I was in a panic this week. Anxiety attacks, worry, worry, worry. I had a linguistics test, 100 questions, and the material is HARD. Oh, how I worried. I also studied though. You can’t JUST worry, that’s not productive. So I studied, and made flash cards, and highlighted, and read, and studied. Finally test day came. I took my pencil to class and took the test. Just taking it was a relief, but it was an extra relief to see it wasn’t as hard as my often-psychotic mind was telling me that it was. The studying helped. A lot. And the praying helped. A lot. And the next day the test results came in and guess what. I had a 94%, the highest grade in the class. In both classes, even. And the professor gave us our ranking for the semester thus far, and guess who’s number one? Me! Which means that not only am I a nerd, but I am also a worrywart, and no matter how much circumstances and God try to prove to me that I am smart, I still don’t believe it. I would much rather believe the idiots who try to tell me that I am stupid.
Now the challenge is to believe it enough to be at peace with myself, but not so much that I get all cocky and think that I can skate by without hard work. Which I keep getting tempted to do in my other class, which is also very hard. Why is everything so hard? I think it’s because I’m lazy and I’m afraid to try. It takes 90% of my effort just to TRY, and then I’m exhausted. Dumb.
It's amazing how a few deep breaths can lessen a panic attack.