"Why are you texting me if you're right next to me?"
Trust me when I say Autism and Anxiety do not mix well at all. I've had multiple times where my Anxiety acts up a lot to the point of an Anxiety attack and my autism prevents me from saying anything to people because I lose the ability to communicate with others because of how anxious I get. As you can see, they really don't mix well, and just like so many other people, this is something I experience on a frequent basis. Just like I'm saying, the experience when this happens isn't pretty, I feel like I have no power left in me, I feel useless, I feel like I can't do anything to fix whatever is going on with me, and the fact that I can't really tell others how I feel when I get an Anxiety attack escalates the problems. There are many examples of these types of situations in a public setting involving many individuals, myself included, I've had so many Anxiety attacks, but there's this one time in the 8th grade where the same reason gave me an Anxiety attack three times, and it was the worst feeling I've ever had, next to needles.
I didn't like my group that we were forced to start from the beginning in my 8th grade science class. We had to go with people that have the same number and form a group with them to make a science project. It was me and three others, and I hoping that I would've had at least my best friend Jake in my group, or at the very least my other friend Daniel, but it didn't turn out that way. Bare with me that I didn't have anything against them, I knew all of them since 6th grade, but I never really talked to them at all, and my shy nature made things uncomfortable between them. I didn't have any beef with them, yet. Eventually, when it came to creating our own experiment, we had to decide one that we were going to tell our teacher and stick with it. We could've done something easy, like a rocket, or a physics experiment. I really wanted to do an experiment involving the g-force as well as it involving magnets. It seemed very simple on paper, and another person in my group agreed with me, but by the time I was about to go up, I saw my teammate already up saying something to my teacher. When he came back, he said that we were doing the plasma ball experiment. The experiment involves a plasma ball, and lightbulbs, and when you gently place a lightbulb next to the plasma ball, the electromagnetic energy diffuse the lightbulb and hence, lights it up as if it were connected to a house. Pretty simple concept, except this was the type of group that made me do all the work. I didn't complain when I was asked to do everything however, since I didn't want to make things worst, and at that time, it was hard for me to fix a solution, so I wanted to avoid all of that. So first thing on the list was to find a plasma ball, except they were ridiculously hard to find (me nor my family didn't trust online shopping back then). I was fortunate enough to find one available at a Toys-R-US (R.I.P
:( ), but that particular store was 25 miles away from where I lived, so I had to get all my money I had (yes I even had to pay for that, and I barely had 'enough' for it) and off we went to the store to get one. When we arrived around an hour later (I remember the freeway was terribly jammed), I ran towards the blub, and luckily enough I saw there. I picked it up and I took it to the counter, happy that I was going to be able to proceed with the project. I got all my money out, being $25, and the ball was $24.99, and that's when I forgot about taxes. It came out to around $28, and my dad asked me "why didn't you bring enough, you can't afford it now." What he said set off an Anxiety attack, as I realized I didn't have enough and I wasn't going to be able to buy it and I would've failed my group. I started crying at him saying "I'm sorry this is all my money, I just want to pass my class." I started to hyperventilate and eventually I dropped to the ground thinking that I had no way to fix things. I was shaking in fear, and my dad picked me yelling at me saying "you're old enough to be making tantrums!" He paid the rest with his own money and he pulled my shirt to guide me to the car, as I realized I embarrassed both of us as a bunch of people noticed. I was still crying on the way back, but I was slowly recovering from the situation as I realized that I was going to be able to continue my project and not fail my group. Little did my dad know however, that the 'tantrum' I had was no tantrum, but rather it was an Anxiety attack, and I didn't do it to grab the attention of others or to get my way like most kids usually do, I did it because I felt like I was...dying.
That was only the beginning. I only had a week to test and prove my hypothesis, and then make the essay and the poster (remember when I said I didn't hate them before the project, this is why I disliked them so much afterwards). It took me about 3-4 days to test the hypothesis, making sure that everything went right and that I can support my theory with information and create a presentation without getting stage fright (I was going all out so I wouldn't disappoint my group). It was hard for me, considering that we were in groups for a reason, I was doing all the work that I knew from the beginning that it was a huge mistake and I should've stood up for myself and said something, but I didn't have the power to do it. I began doing the presentation paper two days before the project was due, and since I didn't have a computer nor printer back in this time, I had to resort to the public library which fortunately is 5 blocks away from me, so I was there for around 6 hours that day working on making a good presentation based on "our" (my) theory and some things that "we" (I) enjoyed about the process of creating our theory. That wasn't the really bad part, I actually enjoyed it. The bad part came when I had to organize an entire poster filled with information all by myself that had to be completed the next day. I was already stressing that day when I arrived home from school, saying to myself that I will be able to complete it by 8pm (it was 3pm), and then study for my quiz for math that I had tomorrow as well. To make the very long story of pasting, coloring, and cutting short, I was around halfway done, and it was 11pm (way past my curfew when I was 12 years old), and it was my first time I ever stressed so much about a project, rather then feeling tired and like falling asleep, I was writing so much so quickly and I was sweating as if I ran the mile and barely finished. I was hoping that I would've at least finished the work before I went to sleep in 30 minutes since I was so stressed and I just wanted all of the stressed that I had to go away. I decided that I didn't care whether I feel asleep at 4am, I just wanted to finish all of the work before school started. It was 12am, I was 2/3's finished, and my mom came marching outside telling me that I had to go to sleep this instant. This is where the beginning of my anxiety attack begins. I exclaimed to her how I didn't have enough time to do all the work and I just need to finish it." I did so much work the whole week, it was already stressing as it was, heck even my mom saw how stressed I was when I was working on my essay paper, and she tells me that I was "procrastinating" this whole week. I lost it. My frustrated mindset went away, and a angry state emerged out of me. I began yelling at her lots of things to her. I began crying afterwards, saying things very quickly such as "I'm not going to finish!" "I'm going to fail the class!" My group is going to bully me!" That was nothing compared to when I yelled seconds afterwards "I'm going to die!" I was running around the room panicking not knowing what to do, while my mom was making things worst by yelling "stop it this instant!" I fell to the ground at one point and I was just crying, thinking that I failed in life. I don't remember what happened afterwards, but I do remember it was 7:30am the next day, and when I go outside to check out what happened, I still haven't finished the project, I was at the point where I finished yesterday. I didn't know what to do at that point. (No, I don't drop to the ground every time I have an anxiety attack, those are just the super extreme anxiety attacks.)
You could probably imagine how worried and stressed I was on my way to school. I had everything ready, I had my plasma ball, I had my four light blubs, I had my theory paper, and I had my cardboard, which was still incomplete was worth 100 out of the 300 points, so basically 33% of the entire project. My science class was in 3rd period, and my first class of the day was study hall with my best friend Jake. I have already had a rough morning, I wasn't concentrating so much I bumped into a girl and it took me a few seconds to process what have just happened and apologize to her. It was such a huge relief to see Jake and have someone help me through this situation that I was going through. The fact that he to this day he is still my best friend, and he helps me when I go through some sort of trouble, means so much to me, and as soon as I though about sitting down to him, I was feeling a slight relief incoming. When we sat down next to each other, the first thing he asked me was "how did the project for science turn out for you guys? My group didn't do theirs too great, but it's good for the most part." I felt my hands shaking, and myself feeling extremely anxious. I have gone through another anxiety attack, although it wasn't as bad as the others. I wasn't allowed to use my phone inside the room (or the school for that matter), and Jake said "what are you doing? You're going to get caught!" I texted him quickly saying "I need help! I have to finish the project!" I sent it to them and I told him to check his phone. He quickly glanced at it and when he put his phone back in his pocket, he asked me "Why are you texting me if you're right next to me?" I finally had the guts to answer something logical to him "I need help! Can you help me finish my project, I need to finish the cardboard, can you write some information down and paste it in the cardboard?" He said "of course, lets start it." As we started writing information down, Jake told me "you know, you really should've stood up for yourself and tell them to help you out." Thanks to him helping me out, my anxiety attack wasn't as bad as it should've gone. I also realized thanks to him that after everything that came out of this, I was used from my group, and because of them, I endured so much pain that wouldn't have happened if I had at least a day of help from them. Back to the day of the project, me and Jake finished the information by the end of 1st period, and I was able to enjoy the rest of 2nd period with peace. By 3rd, I saw my group and we were going to go up 3rd, Jake's group was going up 2nd. Jake's group was actually very good, and I was worried for a second that we weren't going to do as good as my group were literally rehearsing the speech minutes before! I'm proud of saying that everything went out fine, we presented our project, the speech, and everyone was amazed when we turned off the lights and we showed them how the light bulb was lighting up when it got in contact with the plasma ball. Once we finished, we handed her the report and she was going to correct it and give us the final grade tomorrow. At that point, I didn't care if I even got a C (I kind of did but you get the point), as all the stress, all the anxiety attacks were gone. The next day when she handed us the report paper, I was the first person to check out the grade. I reminded myself that I completed everything, it might have not been the best of my efforts, but I knew that all my hard work was put into this project by myself. All the Anxiety attacks I went through, I deserved a good grade. I also reminded myself that this was a group grade, so what they got, I got. I saw the grade, it was a B+. I was confused, I asked myself, what did I miss, I followed all the steps. Then I realized that she wrote a comment down below. It said " (my name), why did you let your teammates make you do all of the work?"
That's the end to my first proper blog in a while. If there's two things you can learn from this, it's that 1. Don't put yourself in the struggle, and collaborate with your team. If you teacher is anything like mine, they might even notice who did all the work. More importantly, anxiety attacks are very, very bad for the person who's experiencing them. Feeling like your dying is nothing to laugh about, and that's how I feel when I experience one. When combined with a lack of expressing how I feel, it's like saying, I'm on my own for this one. Lack of communication is very common among the autism spectrum, but for me, it's only shown when I have a difficulty expressing how I feel, which is the worst time when I feel like not talking. I hope you really enjoyed this blog and learned something new, or can relate from me if you have gone through these before, because I know how painful they are. If you guys don't know, you can press the follow button below this blog for free, and you will instantly be notified when I post a new blog before anyone else does, so I strongly encourage all of you guys to follow my page, it would mean so much to me. Until tomorrow, have a great day everyone :)
I didn't like my group that we were forced to start from the beginning in my 8th grade science class. We had to go with people that have the same number and form a group with them to make a science project. It was me and three others, and I hoping that I would've had at least my best friend Jake in my group, or at the very least my other friend Daniel, but it didn't turn out that way. Bare with me that I didn't have anything against them, I knew all of them since 6th grade, but I never really talked to them at all, and my shy nature made things uncomfortable between them. I didn't have any beef with them, yet. Eventually, when it came to creating our own experiment, we had to decide one that we were going to tell our teacher and stick with it. We could've done something easy, like a rocket, or a physics experiment. I really wanted to do an experiment involving the g-force as well as it involving magnets. It seemed very simple on paper, and another person in my group agreed with me, but by the time I was about to go up, I saw my teammate already up saying something to my teacher. When he came back, he said that we were doing the plasma ball experiment. The experiment involves a plasma ball, and lightbulbs, and when you gently place a lightbulb next to the plasma ball, the electromagnetic energy diffuse the lightbulb and hence, lights it up as if it were connected to a house. Pretty simple concept, except this was the type of group that made me do all the work. I didn't complain when I was asked to do everything however, since I didn't want to make things worst, and at that time, it was hard for me to fix a solution, so I wanted to avoid all of that. So first thing on the list was to find a plasma ball, except they were ridiculously hard to find (me nor my family didn't trust online shopping back then). I was fortunate enough to find one available at a Toys-R-US (R.I.P
:( ), but that particular store was 25 miles away from where I lived, so I had to get all my money I had (yes I even had to pay for that, and I barely had 'enough' for it) and off we went to the store to get one. When we arrived around an hour later (I remember the freeway was terribly jammed), I ran towards the blub, and luckily enough I saw there. I picked it up and I took it to the counter, happy that I was going to be able to proceed with the project. I got all my money out, being $25, and the ball was $24.99, and that's when I forgot about taxes. It came out to around $28, and my dad asked me "why didn't you bring enough, you can't afford it now." What he said set off an Anxiety attack, as I realized I didn't have enough and I wasn't going to be able to buy it and I would've failed my group. I started crying at him saying "I'm sorry this is all my money, I just want to pass my class." I started to hyperventilate and eventually I dropped to the ground thinking that I had no way to fix things. I was shaking in fear, and my dad picked me yelling at me saying "you're old enough to be making tantrums!" He paid the rest with his own money and he pulled my shirt to guide me to the car, as I realized I embarrassed both of us as a bunch of people noticed. I was still crying on the way back, but I was slowly recovering from the situation as I realized that I was going to be able to continue my project and not fail my group. Little did my dad know however, that the 'tantrum' I had was no tantrum, but rather it was an Anxiety attack, and I didn't do it to grab the attention of others or to get my way like most kids usually do, I did it because I felt like I was...dying.
That was only the beginning. I only had a week to test and prove my hypothesis, and then make the essay and the poster (remember when I said I didn't hate them before the project, this is why I disliked them so much afterwards). It took me about 3-4 days to test the hypothesis, making sure that everything went right and that I can support my theory with information and create a presentation without getting stage fright (I was going all out so I wouldn't disappoint my group). It was hard for me, considering that we were in groups for a reason, I was doing all the work that I knew from the beginning that it was a huge mistake and I should've stood up for myself and said something, but I didn't have the power to do it. I began doing the presentation paper two days before the project was due, and since I didn't have a computer nor printer back in this time, I had to resort to the public library which fortunately is 5 blocks away from me, so I was there for around 6 hours that day working on making a good presentation based on "our" (my) theory and some things that "we" (I) enjoyed about the process of creating our theory. That wasn't the really bad part, I actually enjoyed it. The bad part came when I had to organize an entire poster filled with information all by myself that had to be completed the next day. I was already stressing that day when I arrived home from school, saying to myself that I will be able to complete it by 8pm (it was 3pm), and then study for my quiz for math that I had tomorrow as well. To make the very long story of pasting, coloring, and cutting short, I was around halfway done, and it was 11pm (way past my curfew when I was 12 years old), and it was my first time I ever stressed so much about a project, rather then feeling tired and like falling asleep, I was writing so much so quickly and I was sweating as if I ran the mile and barely finished. I was hoping that I would've at least finished the work before I went to sleep in 30 minutes since I was so stressed and I just wanted all of the stressed that I had to go away. I decided that I didn't care whether I feel asleep at 4am, I just wanted to finish all of the work before school started. It was 12am, I was 2/3's finished, and my mom came marching outside telling me that I had to go to sleep this instant. This is where the beginning of my anxiety attack begins. I exclaimed to her how I didn't have enough time to do all the work and I just need to finish it." I did so much work the whole week, it was already stressing as it was, heck even my mom saw how stressed I was when I was working on my essay paper, and she tells me that I was "procrastinating" this whole week. I lost it. My frustrated mindset went away, and a angry state emerged out of me. I began yelling at her lots of things to her. I began crying afterwards, saying things very quickly such as "I'm not going to finish!" "I'm going to fail the class!" My group is going to bully me!" That was nothing compared to when I yelled seconds afterwards "I'm going to die!" I was running around the room panicking not knowing what to do, while my mom was making things worst by yelling "stop it this instant!" I fell to the ground at one point and I was just crying, thinking that I failed in life. I don't remember what happened afterwards, but I do remember it was 7:30am the next day, and when I go outside to check out what happened, I still haven't finished the project, I was at the point where I finished yesterday. I didn't know what to do at that point. (No, I don't drop to the ground every time I have an anxiety attack, those are just the super extreme anxiety attacks.)
You could probably imagine how worried and stressed I was on my way to school. I had everything ready, I had my plasma ball, I had my four light blubs, I had my theory paper, and I had my cardboard, which was still incomplete was worth 100 out of the 300 points, so basically 33% of the entire project. My science class was in 3rd period, and my first class of the day was study hall with my best friend Jake. I have already had a rough morning, I wasn't concentrating so much I bumped into a girl and it took me a few seconds to process what have just happened and apologize to her. It was such a huge relief to see Jake and have someone help me through this situation that I was going through. The fact that he to this day he is still my best friend, and he helps me when I go through some sort of trouble, means so much to me, and as soon as I though about sitting down to him, I was feeling a slight relief incoming. When we sat down next to each other, the first thing he asked me was "how did the project for science turn out for you guys? My group didn't do theirs too great, but it's good for the most part." I felt my hands shaking, and myself feeling extremely anxious. I have gone through another anxiety attack, although it wasn't as bad as the others. I wasn't allowed to use my phone inside the room (or the school for that matter), and Jake said "what are you doing? You're going to get caught!" I texted him quickly saying "I need help! I have to finish the project!" I sent it to them and I told him to check his phone. He quickly glanced at it and when he put his phone back in his pocket, he asked me "Why are you texting me if you're right next to me?" I finally had the guts to answer something logical to him "I need help! Can you help me finish my project, I need to finish the cardboard, can you write some information down and paste it in the cardboard?" He said "of course, lets start it." As we started writing information down, Jake told me "you know, you really should've stood up for yourself and tell them to help you out." Thanks to him helping me out, my anxiety attack wasn't as bad as it should've gone. I also realized thanks to him that after everything that came out of this, I was used from my group, and because of them, I endured so much pain that wouldn't have happened if I had at least a day of help from them. Back to the day of the project, me and Jake finished the information by the end of 1st period, and I was able to enjoy the rest of 2nd period with peace. By 3rd, I saw my group and we were going to go up 3rd, Jake's group was going up 2nd. Jake's group was actually very good, and I was worried for a second that we weren't going to do as good as my group were literally rehearsing the speech minutes before! I'm proud of saying that everything went out fine, we presented our project, the speech, and everyone was amazed when we turned off the lights and we showed them how the light bulb was lighting up when it got in contact with the plasma ball. Once we finished, we handed her the report and she was going to correct it and give us the final grade tomorrow. At that point, I didn't care if I even got a C (I kind of did but you get the point), as all the stress, all the anxiety attacks were gone. The next day when she handed us the report paper, I was the first person to check out the grade. I reminded myself that I completed everything, it might have not been the best of my efforts, but I knew that all my hard work was put into this project by myself. All the Anxiety attacks I went through, I deserved a good grade. I also reminded myself that this was a group grade, so what they got, I got. I saw the grade, it was a B+. I was confused, I asked myself, what did I miss, I followed all the steps. Then I realized that she wrote a comment down below. It said " (my name), why did you let your teammates make you do all of the work?"
That's the end to my first proper blog in a while. If there's two things you can learn from this, it's that 1. Don't put yourself in the struggle, and collaborate with your team. If you teacher is anything like mine, they might even notice who did all the work. More importantly, anxiety attacks are very, very bad for the person who's experiencing them. Feeling like your dying is nothing to laugh about, and that's how I feel when I experience one. When combined with a lack of expressing how I feel, it's like saying, I'm on my own for this one. Lack of communication is very common among the autism spectrum, but for me, it's only shown when I have a difficulty expressing how I feel, which is the worst time when I feel like not talking. I hope you really enjoyed this blog and learned something new, or can relate from me if you have gone through these before, because I know how painful they are. If you guys don't know, you can press the follow button below this blog for free, and you will instantly be notified when I post a new blog before anyone else does, so I strongly encourage all of you guys to follow my page, it would mean so much to me. Until tomorrow, have a great day everyone :)
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