Surviving School

This is one of the most popular post requests that I’ve received, and as an emetophobe I know exactly why – school can be hugely triggering, and surviving it every day can sometimes feel impossible. But over the last 7 years of being at school, I’ve gone from having multiple panic attacks/meltdowns a day (and making the nurse send me home because I “felt ill” several times a year) to only a handful of panic attacks a year and genuinely enjoying school (well most days, anyway!). So I thought I’d share the top 5 most helpful things I’ve found throughout the years in the hope that some of them will be helpful to others too!

1. Using distraction techniques before school. Distractions are honestly brilliant. I used to get a LOT of anxiety in the mornings, as in crying-for-an-hour, barely-choking-down-breakfast anxiety. But the thing that really changed that for me was doing intricate hairstyles in the morning (and as I got older, doing eye makeup) – it was a task that I had to concentrate on, but it wasn’t hard so I was able to carry it out in the mornings. It stopped my brain from running away with itself, and hugely reduced the amount of anxiety that I felt. Mindless distractions for the win! Top tip: once you’ve found your distraction task (something with purpose is best), I found that carrying it out right before breakfast was the best way to do it. That way when you have breakfast you’re calm, so your stomach won’t play up as much!
   

2. Breathing exercises for the bus. I used to REALLY struggle with bus journeys all the way through school, (even though my bus journey only took 15-20mins) – some days I’d spend the whole journey feeling like I was about to be s**k. To help overcome this, I used deep breathing in combination with sensory rituals (e.g. pressing my thumb into my palm, running my thumb over a smooth object). I also kept mints with me as a last resort. Another tip for buses: if you always sit with a particular friend, let them know if a journey is challenging for you. On my worst mornings I used to ask my friend if it was okay for me to just sit in silence and nod my head while she talked as I wanted to listen but didn’t want to open my mouth, and she was so lovely and obliging – it really helped!
   

3. Talking to teachers to make lessons easier. When I first went to secondary school, I didn’t let anyone know about what was going on. My teachers probably just thought I was a weird kid who cried in class for no reason every now and then! But as I got older, I got to know my teachers better and they started noticing when I had my off days. I don’t think I actually ever explicitly spoke to any of my teachers about what was going on but most of them picked up that something was a bit off, so I would just stay behind after class one day and ask them to let me leave the room if I needed to in the future. And honestly, it’s worth it! None of them interrogated me about it or anything, and it made a huge difference knowing that if I was in the middle of a panic attack I wouldn’t be denied exiting the room. It also gave me an opportunity to let them know not to make a fuss or anything if I seemed shaky (once again, I didn’t give an explanation!) because I was probably okay and able to quietly deal with the situation myself.
   

4. Talking to the school if needed. Okay so full disclosure: I never actually did this, but do I have friends who did! Letting the school know about your emetophobia (you don’t have to personally do it, you could get a parent or carer to email in) can be really helpful. They might be able to provide someone for you to talk to, or a pass to allow you to leave lessons/assemblies if you really need to. If anything, it might just be a good idea to let them know that you suffer with anxiety, so if you end up acting out because of it or sitting in the nurse’s office trying to go home they’ll know that anxiety could be a factor.
   

5. Observing and adjusting your routine. This was probably the absolute most helpful thing for me in terms of dealing with day-to-day anxiety at school – it really turned things around for me! Spend a week just noticing when your anxiety levels naturally spike each day, and take a mental (or physical!) note of the times and potential triggers. Then, at the end of the week, go through these times/triggers and work out things that you can do to soften them. For example, a HUGE thing for me was that I’d get really anxious at lunch and struggled to eat in the hall with my friends – I’d always feel really s*ck. I noticed that this was partially due to me getting extremely hungry during the lesson before lunch (period 4), which led to me feeling ill and as a result gave me anxiety (which only made the ill feeling worse). To combat this, I ate two plain crackers between period 3 & 4 to prevent me from getting so hungry during the hour long lesson. It made a huge difference – my lunch problems didn’t completely disappear, but they were massively reduced!

I hope that some of those tips are in some way helpful – I’ll add to them if I think of more! Remember: you are strong enough to make it through school. Trust me, I’ve been there and I know how awful it is, but I made it and you can too!

~ Alice