My Panic Attack II

War was looming and we moved to the country. Sometimes at school I would experience fluttery feelings of anxiety, but being fairly stoical I put up with them. After all, my mother had assured me that they couldn't hurt me.
Unfortunately my all too vivid imagination was getting out of control, and as more and more phobias became part of my life I would go out of my way to avoid anything that might upset me. Apart from medical and dental phobias I had a horror of skeletons, people with any deformity, being blind¬folded, hanging upside down (how I hated PE lessons), tunnels, travelling any distance, sleeping away from home, nose-bleeds, abstract thoughts, infinity, cemeteries, clouds, darkness, silence, thunderstorms - and tidal waves! I knew I would never see a tidal wave but the thought was disturbing.

The list was almost endless. There seemed to be so many upsetting things to cope with that I was only really happy in the fantasy world into which I slipped at every available opportunity.

\ School was becoming a problem. Morning assembly became an ordeal which had to be faced every day, but the dread of it was with me every waking moment. Most nights were disturbed by troubled dreams, and at breakfast I would feel sick and tearful, filled with worry about the coming day. The journey to school involved a long walk, a bus ride and another walk. This itself was becoming more and more difficult as panic was always just below the surface, waiting to strike if I allowed myself to stop and think. I became addicted to daydreaming to get away from the situation, pretending to be another more glamorous person triumphing over difficult and heroic situations. In my fantasy world, I was in control.

When filing into the school hall for assembly, my first thought was always what the hymn was for that day and how many verses it ran to. Up to three was bearable but any more and the panic would well up, making me feel sick, dizzy and unsteady. My great dread was that I might faint, though I never did. As things got worse I frequently had to slip out of the hall with the excuse that I felt unwell. There was no point in trying to explain further, I'd tried that and nobody understood.

Then sitting through lessons became difficult, and I was trying to avoid assembly by arriving late to school almost every day. The atmosphere that I had once enjoyed was becoming unbearable: too many people, too much noise — my mind felt overloaded and I could not concentrate on my lessons. I withdrew from my friends, who found me odd'. I still managed to hang on, though too many days off meant my school work was affected.

Strangely enough, the adults around me never suggested I saw a doctor. In those days one was just considered to be a 'difficult* adolescent. In any case, the suggestion of a consultation with a doctor would have filled me with horror. I had to cover up my real problem.

Boarding school, my parents decided, and I went along with this idea. A new start, a different atmosphere. I had read so many books about girls' boarding schools and I knew it was all going to be jolly good fun ... new friends, midnight feasts and lots of practical jokes. Above all there would be no travelling to and from school. The daily journey to my present school was becoming a nightmare in itself. Being privately coached soon helped me to regain my educational level and my confidence was returning when I passed the entrance exam to the new school.



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