Diagnosed

First off. I don't want to scare anybody. It's NOT cancer, nor anything else even remotely life-threatening. Glad we got that cleared up. I can't believe that my first post on KHV in months is going to be something all srs like this, but... Yeah. Whatever. I kind of need some advice, and I'm kicking myself for not doing this earlier.

So, anyways. In a rather long and complicated series of unfortunate events, I ended up in a position on Wednesday where my mom was forced to take me to a therapist by the school, or else I couldn't come back. I was just expecting it to be a short meeting in which I could vent off my troubles and maybe get someone that my mom would actually LISTEN to that would tell her to lay OFF me already. Maybe have some family-therapy sessions and what-not... You know... Just patch up the disputed between us so that we could be a nice, loving family again. I was tired of going through the constant ups and downs with her, and would welcome anything that the doctor said that might make it better.

But the problem wasn't just mom. After a long question-and-answer session, I found out that I had GAD - generalized anxiety disorder. I have NO idea why that came as such a shock to me - as soon as she said it, I knew it made perfect sense. I have ALWAYS been tied up in a knot about something or another - ever sense I was a little girl. It was just a matter at how good I was at hiding it from the rest of the world. And if I'm not totally laid back, I'm stressed til the point where I can't think in complete sentences. I never thought of the fact that I'm so OCD about my (hand)writing til the point where, if I mess up on a single letter, I'll have to go back over it 6 or seven times, and then the rest of the word so that all of the letters match was anything but an oddity. I thought that the reason I was always so worried about things - ANYTHING going wrong was because "I wasn't in the right mindset" or because I was getting away from my religion, or... Something or another. But nothing like this. Maybe because I knew friends who'd actually gone through ACTUAL panic attacks. Even as bad as my meltdowns were, they were never anything that bad.

This is nothing like the time I was diagnosed with A.D.D. I'd ALWAYS known I had trouble concentrating. Plus, A.D.D. didn't mean much at the time - so I had trouble concentrating - so what? Doesn't make me any less smart or pretty or nice, or fun to be around. But this... it feels so different. Like something just blew in from the left field and slapped me in the face. I hardly know what to do with myself. It seemed like I dragged through school like something risen from the grave since I found out. Reflecting back on my life now, it seems that everything I ever done and everything I've ever felt is determined by this cursed disease. It's... An awful feeling, guys. Kind of what I'd guess it feels like to find out you have autism, or you're adopted, I guess. You know you're the same person you were before you found out... You just don't FEEL like you're you anymore. For all I know, I might not even HAVE A.D.D. - maybe my concentration problems are cause by my anxiety. It's almost too confusing to think about...

Don't get me wrong, guys - I'm glad I was diagnosed. Maybe now I can go through a process to maybe get whatever's not working right in my mind back in gear so that I won't have to live the rest of my life as miserable as I've been lately. But... It's different. Very... Very different. I've never really thought of myself as needing to be fixed. It's very odd and a little scary to think about. I just need support. Help, guys?

(BTW: If you want to know the full story of what happened, here ya go. CAUTION: long story is long.)

Spoiler

Note: I wrote this on Thursday.

It all started yesterday. Everything was peachy-keen for a while - as I told you guys. I was working hard in math, and getting that horrid grade up and everything. I had taken a test that day, and was sure I aced it. I went to writing club and was... just feeling good. But there was a pressing concern at the back of my mind. I had two projects to do that night - one I hadn't been expecting to do and was due the next day - and it was in math, too. The other one was bigger, harder to do, and in science, which I'm currently doing well in, but expect to get much tougher later on. So, right now, leverage is key. And it was due Thursday. I'd had the math one for a while, but my partner found out she wasn't going to be here today to present it with me, so yesterday, she comes up to me, and is all, "Hey, Leah - since you're going to be doing the presentation by yourself tomorrow, here - why don't you make the poster-board the way YOU want to?"

This kind of stunned me, because I don't really have anything at home besides colored pencils, and those don't tend to do well with poster-board, but I agreed, anyway. I figured it'd only be fair - she'd done most of the work, anyway, and was a great help, so I figured it'd be wrong for me to complain. My only issue was that she hadn't told me BEFORE then, so that I could be prepared. But, anyways, yeah - she gave me the information we needed, blah blah blah - we went home and I started going to work. Only one problem. I was missing the original statistic.

Bad. Bad, bad. Bad, bad, bad.

Okay, not that bad. But that was what my mind was thinking. To save myself from going nuts over it, I decided to save the math thing for later, and got on my science project. It was going well, albeit slowly, until I noticed that this one panel I'd spent at least 20 minutes on... Was on the wrong page of the storybook.

Initiat lockdown mode.

I had a COMPLETE meltdown at that point, and was sobbing and at the point where I couldn't think past the, "OMG OMG OMG I WASTED SO MUCH TIME LKSWNGFRUGR NOW I HAVE TO ERASE ALL OF MY HARD WORK AND START OVER AGAIN KJNGFVRKEJBGRKFN DAMN IT DAMN IT **** I'M STUPID GAAAAAH" going around in my head. Which, of course, wasn't helping anything. So, in a moment of insanity, I did what I should NEVER do, EVER.

I went to talk to mom about it.

So, as soon as I say the word, "project", she's already on my case about what I have and haven't done. I tell her - I'm completely honest, and completely sincere. She gives me some helpful advice, but goes a little nuts on the original statistic deal. She tells me to find it online, so I do a Google search. Couldn't find it. But by now, I'm looking over the rubric again, and find out that not having the original stat. will only knock me down 4 points - as long as we mention it in our hypothesis. Which we did. So it was fine. I calm down a little, finish up what I can (crudely - I literally had to TAPE everything because we didn't have any usable glue sticks, so it looked... Pretty bad. But there was no place on the rubric where it said it'd count off for it not looking attractive - as long as you had all the info). So I was satisfied, at least, and started going to bed. I was IN bed, on my way to falling asleep, when mom calls me (not unusual to do when we're too lazy to go across the house to go speak to each other.) And she asks me if I ever found that statistic. And, in another brief moment of insanity... I tell her the truth AGAIN, and say no, I didn't, but I'd hit Bailey up in the morning to try to find it in the morning before school started.

Cue batshit mom.

She MAKES me get up, thirty minutes before my bedtime and come to her room so that we could find that statistic. I try telling her, "Mom - it's alright - I looked at the rubric, and it only counts as four paints if you don't have it." But I might as well have been talking to a brick wall. It might of listened better. That makes me a bit pissed and more than a little passive aggressive. I say to her that this entire experience just proved my fears about talking to her, and that if I ever had a problem in school ever again, I'd talk to the janitors before I talked to her again. She threatens to take away my computer if i ever do, but I knew my comment worried her. She searches and searches and searches, too, and can't find it, either. I think that she's given up, at this point, and ask her again if I can go to bed. But she says no and that I'd have to do the ENTIRE project over again BY MYSELF, and if it meant staying up until 2 AM to do that, so be it.

....... w8 wut?

I want to believe that she's kidding, but mom never kids. I try to explain that I have SCHOOL in the morning and a WHOLE 'NOTHER ****ING PROJECT TO DO by Thursday, and that I couldn't do it if I was really tired. Once again. Talking to a brick wall would have gotten me further. She even goes as far as to chant at me, "YOU HAVE A 70 IN THAT CLASS! YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO MISS ANY MORE! You're FAILING!" She didn't even acknowledge how HARD it was for me to even GET that 70. (Which was actually a 71.) Just a week or two before, it was a 68. I got my grade up THREE POINTS in a week. Do any of you know how HARD that is? So I kind of lose my temper and scream something at her along the lines of, "YOU ONLY THINK OF ME AS A GRADE, AND I'M SICK OF IT!!!"

So she calls in Pops as a "third party". Yeah ****ing right. I KNEW I was on the chopping board from the first moment he came in. So she proceeds to tell HER side of the story, and I maybe got one or two sentences in, but Pops would always cut me off and be all, "Let her talk!" so I'd shut up and just kind of brood angrily. Then, without even asking for MY point of view, he proceeds to roast me just as I knew he would and talk about how I could "reach a milestone" and "do the ADULT thing" but killing myself over... Four points.

ADULT thing? Sounds more like a STUPID thing to me. And I said it. I also said, "I love it how you made all those judgments about me without even getting MY side of the story first." And he gets all offended, but it was entirely true - two sentences doesn't count as an entire viewpoint. So I'm all like, "I KNEW this would happen - you ALWAYS take her side on things!" and I can't remember how, but I started crying. Mom starts pointing exasperatedly at me like, "See? I told ya," and Pops rolls his eyes and is all, "Can we PLEASE stop the waterworks?" which only makes me cry harder, but Mom is all, "No, no - if you want her to express herself, let her express herself!"

Now, I don't know if you guys know it, but when I get REALLY emotional, I also get very.... inscrutable. I can't even remember what I said - I was probably babbling like an idiot, trying to tell them how much stress I was under, and what I was going through, but I bet it didn't sound like anything at all. I can almost even forgive Pops for what he said next. Almost. So he was like, "Leah, while one side of my male heart goes out to you for all of the drama that's been going on, the other part wants you to just suck it up, get on with life, and do the responsible thing here."

Right. Killing myself. Over 4 points. Responsible, all right.

I start thinking that maybe they're just narrow sighting on how terrible the poster itself was and not even paying attention to the actual information was - I mean, everything but the stat was there! So I try to explain that to them. Again. I told Pops that I guarantee that it was at least B-worthy. He said if it was, he'd give me ten bucks. (I'm totally going to hold him up to that, too.) I can't remember what I tried to say next, but I got a whole slew of, "YOU'RE ASSUMING ALL OF THAT IS GOING TO BE A PERFECT 100 - YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO LOSE ANY POINTS! THIS IS TERRIBLE!" and once again, Mom started bombarding me about the whole "YOU HAVE A 70 AVERAGE! A 70!!! WE'VE NEVER BEEN THAT LOW - THAT'S A D, DO YOU KNOW THAT?!" And I gave up. Totally. I checked out early, and kind off shrank back into a distant corner of my mind that is safe and plated with iron armor and impenetrable.

Finally, Pops decided that it WAS my choice to not do it over again, but was like, "But if you do badly on this project, you know who you're going to have to face?" And he forces me - physically to look at mom, who is glaring at me as if I were a poisonous snake. I actually looked away, but now I wish I hadn't. I should have glared her right back in her eyes. I wanted to literally punch her in the face at that moment, but I didn't.

So, finally, they let me go and I make a beeline to my room where I proceed to sob noisily and scream in my pillow and punch my bed. Didn't make me feel any better. So I went online, and contacted my guidance councilor, and wrote her a rather.... strange and insane-sounding letter\poem thingy telling her how I felt. But I wasn't exaggerating. At all. I DID want to run away, I DID want to hurt my parents (emotionally, mostly) like they were hurting me, and I was sick and ****ing TIRED of feeling powerless, opinionless, and WORTHLESS just because of one bad grade in the midst of several As, and one 89. I called my sister, too, but her phone is out, so I left her an equally confusing message telling her to call back, no matter at what time.

I was still pretty wound up after that, but suddenly a really weird calm came over me, and I just... stopped. And I went to sleep.

When I woke up, I wrote you guys the thing you saw this morning, because, mostly, I wanted my mom to know that it was NOT normal what I was feeling and that I WANTED to talk to a therapist IMMEDIATELY. Even if I had to hurt myself to do so. A cry for help? You betcha. Mine was a COMPLETE cry for help because I KNEW that I needed and I wasn't going to settle for brief peaces before long bouts of misery anymore.

Wow - this is getting long. I'll cut it off here for now. More later.

--EDIT--

So, yeah. Going to school now. On the bus, I give my friend Faith a quick rundown of what happened, since I can literally trust her ten times more than anyone else in my entire school. She agreed with me that it wasn't fair, and suggested that we go to my math teacher's class together - her, to make up a quiz, and me to ask her about my project and if there was anything I could do to spruce it up. I forgot all about the media center. My bad. I own up completely for that. But whatever - at least I did SOMETHING. My teacher told me that she'd gotten an email from Mrs. Batshit, and that it sounded as if I wasn't giving my partner enough credit, since she said she'd only seen Bailey working on it. Which, granted, was true. The one in-class day she had us working on it, Bailey was the one who went to the media center, got the statistic, and did the math. I helped with the surveying and was going to do the presentation and everything. But I was more than willing to acknowledge that poor Bailey did most of the grunt-work - I just wanted to make sure that we could BOTH get a good grade on this. The teacher SEEMED to understand (it's hard to know what she's thinking sometimes), and gave me a few helpful tips, so I cleaned it up a little and decorated the poster some more. The presentation was pretty much a breeze, and I'd have to say, other than the whole original statistic thing (which most people were missing, anyway), we actually included MORE information in our project. I think my teacher was impressed. I think. Like I said, hard to read her.

After math, I got a call from my guidance councilor, asking me to come up right away. I, knowing that it was about the dreaded letter, went to my SS teacher and got what I needed from him for the day, and headed over. She, of course, was very concerned and wanted to make sure I wasn't planning or thinking about hurting myself or anyone else. I kind of lied a little and said I wasn't, even though you guys knew I was, but she was still worried, and asked me if I felt ready to go back to class. I said no, but I'd be willing to work on homework outside of her office, so she let me. Later, she got another kid who came into her office, and I was feeling better, so I told the nice receptionist to tell her that I'd be going back to class when she was finished with the other kid, and she was all, "Okay!"

By that time, band was starting, so I went ahead and got warmed up. Today was a chair test day. It was just about my turn, when my guidance councilor came back. I waved to her, thinking she was coming for another student, but my teacher told me to go ahead and go first and then head to guidance again. So I did. I didn't feel too good about it, but he was actually really impressed, which made me feel really warm and fuzzy inside. ^^ So when I followed my guidance councilor out again, she told me that my mom had called and was on her way so that we could all talk and... stuff.

................................................... wut.

I'd given her permission to tell mom about the letter (though I did NOT want her to send a direct copy of it - that might be a little much), but I wasn't expecting that. Instantly, I felt sick, scared, and trapped all over again. I didn't think it'd help anything, and I... I just felt really unprepared. She caught wind of my nervousness and told me that it'd be alright, and that Mom was going to take me to a therapist TODAY, as I'd asked. I didn't see a problem with that, but my Mom was coming already, and it wasn't even lunch yet. I asked her if I HAD to go home right THEN, and she yes and that it'd be unsafe for me to come back until they found out for sure that I wasn't a danger to myself or others. I felt really stupid after that, but there was no changing it then. So I went back to working on my homework until they were ready for me to come back in. I was really nervous, though - I was pacing, fiddling, couldn't keep still, picked up pamphlets, flipped through them, and put them down again without looking at anything inside. (Maybe my anxiety caused that?)

My mom came in, and for a while, my councilor talked to her without me. I somehow managed not to listen in. And then I was called in. I couldn't look at my mo - I kept staring off the entire time. Kind of because of fury, but mostly because I'm scared to death of her now. Scared that, whenever I open up, she's going to trample all over my feelings again. My councilor gave me a short speech about how parents need to punish their kids some times - even if we didn't always like it (over four points? Really?). And then... a lot of things happened that I don't particularly remember. All I remembered was crying. Again. I really hate crying and wish sometimes there was a button we could press to just... stop. I don't like for my mom to see me like that anymore. It makes me feel vulnerable and subject to attack. But she didn't say anything, and my councilor allowed me to go out and take a walk and do a short little thing for science class while A lunch was going on. And also maybe give my poor weary mind a rest.

She talked for me for a short time about my mom and said that she'd actually come to the school yesterday. They even talked about how I was improving in school and doing well in math. I was floored. By the way she'd talked to me last night, I would have guessed she hadn't looked at my grade for... eons. I think she told me that to make be feel better about my mom, but all it did was make me feel worse about her and more convinced that she was the enemy. Eventually, my principal came in and talked to us and everything and we went to the.... therapist place. My mom actually stopped by her school and we kind of chilled there for a while.

I guess I easily forgive people, because in that short 2-hour period, I went from resenting my mom to... liking her again. But still kind of cautiously. But the nap I took in the car probably helped. And then I started wondering if she was mad at me and if this was all worth it and if I was just fooling myself about this all - I WAS just a teenager, after all - wasn't this normal? What WAS normal? Mom was kind of... coolly sweet to me for a while and took me to McDonalds since I hadn't eaten lunch. I didn't get to eat it all before the appointment, but I ate enough so that I still don't feel very hungry even now. She had to leave halfway through it for some sort of... school thingy. The therapist lady was very nice and I told her (mostly) the whole truth - anything that might keep me from going to school tomorrow for writing club I left out. But she seemed to understand mostly and... Stuff. At first, I thought she was going to tell me I was bipolar, but when she said anxiety, I was like, "... wut?" because I know a friend who has anxiety attacks and I've never had anything like that before. But, then it made perfect sense - I just might not be as bad off as my friend.

I don't know. I'm rambling now. Um... She thinks I should be on medication, and at first, that worried me (still does - I took Concerta for my ADD once... That's left me scared of medicine like that ever sense) but I decided that it'd do me better than to just... be how I am. I really want to change guys - ever sense I was little, I can remember obsessing over little things and having miniature panic attacks about things that seemed to not make sense. I do want to change - all this time, I thought it was my ADD causing the problems, but I can LIVE with that. It's the completely illogical STRESS that I CAN'T.

So, anyway... Mom picks me up, takes me back to her school thing (it still wasn't done) and left me in the car until it let out. I couldn't go in because it said that teens and kids weren't allowed inside, and neither of us knew until it was too late. But I didn't mind. I got to relax, wind down, watch the sunset, bird flocking to the south, and all sorts of things that just made me happy to be alive. On the road back, I kept asking my mom if she had expected me to have, of all things, anxiety disorder. She said yeah - it was very believable to her, since, like I said, I've kind of been doing little things like that all my life. And then she follows it up with a quick lecture about how I need to just adjust to it because in life, I won't be able to get out of things as easily and... all that crap. And I just kind of go, "... Thanks for the encouragement, Mom." That pretty much ended the conversation.

Don't get me wrong - I love my mom to death, and I appreciate her being real with me, but... Sometimes that isn't what I'm seeking. Most of the time, when I talk to mom, I'm hoping for encouragement or a pat on the back, or.... Something. Because I already KNOW what real. I already KNOW what I'm lacking or what I need to improve on - I KNOW. In fact, if I'm EVER driven to the point where I'll talk to her again about something like this, it's BECAUSE it's the only thing I hear. If that makes sense. But what I do NOT need is someone to just confirm all of the bad things I already am thinking about myself, because that just compounds the problem. That's my problem with Mom. I don't think she's capable of SEEING that, and I sure as hell don't know a way to tell her myself. I'm telling you guys - trying to talk to her now results in absolute, unadulterated terror. Because I keep on getting hurt by her. I don't know if I'll ever trust her again.

Okay - end rant.

 

Wow, that's one hell of a tale. Now, I can completely relate to what you're saying, as I'm similar with my Dad, albeit not quite as severe as you are with your Mum. He'll either underreact, overreact, or just yell...

Anyway, now to you. Uh, I really don't know how to put this... Nothing has changed about you. It isn't a case of you've suddenly gotten this "GAD", but you know NOW you have it. Other than knowing what's wrong, what's changed? The important thing is know you now what exactly is going on, and knowing is half the battle, as we all know. All I can really say to help is have maybe an hour, hour and a half, and calm yourself down, relax, and maybe put on a good bit of music. Try and clear your head from the day before you end up getting worked up about anything else. This is only what I've tried, but if it works for me, then there's always a chance, eh?

Now for the folks... I guess it's really just being careful about what you tell them. Obviously if your worried, or stressed or there's a problem, then of course go to them for help. Go to them for help. That's what they're there for. However, if you feel that telling your parents about a certain thing that comes up will cause you aggravation, I suggest you talk to someone else, like your friend Faith, or this Guidance Councillor, of course, if you feel the need to say to people. Parents are wonderful things, but there's no denying that they're difficult at times. ...Sorry, but I feel like that advice probably wasn't the best to give upon retrospect... urgh, well, it's here if you need it...

Otherwise, I hope you'll keep well, and I wish you all trying to get this disorder thing sorted. Hopefully I managed to help somewhat.