Words Can't Express Why

My Stupid Problems

I had a lot of difficulties expressing what I was thinking. I couldn't read out loud without stuttering and messing up majorly. Even if it was perfect in my mind, I couldn't speak without sounding like complete garbage. I lacked the skills to do anything social. For instance, raising my hand to ask or answer a question, or read out loud in class. I didn't write a lot in general because I didn't know how to portray what I felt on paper. I didn't want to sound needy or pathetic either. I was scared that someone might find it, read it, and tell other people about what I wrote. I didn't and still don't trust a lot of people. I couldn't talk about my anxiety, I really didn't want to get into the depression I have been feeling and I surely couldn't get into the voices in my head either. As a result, I didn't have much to say or write.

Whenever the teacher would call on certain people, they would very rarely call on me, and frankly, I was quite happy about that. When he did call on me, I would put my sleeve up to my mouth to cover it, because even though I brushed my teeth I still imagined my teeth looking all rotten, disgusting, and crooked. I would start to visibly shake like an earthquake that had just taken possession of me and only me. My face would either turn bright red like a fire truck (just strap a siren on my head and I'm an exact frickin' duplicate!) or my face would look completely drained, almost as if my soul was leaving my body. Because of all the stress, I felt physically sick,  my stomach was going to implode and then explode, killing me in the process. My mouth went dry; my tongue felt like sandpaper against the top of my mouth and my eyes started to get fuzzy almost like I was drugged. I looked at the paper and I could barely understand the words I was about to read. I dealt with all that before I even started to say anything, isn't that pathetic?

When I had to read for the class, it would be twice as awful. Within the second sentence or so I would get stuck on a simple word, but to me, it would look foreign. It would look like it was something from the 15th century or something that wasn't even part of the English language. After I got past that, I would start to stutter and trip over my words because the teacher would say the words I couldn't read. I would subconsciously hold my breath out of fear of making more mistakes. Just when I thought it was already bad enough, my eyes would start to wander to the next line before I finished the line I was saying, which then combined two sentences together and I would have to restart the whole thing over. It was a snowball effect that ended with an explosion. A big awful explosion ended with me being completely humiliated in front of the entire class because I couldn't read a simple paragraph. After that, I would usually run to the bathroom to go cry like a big baby. I felt so defeated that I wanted to disappear and crawl back under the heavy and securing blankets on my bed. At least they gave me the comfort of someone holding my disgusting body, or the feeling of being next to a fire on a cold winter day, that reassuring sense that things weren't so bad in my life. But instead of the fulfilling blankets I craved, all I got was the feeling of emptiness in the bathroom stall.

Most of my school day would be me putting my nose in my drawing book and waiting until it was time to work by myself. I was the best at working alone. People would get me anxious and because I was anxious I was depressed. The most stupid thing that every school does is group projects. Collaborating forced me to finish things, because I was scared of wasting "precious" people's time. If I was in a group project I told my "partner" or "partners" I would have all the information, slides, and scripts done within a couple of days. Then we could "practice" it all together or they "look" at it and then mess up because they didn't care.

( A/N: sorry this is a longer chapter. I hope you didn't get too depressed reading it.)