Anxiety Support Group
Anxiety is a physical condition marked by intense and persistent feelings of distress, fear, angst or dread. General anxiety caused by routine day-to-day stresses usually passes quickly and is experienced by almost everyone at one time or another. However, such feelings that linger over time and are very difficult to cope with, and which lack a clear cause, may indicate...
Last Wednesday, I was at school in my history class and the county sheriff who is assigned to our school comes into the classroom and tells us to turn off the lights and lock the door. I never had this happen at the eleven schools I went to. Then the teacher told us to get on the floor and under the desks. I was sitting on the floor with my phone like most of the kids in my class and I was going through my emails. Email from the college said this is a drill. Fine, I have done drills before, tornado, and fire drills. I am semi calm then my friend who is sitting beside me showed me the email he got. He got an email from the school, saying the school was on lockdown because there was a man with a gun in the building. Now were half hour, 45 mins in and we’re now seeing cops and SWAT in their gear. They have their guns and their dogs, but still no info. My friend is getting info from his dad who is a cop but the school is giving us nothing. Then they are trying to tell us information over the intercoms, but the comms are broken. The thing that feeds my anxiety the most, especially in things like this is not knowing, or only getting part of the message. They walk by again, then they start releasing all the rooms one by one. When we were able to leave the room I went to the prolab, and we were talking about our strange joint experience.
One of my classmates was reading the sheriff’s response on the college’s website, who they were looking for. Then they all were joking about how this man who they were looking for could be one of our classmates. Then this student goes onto ranting about mental illness and how this guy could go off at any moment and they’re still laughing. The response on FB even the classmate thought this was funny. I thought it was disgusting that they were laughing. They posted pictures of the cops and sheriffs on messenger and snapchat. The other thing is that they labeled this kid a possible gun man because he had an anxiety problem maybe. He had a hard time and even had told people he’d been in the hospital, but he also was a guy who wanted to be listened to. That is one thing I know, simply because I had listened to him before.
As upset as I was about the miscommunication on the schools part, I am more saddened about the mislabeling of the young man. Having a hard time, or anxiety whether it’s diagnosed or not, it does not make people a criminal, or a bad guy. I am not a doctor. I don’t know what flips that switch, but I feel sad when people think that it is just mental illness.
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Years ago, I won a mirrored armoire from my job. It's in my bedroom but I rarely stand in front of it. Yesterday, I had to have a dexascan done so I had to change into a gown. There was a full length mirror in the changing room. I'm aware that I gained 5 to 7 pounds over the last year from cheating on Keto but I didn't know what it looked like. It was a reality check.
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"don't be a hate hole" has been one of my recent mantras which seems to be escaping my mouth more and more often. it emerges when i am faced with the endless list of chores i would rather not deal with. insurance. head lice. bureaucracy. in-laws. the list goes on and on and on and on, ad infinitum.reality checks requested. am i making sense?"ever'thin they is but loving leaves a rust on your...
I hope he gets help and that you get peace in order to be positive in this.
Best wishes.
When I was a kid growing up (I'm 50) we had so many bomb threats that at times they just sent us to the auditorium instead of outside. Once someone called the threat into the entire school district and since they checked the elementary schools first, and I was in high school...we sat out there over 2 hours.
In any case, I remember how scary it could be at first, and I remember the jokes we used to tell also. Jokes are HUGE stress relievers.
A big part of the problem these days is the media. The world and the United States are FAR safer than when I was a kid. But you wouldn't know it from the stuff that is reported.
Charles Manson was running around free when I was a kid. Newspaper boys were being kidnapped and police weren't taking reports for over 24 hours.
Teachers would know about abuse and do nothing. (A friend's friend was told that she could live with it, or go to juvie...some choice.) Yeah, it really IS a better world today.
***My kids walked alone to school from the time they were in 1st grade, and I haven't locked my doors in ten years.***
Many people really panic over "situations".
Sort of like yelling out fire. People freak out. Many times people are killed by being trampled to death in confined spaces, stairs and doorways.
I used to work in a Casino as a Floor Manager. Once in awhile we would get a call their was a Bomb in the building.
We were sure there wasn't one. And imagine if I were to go on the speaker and say there was....
What I would say was, "we are having a problem in the building. We need everyone to pickup your money and personal belongings and exit the building calmly and quietly.
With this, they don't know if we have a gas leak, problems with elec. Plumbing... Who knows what.
The Police can't take a chance if people going outside and getting shot. They also can't take a chance of being MISINFORMED.
One person says Anxiety another says deranged another says mental illness.
I am thankful that there are places like here and people like you guys that have been so kind, but also organizations like Always Keep Fighting and TWOLA, to give people a vocabulary and a way to speak about what they have been going through.
Thank you guys- you’ve been great! Truly.