I win

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Every single day is hard. Every. Single. Day. I just got home from the third night of grad school and I can only sob.

I have severe anxiety issues. Signing up for grad school was a huge step, but I have ended every night in tears. BUT I have made it to class every single night. I have stayed the whole time. I have answered questions, spoken to my classmates, taken notes, and sat through the entire 4.5 hour class.

I asked my therapist for some help finding calming techniques so I am not stuck taking my emergency medication 4 times a day. The one that has worked for me so far is the extended exhales.

1. Take a deep, calming breathe.
2. Exhale.
3. Take another breathe, slowly, make it last 2 counts.
4. Exhale should take 2 counts as well.
5. Inhale 2 counts.
6. Exhale 4 counts.
7. Inhale 3 counts.
8. Exhale 5 counts.

You get the idea, right? When I can think straight again, I try to continue my activity. This one is easy because no one else is really paying attention to my breathing. I can take a moment in the middle of class and just focus.

I get so overwhelmed so easily now. I am facing so many of my fears at once. I am out after dark, I am in a room filled with other grad students, I am facing judgment every day. For some people this is completely normal, even simple. For me, I have to talk myself into driving to class. I play empowering music and say mantras. “I can succeed. I deserve success. I have worked hard and I can do this.” This is just to drive to the school. Getting inside requires an empty lobby and hopefully nobody in the elevator. Once I am in the building, getting to class and “setting up” has a bit of an obsessive quality to it.

Then I notice the other students. No one sits near me. No one wants to talk to me.. My comments are made solely to the professor. I go to breaks alone, I study during lunch. I feel so ostracised.

So, after all of that negativity swarming through my head, I gather my belongings and leave. A whole different experience happens in the truck. I cry freely as I drive myself home. I decompress and let everything out. I come home and I am a mess for a little while.

So here I have laid out exactly what I go through, and how challenging every class session is for me. But I win. I win every single time. I go to class. I do the work. I study in my free time. I make note cards. I take my emergency medication and I function. I win.

I think the trick will be to keep winning, every single day, after I fall apart. I may struggle during a regular, no school day, because I have to go to Walmart, that horrible, place filled with people and things, and disorganization and so many people! Still, I win. I win because I go in, and do what I must, and I succeed.

You can win as well. Do what is hard. Keep yourself safe, use your coping mechanisms, use your skills, but you can do this! You can win.

Take care of you,

Nikki