Good hello, my friends!
In my last post, I tried to explain what's going on. But I had just gotten done having a panic attack and I was still a little fuzzy. So here is me explaining to you how I got where I am today. Sit down, stay awhile. This might take a few minutes.
As a 14 year old girl, it is very overwhelming to think about all that has happened. But it all started when I was a kid. As a young child, I was very happy. I have 2 amazing parents who have now been married for 22 years in May! I am an only child, so I got all of the attention (good and bad) and was kinda spoiled. I was extremely creative and smart. Also, I was, and still am, a people person. I try to be friends with everybody and see the good in every human being. Social and talkative from day one, my parents say I haven't shut up since age 2. I was very artsy and musically inclined, I loved to draw and paint as a kid and hung my work on the refrigerator. To this day, I am a very musically inclined person. I have played flute for 3 years, but I started out on pots and pans! As a toddler, I would always drag my mom's clean cookware on the floor and I LOVED banging the lids of pots and pans together. When I got a little older, I discovered my dad's drum set in the basement and thoroughly enjoyed giving my parents headaches with that. I also loved to sing and would belt out every song I knew at the top of my lungs. This was all caught on tape by my dad, so I grew up with a camera in my face. I loved life and nothing could bring me down. I loved school, I loved my friends and I didn't have a care in the world. Until that one day in 2nd grade.........
It was a Monday in October. Very nice day...sunny.....warm.......anyways, I woke up that morning with a sore throat. I thought nothing of it since I had one pretty much every day from allergies. Little did I know that this would have a different outcome. My mom had tried to get me to stay home from school, but as I said before, I loved school so much and I was very stubborn, so I insisted that she take me to school anyways. I don't remember much of that morning, but my life would be changed forever that very afternoon. It was silent reading time after lunch. I was reading Amelia Bedelia Goes to the Doctor. All of a sudden, I got a twinge in my stomach. I shrugged it off as I was known to get anxious for no reason as a child and I knew stomach was a symptom of anxiety. But, I started to worry as it got worse. I finally got too uncomfortable and I asked my teacher to go to the nurse. She checked me out and discovered I had a fever. She called my mom to come pick me up and sent me back to class to get my backpack. When I came back from getting my backpack, I sat down in the office. After a few minutes, my mom was there. At this point, I felt absolutely miserable. My mom had something to give my teacher, so she insisted upon running it down to my classroom, which was just down the hall. I begged her not to go, but it had to be done. When she got back, she signed me out and we began to walk out of the office. I told her my tummy felt weird but she told me i was fine. About 10 feet out the door of the school, I threw up. It felt good to get it out, but it scared me. My mom went in to tell the office and to get a bag for the car ride home (which was 2 minutes). The rest of the day was spent puking my brains out, about 7 times, I recall. But my throat still didn't get better. My mom took me to the doctor where they stuck one of those giant q tips down my throat and said I had strep throat. I was started on an antibiotic but things didn't go quite as planned....
I was young, so I couldn't swallow a pill. Liquid Amoxicillen tastes like Hell, so I refused to take my medicine. We tried mixing the dust in the capsules with my juice, even pudding. But I still couldn't take it. It took me 3 weeks to complete that entire round of antibiotics. In the mean time, my mom did what any mom would do. After I had been fever-free for 24 hours, she sent me back to school. Or tried. I was so scared that I would throw up again that it took both my mom and dad to get me in the door, where we met with the principal and school social worker. They allowed my mom to stay in school with me that day, in hopes it would calm me down. I had a very hard day that day, but that day also started a brand new trend in my life! It was called mom staying in school with me all day for 4 months. She started sitting right next to my desk. Then, she sat on the rocker in the back of the class. After that, they moved her into the back hallway of the classroom, where she would do little side jobs for the teacher. 4 months later, we got her out of school completely. Lunch was the hardest part of the day, so it was determined that I could go home for lunch. That year tested my family very poorly. I had a ton of panic attacks, but back then, no one knew what they were or how to help me. The school labeled me as the “bad kid” and thought my anxiety was a behavior problem. So naturally, they treated me as if I had a behavior problem, which only made things worse. Finally, my parents and I sought the help of a professional therapist. And, boy, did it change our world. He explained that what I was going through was OCD and panic disorder with Emetophobia, the fear of vomiting. He reassured us that what I was going through was normal for my diagnosis and that it was not a behavior problem. Although it was hard to do real therapy since I was only 7, he helped my parents help me through panic attacks and explained them to us a little better. We had come up with a plan to get my mom out of school gradually, starting for half days at a time, and it worked! By May, my mom was out of school with me and I began to function somewhat normally again!
Pretty soon school let out, and I could put that hard year behind me. Summer came and went without a problem, but things started getting crazy again when I started 3rd grade. The panic attacks were back and I felt even more helpless. I was given passes to go see the resource room teachers, who could help me through my panic attack, 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes in the afternoon. At this point, I was still going home for lunch. My teacher had a son who suffered with anxiety, so it was helpful that she was familiar with the whole concept. But it just got more and more difficult for me. My therapist referred me to a psychiatrist to prescribe me medicine. I started out on a low dose of Zoloft, which didn't go too well. My anxieties were kept at bay, but I began to have trouble focusing in class, which resulted in poor grades. We decided to switch to a different doctor and try Prozac, all while working with my therapist. This didn't work either. According to my mom, the Prozac turned me into a raging bitch, so we decided to move on to Celexa. The Celexa seemed to work and got me through the rest of 3rd grade.
The summer of 3rd grade quickly passed, and off to 4th grade I went. And guess what, no problems! Of course I had the occasional moments of anxiety, but all in all 4th grade was an awesome year for me! I had the world's best teacher, who understood my situation completely. To this day I absolutely love her and she is my favorite teacher of all time! 4th grade zoomed by, and pretty soon, I was in my last year of Elementary School. 5th grade went the same way with virtually no problems! I thought maybe this was the end of it all. But, boy, was I dead wrong.
That's where I will end for this post. I know it's a lot to take in. Tomorrow, I will tell you about my 6th grade year up until now! Thanks for reading! I really appreciate it!
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