Before I get into this intensely personal story, I want to preface this by saying-- My Anxiety Journey IS NOT over. I don't have it all figured out, and I continue to struggle. Despite this, I want to share my story, up to this point so if anyone out there is looking for encouragement or confirmation that they are not the only one going through these types of struggles something out there is comforting for them to see.
Here we go... I feel like it's necessary to point out that before I discovered my anxiety, I had had panic attacks. Panic attacks and anxiety are not the same things. Panic attacks are the all-consuming feeling of fear and terror in a single moment. Anxiety is this same feelings for hours, days, or longer. I have a deep fear of storms so you can imagine how I, a Kansas girl, can feel in the springtime. It didn't take much more than a Severe Thunderstorm Warning or Tornado Watch to send this girl into a full-fledged state of panic. We're talking shaking, crying, and hyperventilating. So, by the time having anxiety was even a thought in my head I had become extremely familiar with at least one aspect of it. The first time I became truly aware of the fact that something within myself had changed was in the middle of my sophomore year of high school. I was 15 years old, kicking butt at school and had just begun taking a CNA course through the local community college. Bookwork was a breeze in this hybrid course and then came time to meet in class and schedule our clinical rotations. The first meeting was very long, about 6 hours I believe. I rode over with a friend who was also taking the class, and it was all downhill from there. We arrived at the class and immediately began watching training videos. All of a sudden I started to feel my heart beating faster than normal which of course me not knowing the symptoms of anxiety lead to my internal panic. Lightheadedness and the feeling of nausea followed the panic, and the fight or flight meter in my body became heavily weighted toward flight. The trouble was that if you didn't complete a scheduled class day you couldn't finish the course. So, I had no choice but to power through. After the training videos, we left the classroom to head over to the model facility to practice moving patients, bathing them, and making the beds properly. 20+ students packed into a seemingly unventilated room that couldn't have been more than the size of any given patient room. We were packed in shoulder to shoulder and given that it was in October we were all bundled up and standing in a heated room. Suddenly I was overtaken by dizziness and the heat in the room. I felt like someone had lit my insides on fire. So I positioned myself at the back of the group being afraid I was going to pass out. Of course, then I began to run through my mental pass out prevention checklist. First, bend your knees next, wiggle your toes and finally, take deep breathes. None of this was working, and I was beginning to fade. Then, in the middle of the instructors' directions I raised my hand- not waiting for a response I abruptly blurted out "can I go to the bathroom." Following my question the understandable answer of "no" I said I felt like I was going to pass out and just left the room. The moment I stepped out of the room I experienced a momentary surge of relief. I paced the hall and went to get a drink, but the feeling returned. I told the instructor when she came out that I was claustrophobic and being in a room like that was too much. She understood, and we all went back to the classroom to practice with the gate belts and taking vitals. That was the first of two utterly miserable classroom days. To be Continued...
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Hunter FergusonHolding her Associates of Arts in Political Science, Implementing Beneficial Community Project, and having Led a Student Collaboration team at her college of attendance- Hunter chooses to blog about the world around her as well as her personal experiences in hopes of creating a Powerful group of like-minded people. Archives
July 2019
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