The Boiling of the Bones

9. Dr. Weintraub

"You're fighting against ten thousand years of human evolution. That's a completely normal physiological response when the body produces the hormone epinephrine. You go into a fight-or-flight, adrenalin rush. The response manifests differently in different people. Some get a beneficial energy boost increasing focus. For others like you, the brain shuts off completely as the body prepares for physical combat. Heart rate and blood flow increases, and muscles tense up."

He said there were medications available that would help, or if I preferred there were mental techniques, he could show me to work on controlling anxiety and panic attacks. I wasn't interested in the meds because I knew someone who took Xanax, and the side effect made her so focused, she became a zombie—perpetually stoned or sleepy all the time.

I felt like school was the problem, not me. Why should I have to take drugs when it's the education system that's messed up? I was no expert, but a better way might be putting kids on their own track, only competing against themselves and abandoning the exams, and cutthroat, dog-eat-dog competition.

They could completely eliminate all of the stress and negative stigmas and labelling and all that crap. It almost seemed as if the current system was deliberately designed to maximize the unhealthy, stress-inducing competition of it all. When you score low on an exam, we've got to quit telling kids they failed with a big fat red letter F. Instead, it should only serve as a benchmark showing what point you're at along the long road of the learning process.

Its only purpose should be to identify if you've achieved competency well enough to move on, or if you have to go back and reexamine a chapter in more depth. Once you've done that, you retake the exam again, and again, if necessary, until you've sufficiently mastered the concept. It should all be simply pass/fail. That's ultimately what employers want the education system to do, assure we've mastered the concepts. The brightest students might progress farther along at a faster rate, but there's no rush for the rest of us.

We've got to quit ranking students and pitting them against each other. You're only competing against yourself in a quest to learn stuff. It's not a race, it's a journey. The goal should be to get everyone there, not to identify the few, most talented individuals who can beat all the others across the finish line.

I don't stress about anything else in life-at least not to the point that it becomes unmanageable. Just education. Taking drugs is a band aid, not addressing or eliminating the root cause. I wanted to eliminate the stress triggers from my life instead of developing a perpetual dependance on drugs to cope. That wasn't natural. The trillion-dollar pharmaceutical industry with all their slick ads would disagree. I suppose it was unrealistic to expect the system to change—at least not in the short term where it would benefit me.

Dr. Weintraub handed me a few papers and talked about several psychological stress management exercises and controlled breathing techniques he wanted me to try for a week and come back again. I agreed.

That night dad asked how it went.

"I suffer from severe anxiety and panic attacks."

"Did he get you a prescription?"

"No, he wanted me to focus on breathing techniques."

He was shocked.

"Breathing techniques?"

He said it like it was the most idiotic thing he'd ever heard.

"I have to go back again next week."

"Good. I'm glad he's helping you. He should be able to get you some drugs for that. I think they use Ritalin or Adderall to treat that. Ask him for one of those."