Surviving Senior Year

Hurricane Parker

On the following Monday, my life started to get even more hectic. I had day school from 7:20 am - 2:15 pm, night school from 6pm to 8:30 pm, and in addition both of my online classes. Thursday through Sunday I worked five to close, and went home to do homework.

This set the bar for future situations, and almost determined my sleep schedule. With no more than five hours of sleep a night, and as little as two hours, I became an empty shell of what used to be a human being. I no longer needed to put thought into what I was doing, it became muscle memory and resulted in the loss of my mind.

I remember the day very clearly, I was sitting in front of the computer, less than three hours before I had to leave for work, trying to figure out how to set up a table in Excel that will automatically add itself. I sat there and thought over and over again: "you can do this, you can do this..." but each time I repeated this in my head it only reduced my confidence and willingness to complete the assignment. Attempting to take deep breathes and hold back my tears, it was almost as if the barrier holding my emotions back burst and they all came flooding.

First came the panicked breathing: fast and shallow, then the burning tears that refused to stop pouring from my eyes, and eventually the numbness. Whether it was a result of my shallow breathing or just my mind giving up, my body started to go numb and my head felt faint.

I tried standing to reach the tissues, which just resulted in me becoming numb to the point I started feeling like I had pins and needles in my face. Luckily my mom came in not too much later once she realized what was going on. She helped me calm down and talked to me about anxiety attacks and how they run in the family.

This moment began the series of attacks I would have, whether I was in my room trying to sleep or in competition government watching a movie discussing whether the Constitution will survive. They became inescapable.