Anxiety, Part 2

Part One: Earthquakes

After I got over my earthquake fear (which, I didn't mention before, led me to asking my seventh grade History teacher to let me leave the class and go to the library to study, or something like that, if we were going to continue discussing earthquakes in general - and the Big One in particular) I didn't really have any new "thing" to be anxious over (that I can remember). Perhaps the social anxiety of having few friends in middle school (my original clique had kicked me out sometime halfway through seventh grade) and being a veritable loner was enough to keep my stress levels busy.

Then I got into High School. My Sophomore Year I started Drivers Ed, which I was not looking forward to. Oh heaven's, was Driver's Ed not my favorite class.

When I was little - four or five - I was almost hit by a car in a parking lot. This memory has stuck with me through the years, simply because it was so frightening. Naturally, this was the first - and only - thing in my head when I got behind the wheel of a car for the first time.

I'm going to kill someone with this thing.

I could think of nothing else. My first time driving on real roads I got yelled at a lot by my instructor.

I'm still amazed I passed my driver's test, nervous as I was.

Another academic anxiety I had was related to maths and science, which Tene can likely attest to. I had a hard time understanding what I realized were basic concepts in the maths and sciences, and I was so anxious to prove to myself - and in a somewhat larger degree, to my parents - that I wasn't stupid, that I would often start crying while doing my maths homework. I don't recall if I had similar emotional reactions to my science homework, but if it involved mathematics I wouldn't be surprised. My stepfather and mother would make fun of me for this constant emotional outburst - which didn't help my self esteem or my anxiety about the issue much.

I would also have trouble sleeping before a test in nearly every subject.