Just Another Box on The Mantel

I met my grandfather (on my mother's side) a few months ago for the first time. He lives with us now, he doesn't talk much. Why? He's on the mantel in a box among photos and stained glass and vases. As I mentioned before I never met my grandfather. He died about a year before I was born so I rely mostly on what my relatives tell me. Does this bother me? Maybe a little but that's not why I'm writing this. So why am I? Let me tell you.
These last few months I've been living in constant fear, thanks to my anxiety, but I'm slowly starting to realize that if I live the rest of my life in fear some day I'll just be another name and another box on someone's mantel. Well hopefully not just anyone's but you get my point. There are so many people on this earth and so few of them get remembered. They kind of addressed this in The Fault in Our Stars.  This whole theme of oblivion is inevitable and we might as well accept it.
But what if I don't want to accept it? What if I don't want to just be another grave or another box? What if I want to do something, something big and inspiring and helpful?
This whole thought of oblivion is kind of intimidating. I'm not scared of death, I'm scared of dying. Dying without finishing everything. But, going back to TFIOS, you end life in the middle of a sentence. You don't, typically, get to chose when and how you die but you do get to chose what you do with your life. And I'm tired of spending mine in fear, fear of my anxiety, fear of failure, fear of not being the best, so many fears I just want to let go.
So maybe I won't change the world, but if I can change someone's world, some girl scout I led or some fellow classmate then, technically, I accomplished my goal.
I learned a trick today I thought I'd share with you. Basically you create a place in your mind you can go that's just for you. It could be a beach, a room, a garden. Mine happens to be a library. I could go into detail but that would go on for pages. But the main focus is a blue velvet chair that I sit in and just relax. I don't have to worry about my anxiety, I don't have to worry about people, I don't have to worry.
I hope you can do the same, it's kind of nice having a place all my own that no one can get to, no one can see what I'm doing or mess with my books. It's a good thing to have, something to fall back on. Even though I'm still young I wish I had learned some of these things years ago, but I'm so glad to learn them now and can use them for the rest of my life.



~MG

The Smart Kid with the Bad Grades

Typically I find that people are strongest either in mind, body, or spirit. Meaning that someone is (typically, put it in again for emphasis) either really good at sports, talking/helping people, or is very intelligent. As a kid I wasn't the best with people and I was a horrible athlete so I was the 'smart kid'.

For me school was pretty easy. 6th grade got a little harder and it just continued. Suddenly in 8th grade I couldn't keep up. My grades were 'terrible', granted now I would die for those grades back but I'll get to that in a second. I didn't know how to handle having lower than an A in a class. Heck in 7th grade I got 1 A- and I was mad. Suddenly with my anxiety it became harder for me to focus and I told myself that once I was a bit better I wouldn't worry about my grades. As I am doing quite a bit better with my anxiety I've been working on my grades. My current grades? 2 C+, 1 B+, 3 A's. Yup, I'm telling you my grades. 

At first I was horrified. A C? Then 2 C's? I was a wreck to say the least. Now I'm working on coming to terms with it and figuring out how I can do better with the situation I'm in. Either it be from a hard teacher/unit or my anxiety.

Someone said something to me last week that actually inspired this whole post. We were talking about a Social Studies quiz we had taken and she asked me what I got. When I told her an 82, she replied with "But you're the smart one." That single sentence has been on my mind since she said that. This whole concept of 'the smart one'. What does that even mean?!

Another thing. I don't know if this is everywhere but especially where I live you aren't 'smart' unless you're in advanced. Regular math, which our district is actually a year ahead in regular, is considered stupid math. If you have to be held back from stupid math then you're just an idiot. Then there's LASS. If you can take honors/AP you better take it or you're not smart. Another thing. If I'm taking 4 hard classes and 2 easy ones and have 4 B's and 2 A's, and John (generic name) is taking 4 easy classes and 2 hard ones and gets 2 B's and 4 A's he's deemed smarter than me. Maybe this is just the way I view things but from the way people talk in my classes these are the conclusions I've drawn, especially about the grade thing. 

Last topic before I end my little rant here, a friend of mine told me he's taking AP Chem, AP Calculus and Physics along with 3 other high school classes and Running Start (college classes). I'm positive this is for college. When did we all become so obsessed with college? I know it's close now and we all want to get in and make ourselves a great future and everything, but honestly, in my opinion, is the school really going to matter? You can have so many wonderful adventures at a school even if it isn't Harvard or Yale or someplace with a really high GPA requirement. When I look back on my high school life I want to remember campfires and camps and drama class not 12 hours of homework locked in my room. I would honestly rather live life now than do a whole bunch of stuff to look good on a college application when I most likely won't need a lot to where I can afford. 

This whole 'smart one' concept frustrates me so much, and I don't think I would've even thought of it if these past few months hadn't happened. 

   

~MG

My Story

So as many of you who have been following my blog know what's been going on in my life these past couple months, I think it's time to tell the people I'm close enough to to accept their friend request to know. Pretty much this sums up the last few months of posts...

It all started back in I believe November. I was sitting in math class, 1st period. All of the sudden I started to shake, not a lot but enough that it was hard to write, I felt sick, my entire body felt like that feeling when your foot falls asleep. I had to stand up in the middle of class and ask to go to the nurse. I thought I was dying, I thought my appendix had burst, I thought more thoughts in those few minutes than probably I have my entire life. So I went to the nurse, told them my symptoms, and they told me to lie down. They said if I wasn't any better in 10 minutes to go home. Eventually I was able to go back to class, I got a lot of weird looks, and felt fine the rest of the day.

A few weeks later that same feeling came over me as I was walking into Spanish, and then I was fine. I told my mom and she talked it over with my aunt, a nurse, and we figured it was nothing.

Shortly after winter break I was sitting in Chemistry taking notes when the feeling came over me again. I was about to ask to go to the nurse when the bell rang and I felt better. I still went to the nurse just in case. They told me the same 10 minute thing again, but I only had 1 period left so I decided to go back to class. As soon as I got in I knew it was a bad idea. Within a few minutes I was back down in the nurses office calling my mom in tears.

It was that day we finally figured out what was going on. Those episodes I was having were panic attacks. And this was just getting started.

I went back to school the next day and was sitting in 2nd period when an attack came on. I tried to deal, I went to the bathroom and tried to wait it out, but I couldn't do it. I didn't know how to stop them. I went home and didn't go to school the next day.

Finally I was able to get some medicine to stop my panic attacks and learned ways to stop them if they did happen. I was doing fine until the side effects started to kick in. Nausea. I was nauseous that whole month I was on it, and it was awful.

Eventually I got off that medicine and was put on a different one, but the nausea decided to stay. How nice of it right? The nausea made me more and more anxious until finally it came to the point where I feared leaving the house.

I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Still don't know a ton about it but at least I now know what it is.

This is currently where I'm at. Feeling sick every time I leave the house, every time I think about leaving the house. Thankfully I have some wonderful people I would like to quickly mention.

First off, my wonderful parents who push me to still go to church and eat and hang out with friends. They are always there for me and I know they won't let me quit.

Two shout outs to fellow students. Laura, I would like to thank you so much for pushing me to eat at lunch. You don't know how helpful it is to know someone cares and someone wants me to get better. And Elle, when I left class for a few minutes and came back right before the bell to find you packing my stuff for me and asking if I was okay, I nearly cried with joy. You two have no idea how much your actions mean to me.

If you've read this far I'm impressed! Really quick I would just like to say that while I'm struggling with this I'm trying to be grateful it is something I can overcome. And I think that is a wonderful lesson. While you may be stressing about a test or something at work, try and remember somebody has it worse. That doesn't mean what you're going through doesn't suck, but it could always get worse. Remember we only get one shot at this, why waste it feeling sorry for yourself?



~MG