a lot of help for it, or how dad and her could text the teacher to not pick me anymore. But this was just one of my problems, and not even the biggest. But she didn’t understand this either, so she became impatient, and to me, she was just stupid. Of course it didn’t help at all and I cried continuously with my back turned to her. My biggest sadness is that I have no-one. No friends, no boyfriend, no-one with whom I can or want to talk to about everything. No-one who understands me. If I would have someone – and I’m thinking of a specific person which probably isn’t so good, because I could get very disappointed – then I probably wouldn’t have panic-attacks, I wouldn’t have to deal with everything alone and would probably find everything half as bad as I do now, because then I would know I have someone. He is always there. I have this person and even if he doesn’t understand me, then he would just be silent and listen.
I really would like someone to understand me without me having to say anything. Without me having to explain myself all the time. Mom says there’s no-one like that. But of course there is. Angels, my dead relatives and if I would have a friend, then he would just be there, would listen to me, hug me and then I would feel understood. But mom doesn’t understand what I mean once again. Before she left my room she told me I should please think about getting help. A psychologist or so… I don’t know. I don’t want to talk, but at the same time I want to feel better…
When she left I threw myself onto the bed, with lights on and wearing full pyjamas and jewellery. I cried loudly because the pain couldn’t be suppressed. I pulled my knees towards my body to ease the pain, but it didn’t help. I cried very loud for very long and the vein on my forehead hurt due to the tension. I bawled myself to sleep with my problems, until I woke up again after a few minutes, because it was so uncomfortable and the bright light shone right onto my face. I pulled my pants and socks from my body, threw them across the room, I hit off the light switch and slammed my jewellery onto my nightstand. Without meditating or praying, I fell asleep again. Because in that moment I didn’t care about it. I also didn’t care I would wake up with swollen, red eyes the next morning. I also didn’t care if I would miss the whole school day because I slept in.
But that didn’t happen. I pulled myself through the school day, and just didn’t attend the Science or English class. And now I am sitting on my office chair with my legs up on my bed and am writing this entry at 3:15pm.
I am curious to see how I decide about the psychological help or how it continues with me or how it continues at all with Covid and the schools. It is hard to believe I started writing this diary when Covid already existed. Now it’s January 2021 and Covid spread in Ireland in March 2020, and the first words I wrote in this diary were on the 23rd May 2020.
How lovely that you are with me for so long already, and hopefully also for my next Entry. Until then, take care of yourselves, Leona!
