This past week was quite difficult despite the fact that everyone’s been trying their best to help me get through it. On Monday, I had my first day of freshman introduction, which at first went quite well but then it turned out I’d bought the wrong book for one course, so I freaked out at university. Same on Thursday after another book turned out to be the wrong edition. Now the freshman intro organizer says I ruined the nice atmosphere at intro. She doesn’t mean it as a personal attack, and I don’t take it as such, but since I know how stupid I behave, it does make me feel pessimistic. If I freak out my first two days at university, how will I do the rest of the year?
I don’t remember much about Tuesday. One of my new support workers, Adrie - the same person who came to Malden on Sunday -, came to my home to help with grocery shopping and picking up my meds at the pharmacy. Then the occupational therapist came and we tried the route to the shopping centre. Arda suspects that the reason I do so poorly on O&M these days is cause the occupational therapist focuses a little too much on instruction and lets me figure out the route somewhat too little on my own. I can sort of see where she’s coming from, but I also know that on several occasions, I wasn’t able to concentrate cause of stress. This was also what happened today, cause I’d felt confused after meeting up with Arda. She came for fun, but it really wasn’t much fun cause I freaked out before she came. I felt so nervous about the talk she’d had with Gerda and Marion, my new main support worker. As it turned out, it wasn’t that bad after all, but I felt really freaked out about it this morning.
Evenings are still difficult. Freaked out extremely yesterday, where I self-injured by banging my head - something I rarely do anymore. I got really worried about this, but it seems most other people see it as a bigger problem that I went outside crying after this happened. Well, that is a problem, too. Gerda says I should’ve called her, which I eventually did but not until someone had reminded me to call someone. I do need to find a way of reminding myself of healthy coping mechanisms like calling someone before I self-injure, run off or use other unhealthy coping strategies. Arda suggested I write a reminder and put it in my computer. I’m not sure if this works, but I’ll try.
Tomorrow and on Sunday, I will be having dinner and evenign coffee in the living facility in Malden, so that’s a good thing. Gerda is looking if she can get funding for me to sleep over at that place more often. She’s also looking into getting me in touch with other people. I worked out a list of things to do with Adrie this afternoon, which she will be discussing with Marion. I hope things will be working out a little.
hymes said,
August 25, 2007 @ 2:53 am
Hang in there. Being a beginning freshman is stressful for everyone. You show your stress on the outside but I bet there were a lot of freshmen there having tons of stress on the inside where you could not see it. I don’t know what freaking out looks like for you, but maybe you can learn some ways to freak out that aren’t as visible to others? I hope that makes sense. For an example: If someone has panic attacks for years, over time many learn how to hide the fact that they are having a panic attack from other people if they aren’t in a safe place to show how they feel or there is no one right there to help them. Then they can talk to someone about it later or do whatever helps them get through outside of the public eye.
But when people are first having panic attacks, I think most find it difficult to hide them from other people even in public.
I bet you will do much better with more time and practice at being in this school.