Sandy Hook and Anxiety

If you’ve ever read this blog before, you might’ve picked up on the fact that I’ve got an anxiety disorder.It is completely irrational and uncontrollable. It’s quite frustrating, additionally, to be aware of the irrationality of a feeling and be unable to do anything to change it.

On Friday, December 14th, Mr. Adam Lanza brutally murdered his mother and shot approximately 27 people at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. He had three guns on his person, one of which being an assault rifle, and another rifle in his car. When the police arrived, they locked eyes with Lanza, who then shot himself to death.

Let’s dissect that for a second. Newtown has an average household income of over 90 thousand dollars, which is higher than that of Fairfield, a commonly-known wealthy city in Connecticut. It’s 95.14% White. It’s …. saying that it’s upper-class feels like an understatement. As proud of being a Southerner as I am, it pains me to say that this is vastly more expected of a Southern state than pristine and wealthy Connecticut. Newtown is about 35 miles away from where I live. School is supposed to be safe. All of this is just terrifying to me.

Over the weekend, a student from MY SCHOOL thought that it would be funny to say something dumb in regards to shooting the school up or some other threat. He was taken into custody. I don’t know who the student was or if they’ll release him. (I’m only using he because teachers used he. I could be wrong.)

This isn’t even about political correctness. This is the fact that nearly thirty people were shot at an elementary school … and you think there’s something funny about that?

On Monday, December 17th, I had an AP Psychology midterm to take. This is the only reason I even went to school. When you have an anxiety disorder, you don’t trust things easily. When threats like that are made in a small town … I didn’t even know until much later that morning that the student was from my school. That’s scary.

One of my teachers has a grandson that goes to Sandy Hook. He was in the classroom next to the office … He heard everything. His friends. His first grade teacher.

There’s so much wrong with everything that’s happened.

Incredible rant

Dear god, what an awful day. First: It’s Friday, and I’m home sick because this morning and last night I felt like absolute shit. I was very stressed and emotionally … emotionally, just fucked. However, I had three quizzes today plus a project due that I can’t email easily.

For the next two weeks I, as a sophomore, am required to do CAPT testing which is Connecticut’s version of TAKS testing for Texas or EOG’s and EOC’s for North Carolina; I’m sure you all have or remember those terrible standardized assessments that were just God-awful. And I don’t even say that as I’m a non-religious person. In case any of you don’t know, I’m referring to multiple-choice and open-answered assessments required by the state in the US for students to take and pass. The abbreviations are as follows in the order they appear above: Connecticut Academic Performance Test, Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skill, End of Grade and End of Course. These are the three variants of tests I’ve taken in the three various states I’ve lived in for middle school and high school. I can honestly say that they are all the exact same category of tests … just different names.

This means that the school schedule will become hectic and making up those quizzes will be difficult. Not to mention that I was not even really prepared for 2 of the 3 quizzes that I was responsible for today. I have homework that I need to make up in addition to whatever was likely given today. I have a lab report I need to write.

Put simply, I am stressed.

It’s 12:30 now, half past noon. The past half hour has been taken up with showering and writing this blog. This morning was composed of sleep and reading the blog of an artist of a webcomic I have long been a fan of. In other words … Nearly nothing.

Have you ever been okay with a somewhat shitty situation until you saw something – anything, it could be other people, an object, a photo of a place or seeing yourself in the mirror – and just … started thinking about how much your situation sucks?

Not only do I feel uncomfortable writing about the murky details of it but suffice to say that I hate Connecticut and all of its inhabitants, is the general summary. It is a wicked place and I mean that in the literal sense of the word rather than its adapted form, a synonym for ‘very’ that I’d never heard in real life until moving here.

Have you ever tried to reform yourself by quitting bad habits cold-turkey and had a wonderful and rewarding streak of success … only to fall for ONE day and be completely demoralized? How do you recuperate from that horrible feeling?

Freshman year, I was kind of a bad student. Not the obnoxiously loud and talkative kind. But the kind who never had their homework in because they simply couldn’t be arsed to do it. My grades weren’t terrible, but it was apparent that effort was just minimal. This year, I’ve been trying very avidly to pick my grades up and keep them up and do all my homework and pour just … so much more effort into school. I have become interested in colleges and getting into where I want to be. Just.. almost a 180 turn around.
But … Yesterday. I don’t know what happened. Time flew without anything being done and I just … I just don’t know what happened. It was a mess. Headaches and stress and fear and just everything builds up.

I was going to rant a lot more but writing it all out makes it harder to focus on and cope with in a rational and reasonable way of thinking, so I am going to go ahead and call it quits for now. I promise to keep up with the blog more frequently. I know this on-and-off thing is annoying; it annoys me too, I have great ideas and no time or all the time in the world with no idea what to type.

Here’s hoping you guys are having a better time than I am.

Terror and Fear

Last night something awful happened.

My love is in the hospital… and I do not know when he’s getting out.

I’m not posting details because I think that’s an invasion of privacy. Still, I can write about the feelings of shock and fear and agony in the body.

I’m sure I’m far from the only one that’s been there. You are trying not to cry. And you get this lump in your throat? Except the lump is like a big, huge rock, jagged edges from years of eroding and natural causes shrinking and changing and morphing it. You don’t know why you refuse to cry but you do and it hurts.

Then there’s me and my personal problem that I dunno if anyone else has. But I get sick real easy. Queasy and nervous and anxious. I threw up four times last night. Never a lot of anything. Felt like acid. I wonder if blood’s acidic, or if you throw up stomach acid if there’s nothing in your stomach.

Eating has been hard today, but I’ve managed to do a few things.

He was able to talk to me for a large portion of the morning and early afternoon, but then he got transferred to another room and his phone was confiscated. I’m scared.

I feel sick. I probably deserve it. This is my fault.