With school about to start, he may also simply not have had time to reply yet, or hasn't been checking his school email as much. I know that when I email teachers right at the start of the school year, it's sometimes several days before they even see it. I'm sure he's not annoyed about it having been 2 in the morning, as it's just an email, and it's not like it would have woken him up or anything, but he may have thought that you were in a panic when you wrote it, and didn't want to embarrass you if you weren't thinking clearly at the time and didn't mean to tell him those things or whatever. And in that case, he might just be waiting to talk to you in person, where he can bring it up less directly and give you more of a chance to back out if you don't want to talk about it. I don't think you've put him in an unfair position at all though, and I'm sure he'd rather know, but he may not have seen the email yet, or may be waiting to talk to you in person rather than by email. Honestly, though, I think it's still a good move to ask him for help, and if you don't hear back from him today, and he doesn't approach you in person tomorrow, I'd recommend that you either try to talk to him at school, or try emailing him again (if you're worried about nagging him or whatever, you can always just say something about how you sent him an email a few days ago, and haven't heard back, and you've been having trouble with your email and wanted to make sure it actually went through).
It's good that your OT is back, and that she's going to try a more structured approach. She is right that for you to feel better, you will have to go out and do things. I know that's sometimes easier said than done though, so just try your best, even if you're not perfect. If you can go to school tomorrow and participate in everything and talk to everyone, and not worry about anything, of course you should do that. And then you should probably write a book on it or something as the rest of us would love to know how! But if you just turn up for school at all tomorrow, that's something. And if you talk to someone new, or find a group to sit with at lunch, or approach your psychology teacher to ask him for help, or whatever else you do, any of that also helps. It's not like you have to do everything all at once for it to "count," or to have accomplished something -- each positive thing you do is it's own little achievement, and helps you that much more. And if there are things you want to or feel you should do but can't, that's okay -- you'll just have to try again another time, and maybe talk about it with your therapist to figure out how you can make it less stressful, and you'll do it eventually. Just try your best and you'll be fine.
Last edited by ~invisible~girl~ : 04-09-2012 at 07:59 AM.
Reason: Found a typo
Emily
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Thanks for your response Emily :) I'm hoping you're right and he just hasn't seen the email. I think I do need to try and think things through rationally before getting into such a panic about them! I'm just really worried that he'll have shown my head of year what I said after she reacted to my last overdose by trying to stop my friend from talking to me!
I doubt I will manage to talk to anyone tomorrow but I think you're right in saying that just going is an achievement in itself. For me it is anyway. I'm at least going to get the bus into town and see how I go from there. I know my OT wants me to venture into the library and common room to mix with the others but I don't think that's a realistic goal for the time being, I'll just get into more of a panic if I try and do too much at once.
I don't really have any advice or words right now, I just wanted to let you know that I do keep popping in to see how you're doing. I hope that your day goes okay, and do let us know how it went! As Emily said (I hope I'm allowed to use your first name! Agh!) just going really is a big achievement, and for now you should just concentrate on getting through the day with as little fear and stress as possible. Then we can maybe think about working up to talking to people and going to the library/common room.
Maybe emailing your teacher again and asking him not to show your head of year would put your mind at ease? I'm sure he wouldn't mind, as I think you have the right to confidentiality and all that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ~invisible~girl~
I've never heard of this before either. I think it's brilliant though, and if/when I end up working in a classroom setting, I shall definitely have to try this with students who have either ADHD or emotional needs that would benefit from being able to take a break. Especially with secondary school students, who have several different teachers, and it's harder to ensure that all of their teachers know about and can successfully accommodate each student's needs. I know you probably weren't even thing about it for this, but in addition to helping out Aimee, you may have just helped quite a few of my future students with this as well, so thanks muchly for mentioning it :)
Eeeeee! Yay! I'm so glad that I could help. I was told about them when I was pulled aside to talk about my attendance, but I didn't ask about them again because I was too afraid to go to the student support room. >< I did think it was a really great idea though. I know one person with autism who has one so if the classroom gets too loud or something he can show it to the teacher and then walk out for a few minutes.
*feels like a special snowflake for potentially helping many students*
Just worry about turning up for class right now. You can always work on mixing with people later, but if you start missing classes and fall behind as a result, it's going to be that much harder to go back. Then if you're feeling up for a challenge, you could try to say "hi" to someone you haven't talked to much before (someone you're already comfortable talking to doesn't count, but even if it's someone you already know -- maybe a teacher you trust, or a classmate you'd like to be friends with -- if you're not already comfortable initiating a conversation with that person, and wouldn't normally say "hi" to him/her, that's enough), or try to go sit in the common room for a bit when it's not too crowded, and just try to study or read or something, so you're in the room with other students, but don't have to interact with them unless you chose to.
Emily
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You are not on your own, I wake up gasping for air in a total panic after some dream, it feels so scary at the time and possibly the worst way to feel starting the day.
'Cause I'll always remember you the same.
Oh eyes like wild flowers within demons of change ♥
*Gives Holly a pat on the back for being a special snowflake* :P
Thank you all for posting, it really does help to talk things through to people who are thinking more rationally about the situation than I am.
I managed to get the bus to school today and go to my form room. Unfortunately, the school seem to have made some kind of mistake - my name isn't on the registers and I don't have a time table so I didn't know where I was supposed to be and at what time etc. I did try to find out what was happening but it got a bit much and I went home before lessons even started. So although I didn't sort out the timetable problem, and I still don't know when my lessons are, I did at least make it further than the bus stop!
My psychology teacher (who is now also my form tutor) didn't mention the email I sent him. So I'm not sure if that means he hasn't read it or he doesn't think he should bring it up. I think I'll try and talk to him on his own later in the week when things have calmed down a bit.
I like the idea of studying in the common room so that I'm in the same room as the others without having to mix with them too much. I think I'll try and work up to that rather than travelling 20 minutes home and 20 minutes back between lessons!
Big well done for going though! It wasn't your fault that the school decided to fudge things up, but obviously you shouldn't have to suffer the consequences for their asshattery. You did something awesome and brave and they decided to stop your roll. Hmm... Could you maybe try going again tomorrow and explain to your form tutor what happened and if your time table has been sorted / when it will be sorted? Maybe you could email him again if that's easier, or phone the school?
I agree maybe you should bring up the email in a few days (or whenever you feel comfortable), to see if he received it and talk about what can be done to help. I'm glad you're considering talking to him actually, that's really awesome :D Your idea about studying in the common room is really brave and awesome too andfasdjkfghadfhsfjkshhskf Im proud of you. yes. VERY proud. It should rain cookies on you right now <3
That school needs to kick its backside in to gear and not stop you when you're on a roll.
Also, I hope you don't mind me asking, but what does your school do about your attendance? Or is mine the only one that's super strict and believes everyone is just missing days because they don't like the classes? ._.
Holly, my understanding is that in the UK, education is compulsory up to age 16, so I'd expect that they might be much stricter about attendance at 15 than they are at 18 (having stalked both of your profiles). And I'd guess that for Aimee it might be a bit more like it was for me in university rather than secondary school, where some teaches would mark us down for missing class, or else we'd just pay for it when we had to know the material we'd missed, but no one would try and track us down or ring our parents or anything if we didn't turn up. Before that, I wasn't even allowed to leave campus between classes, unless I signed out first (and even that was only the last three years of school) as the school had to know where we were the whole time during school hours. But that said, even as an adult, I have a class right now that if I miss a day, I have to pay $20 as well as making up the missed lesson, and if I miss too many classes (more than 4, I think), I'll be kicked off the course and have to start over (I can't just not take it, as I'm there by court order -- long story). So age is no guarantee they won't still be strict about attendance.
Aimee, it's great that you made it to school. I'm really proud of you for that! It's really awful that they didn't have a timetable for you though. I'm glad you at least tried to sort it out, and I can totally understand it ended up being too much -- that kind of thing is stressful for anyone, even without the other anxiety issues. While I have complete confidence that you will eventually be able to handle things like that, I'd think that at this point, the anxiety of having to be that assertive and interact with people that much, and worrying about your timetable on top of that would be completely overwhelming, and I'm impressed you were able to try to sort it out at all.
Do you know (for sure) if the school is working on sorting out your timetable? If not, do you think maybe you could ask your mum to call the school about it? I know you're practically an adult already, but it's still perfectly appropriate and normal for your parents to get involved to sort out things like that at your age, especially when it's something where the school made a mistake. I'm pretty sure my mum got involved with things like that for my sister even her first few years of university (she never had to for me only because my school was really good about these things, and it rarely took more than a quick email to get them to sort things out). While it's totally fine if it's more than you can handle on your own, it is really important that your timetable is sorted as soon as possible, and it's really best if someone can be in touch with them tomorrow (ideally first thing in the morning) to make sure it's being taken care of.
It's good that your psychology teacher is going to be your form tutor. Granted I don't entirely know what that means (it's not something we have over here), but my understanding is that it means he has some sort of extra role in your education, so it's likely helpful to have someone you like and trust in that position.
I also think it's great that you're considering trying to study in the common room rather than going home between classes. You could also try the library to start if the common room is too much, as it tends to be quieter, and there's even less expectation that you interact with anyone -- people generally go there to study, and will generally assume you don't want to be bothered. I used to study in the common room between classes all the time in college though, when I couldn't be bothered to walk back to my dorm or whatever. I found that as long as I looked like I was studying (whether or not I actually was), people generally left me alone. But I also found that I could listen to then conversations around me, and just sort of get used to the other students and get to know them a bit (even though they weren't getting to know me :p), and kind of get a sense of people I might want to try to talk to and whatever. And if the conversation is interesting (and not too intimidating -- there were plenty of times when I was interested by there were simply too many people, or too loud people for me to join in), you can always look up from your books, or even walk over to the other people, and join in, either properly joining the conversation, or just adding one comment, whichever. If you find you might want to join in but don't feel up to initiating anything, you can also just kind of look up from your book, and make eye-contact a bit, which kind of lets people know that you might want to join them (just try to avoid glaring at them -- then they might think you want them to shut up and let you study... it also helps if you try and look like you're a bit bored with whatever you're studying and would really rather do something else), and see if someone invites you over to join in. But the first step is just to get comfortable being in the common room at all. So start out by just going in there when it's not too busy, and just use it as a place to study. Once you've been doing that for a while, and it'll start to feel like a safe place for you, and you can start to mix with people a bit more... even if it's just looking up from your books from time to time to make eye-contact and smile.
Emily
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You answered your own question in your first post - You had an anxiety attack, as you say. So yes, it is possible, as you proved it.
Oh what a beautiful day for us.
We have been looking for ways to trust
Things will unravel the way they must.
And when you see it it's simply the greatest of things.
You'll be grateful the rest of your life.
Holly, my understanding is that in the UK, education is compulsory up to age 16, so I'd expect that they might be much stricter about attendance at 15 than they are at 18 (having stalked both of your profiles). And I'd guess that for Aimee it might be a bit more like it was for me in university rather than secondary school, where some teaches would mark us down for missing class, or else we'd just pay for it when we had to know the material we'd missed, but no one would try and track us down or ring our parents or anything if we didn't turn up. Before that, I wasn't even allowed to leave campus between classes, unless I signed out first (and even that was only the last three years of school) as the school had to know where we were the whole time during school hours. But that said, even as an adult, I have a class right now that if I miss a day, I have to pay $20 as well as making up the missed lesson, and if I miss too many classes (more than 4, I think), I'll be kicked off the course and have to start over (I can't just not take it, as I'm there by court order -- long story). So age is no guarantee they won't still be strict about attendance.
Oh, I guess that makes sense, thankyou! I'm pretty sure here in the UK the age you have to stay in school has been moved up to either 17 or 18, and I'm either the last year that has it compulsary for up to 16, or the first year to need it up to 17. I have no idea. Our year seems to have been the guinea pig year to test out all their little new features and ideas. But I'm going off on a tangent, thankyou for the information!
I know in Wales, school is only compulsory until you're 16. At my school, if your attendance goes below 90% you're expected to pay for your own exams :O Although I think that's just a threat as my attendance was around 50% last year and I didn't pay.
I didn't manage to go in today, I did get up and start getting ready but ended up getting back into bed lol. I doubt I'll go in tomorrow either as I'm in the hospital all afternoon today and I'm not sure how I'll be feeling tomorrow. So if I go in Friday, hopefully everyone else's timetables will be sorted and they'll be in lessons so that I can get myself sorted without all the crowds and noise. I'll try and start 'properly' then next week and go in for my lessons.
I don't think the school are aware that I need a timetable. When I say I tried to sort it out, I just went looking for the lady in charge of timetables. When I found her in the library, which was bursting with people, I couldn't go in and I went home. My psychology teacher knows that I'm not on the registers so he may be able to do something about that while I'm not there. He probably thinks I have a timetable though as I told him that I was going to try and sort it yesterday and I didn't stop to tell him I was leaving, I just went. I don't think my mum phoning is a good idea though, I don't talk to her really so she doesn't know about any of this, or the fact that I left school early. I think I'll just try talking to my psychology teacher on Friday.
And hopefully, I'll be able to work towards studying in the common room once all fuss about timetables is sorted. I know I'm not going to improve my anxiety if I go running home whenever things get hard.
By the way Emily, a form tutor is the person you register with in the morning, they give you all the letters and notices you need and are someone to go to for support. They are also the teacher in charge of your university application when you get to that stage.
So when you mentioned compulsory education in Wales, as distinct from the UK, this confused me as I thought Wales was part of the UK (but, I admit, I'm terrible with geography, and wasn't 100% certain) and I didn't see why it would be different. So I looked it up. And while I think I've got it worked out now, with the whole "devolution" thing and it being kind of separate countries and all one country at the same time, I feel like my head is about to explode. Granted that might be what the US system looks like to people who aren't used to it, without the whole states versus federal thing, but if I'd had to learn about that system in school, I'm not sure I'd have made it through :p
Anyway, although I'd of course like for you to go in sooner, I think that going in on Friday sounds like a good plan. Do you think maybe you could try to email your psychology teacher about the timetable issue? That way he might be able to look into it for you before you get back. And maybe also tell him that you haven't been able to go in to sort it out yet, but that you're planning to on Friday. You might even try to schedule a time to meet with him on Friday. If he's expecting you, it should make it a bit harder for you to slip through the cracks, and get away unnoticed even if you don't manage to stay long enough to sort everything out. Basically, I feel like the they're not taking enough notice of your missing classes, and they ought to be doing more to help you improve your attendance, so I want to try to draw their attention to it, and hopefully they'll reach out to you a bit more to *offer* more help and support, as they should be doing already, so it's not all on you to sort everything out yourself. Ideally you'll talk to your psychology teacher on Friday, and he can help you get everything sorted, but I think it's good to have a back-up plan in place, just in case it doesn't go as well on Friday, and I think that emailing your psychology teacher and preferably even setting up an appointment with him in advance could be a good step towards getting that back-up plan set up.
Emily
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The Welsh devolution is a fairly recent thing. To put it simply, Parliament in England creates laws for both England and Wales but it delegates a small amount of law making powers to the Welsh assembly so that we can create our own laws in certain areas (education being one of them). Confusing I know!
I didn't go into school today but I am planning to go in tomorrow. I've only just seen your response but I think it might be a bit late to email him in time for tomorrow now. I've got form in the morning though which is 20 minutes so I should be able to speak to him then. I also feel like they don't take much notice when I miss class. Last year there was a period from mid November to mid January where I didn't go to school once and my head of year didn't phone or anything :S I suppose I am partly to blame for that though as I tend to just run away from school rather than talk to my teachers about my difficulties which is something I'll have to work on.
It's good that you're planning to go in tomorrow. You can do it! Don't worry about not having emailed your teacher -- it was just as a back-up anyway. Lets just see how it goes tomorrow, and then figure out how to help you start going regularly next week. And hopefully we can figure out a way to get some sort of back-up plan in place at that point, as I think it will really help to have some type of safety net to fall back on so you don't end up missing as much school this year.
It really bothers me how little notice the school seems to take when you don't turn up. If you ask me, that's something the school needs to work on. When students don't turn up for class, there's almost always a reason. It usually means something is going on (even if it's simply that the don't like the class, there's usually a reason for that, too -- often, it will turn out that they're really struggling with the coursework, and are embarrassed about it and would rather look like they simply can't be bothered than that they can't do the work), and the teacher or someone from the school ought to reach out to the student and try to figure out what's going on, and problem solve with them and help get them back into class. To me, it's really irresponsible on the part of the school to just ignore it as they seem to be doing. Hopefully, though, part of the plan you set up with the school can include getting them to take more notice when you don't turn up, and have some sort of plan in place to help get you back to school more quickly.
Also, when is your next meeting with a doctor or someone from your care team? Given how much your anxiety is effecting your life, and that you're missing school because of it, I really think it's important for you to go on anxiety meds, and the sooner that can happen the better.
Emily
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Thanks for the reply. Sorry, my head's all over the place tonight.
The school notice nothing - I've gone into school after taking an overdose two or three times in the past. I feel asleep in class and was completely out of it and they didn't even notice. They just left me to sleep.
I wont see anyone from my team next week through my own doing - they have no afternoon appointments but would have been able to give me a daytime appointment if I'd bothered to get my timetable and find out when I'm free. So when my OT phoned today she said she'd see me the week after next instead although I'm not sure when. She said she'd phone me Monday. I should be due a CPA meeting with my psychiatrist this month, I don't have a date for it yet though.
Sorry, I don't even know if I'm making any sense. I think I need to go to bed and just see what happens tomorrow. Thank you for your help, I really do appreciate it :)
I went in late on Friday but resorted to taking tablets before going in. I didn't take loads because I didn't want to be sick, just enough to make me feel a bit slowed down and dazed so I wouldn't be so panicky. I still felt really uncomfortable but it went ok I suppose, although I was a bit too zoned out to concentrate properly. I haven't managed to catch my psychology teacher on his own to talk to him yet either. I went in today (was late again!) and it went ok as I only had one lesson and I didn't have to talk to anyone.
I'll hopefully see my OT next week and she said that we can fill out the referral form for the youth support team. Hopefully they'll then provide support in school :)
I really don't think I can email my teacher again. I feel like a complete idiot for emailing him last time and neither of us have spoken about it at all. I feel really embarrassed about it. And I'm not doing too well at the moment. I'm really struggling and haven't have much support from my team recently because my OT and support worker were on leave. I think I've been discharged from the Community Intervention team because I haven't seen my support worker for a month and she hasn't been in touch to make another appointment. So I don't know what's happening there. I wont be seeing my OT until Monday either. I'm just feeling a bit hopeless about everything at the moment.
It's great that you managed to go in Friday and today, and that you have your timetable sorted and everything (I'm assuming you do as you've been going to lessons).
I think it could really help to email your psychology teacher again. You need the support, and I also think it will help to talk to him so you can stop feeling embarrassed about the earlier email (I often find when I feel embarrassed about something I said, I end up feeling better about it once I've had some sort of response from the other person and can see that it was actually a perfectly reasonable thing to have said). If it's too hard to email him about how you're doing again, maybe you could come up with some other excuse to talk to him. For instance, if you're in a class he's teaching, maybe you could find something in the coursework you're having trouble with (even if you'd be able to figure it out on your own, the point is just to talk to him), and ask if you can set up a time to meet with him and go over it. Then once you actually sit down with him face-to-face, hopefully he'll bring up your need for more support, and if not, maybe you'll be able to bring it up yourself.
Or else you can PM me his email address (and your full name), and I'll email him for you and tell him to talk to you.
As far as taking the tablets, it's not ideal, but at least it got you to school, and you didn't take enough to make you sick. Hopefully, though, when you see your OT, she'll be able to get you on anti-anxiety meds that will help with the anxiety so you won't feel the need to self-medicate with whatever you were taking.
It's not great that you haven't seen any of your professionals for so long. Actually, it's pretty ethically questionable for them to have left you without support for so long. If your OT and support worker have a lot of shared clients, they shouldn't have even gone on leave at the same time at all, and otherwise, they should have arranged for other care/services for you while they were gone. At least you're seeing your OT on Monday though. I know it seems like a long time right now, but it'll go by quickly, and having proper care and support again will help.
Emily
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Even the school is being an asshat.
