Overcoming Anxiety about school
Before you start reading this, this is not a self help "How to recover, you will recover by doing x, y & z" manual, it is my personal journey of anxiety and how I am overcoming it. But I am no medical professional and anxiety is very serious and if you or someone you know is suspected to have it please visit your general practitioner immediately. - Rosie
The term "anxiety" is a word that gets thrown around a lot these days, especially around the topic of school. Anxiety is something every single person will experience however each person will experience it in a different form and has a different intensity of it.
There is a scale of anxiety that every human is on, it ranges between a very little amount of anxiety (an example of this could be the jittery feeling you get before an exam) to the high level of anxiety which develops as a part of the mental health conditions that fall under the term anxiety.
There are 6 main types of mental health problems that are under the title of anxiety, these include:
- Generalised Anxiety Disorder
- Social Phobia
- Specific Phobias
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Panic Disorder
In my case I suffer Generalised Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Panic Disorder and have suffered with these for a very long time now. These disorders effect my day to day life and have in the past stopped me from doing a whole range of things.
My anxiety really affected my school life, it made my attendance drop, the thought of entering the school gates unbearable and all my grades drop from near perfect predicted grades I could of achieved. I decided to write about my anxiety around school as currently that is a major chapter in my life that I am going through. I have been off school for 3 and a half months because of my eating disorder, however now that I am allowed in school my anxiety has dramatised and become extremely explosive and overwhelming. Anxiety affects me in certain ways which include: Avoiding certain situations, fear of something bad happening to a loved one, fear of failure, panic attacks, shaking and so many more. Anxiety can be very disabilising, and there was a time in my life where it was for me. I could not leave my room, I did not want to see anyone, I locked myself away from society. This period of my last lasted for around a month in early 2015, however got over that, im now attending school fully and conquering my anxiety a day at a time.
I developed strength over my anxiety the only way that was on every leaflet or spokesperson about anxiety said to do, and that was by challenging it. But that is not by going full out of any of that kind of thing, it would be do one small thing every few days, for instance one day an achievement could be get out of bed and go to the kitchen and make a hot chocolate, that was once one of my achievements. And that is perfectly acceptable. You do not need to recover just at the clap of your hands as recovery does not work like that and it never will. I eventually started doing more and more challenges and when I started feeling more and more comfortable with these challenges I started intensifying these challenges e.g going to school for 2 hours then 3 then 4 and that is how I started managing. But doing loads of small steps. However, I did push myself to do these things and sometimes it wouldn't be successful but when I knew things were too much I didn't attempt a challenge that day as pushing yourself too hard can also be a set back. Try take things slowly and steadily. Remember that nothing bad will happen, I promise you that. Anxiety is irrational and that is one things I tried to tell myself each day, that x, y and z wont happen if you dont do this. That you are safe. I tried to take people that I trusted around with me during my hardest times and that helped buckets for me. I have been into school so much more with this attitude yes its hard but im getting there, schools really understand if you speak to them regarding mental health issues and there are things that can be put in place to help. I believe you can fight this, If you have any questions please message me on my social media.
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