Accepting The Help

     Something that I am realizing about myself lately is I refuse to get help in certain situations.  I have two examples that happened today to go along with this.  I had to go in to get some blood tests done for an internship I have the opportunity to do later in the year.  This is the third time I have gotten my blood drawn in the past 6 months, so I'm getting pretty used to it.
     I go in, sit in the chair, and of course anxiety appears right before it will happen.  These blood tests are due soon, so as the doctor is looking over the paperwork and taking a while I start worrying that there is a problem.  After about five minutes of her making phone calls and looking things over, she went on to explain to me she didn't have the right equipment for one of the blood tests.  She says something to the sort of her not being able to test it so she will need to send it to a new doctor.  I didn't understand so I asked her to say it again.  As she's explaining it, the small anxiety guy is yelling in my ear saying that I won't be able to do my internship because of this.  I couldn't pay attention, and I started to get frustrated.  I asked her a third time to please repeat herself and then the frustration passed on to her.  Luckily, Jared was with me and knew what was going on in my mind.  He leans over to me and says she will still take my blood, she just won't test it right there in this clinic.  So we went from there.  I couldn't get myself to ask anymore questions because I was so worried she would get frustrated even more.  My anxiety was telling me that something isn't right and this isn't going to work.  As my thoughts wandered, she started to take my blood.
     This next paragraph is about the blood drawing process, if you get squirmy please don't read!
     As she is taking it and I am talking to her and Jared, I think that maybe this time I would like to look at what is happening.  I have always refused to look at my arm, thinking it would make me sick to see my blood being taken.  I was feeling brave, and decided to take a look.  I looked at the worst moment.  She put a new vile in and the blood made a squirting sound going into it.  Watching something come out of my body was something I had never seen before.
     My face went pale and my stomach turned.  I couldn't think about anything except wanting to go to sleep.  It was the weirdest feeling, of just wanting to sleep and not even have my eyes open.  I knew that if I put my head down or said anything about feeling sick the doctor would be worried about me, and that is the last thing I wanted at that moment.  I didn't want her to become more frustrated having to deal with a sick patient.  After a bit of feeling sick I mumbled something to the sort of "I shouldn't have looked".  Jared and the doctor immediately start talking to me, making sure my eyes were open and I wasn't going to throw up or pass out.  I couldn't respond too well, the only thing on my mind was sleep.  I started to drip sweat and get very hot.  The doctor rushed to get an ice pack and get some sugar in me.  A nurse came in and took my blood pressure.  I kept thinking, "what if this is just me thinking I'm sick? They're going to think that I'm lying because my blood pressure will probably be fine".  I was so embarrassed, thinking my mind was just over reacting.
    Once my blood pressure was taken the nurse insisted that I go into the next room and lie down.  They walked me into there and I laid there for about 10 minutes, Jared by my side making sure I was staying awake, even though I wanted to sleep so badly.  After a few times of the nurse coming in to check on me, she told me that my blood pressure had dropped by 30 since the beginning of my appointment to after my blood was taken.
     I look back on this, and I am so glad that I was able to receive help.  My anxiety was telling me it was all in my head, there wasn't any way to fix my thoughts.   Once I found out I was at a high risk of fainting, and many other things, I was so glad I had gotten the help I had received.  My anxiety was wrong, like always, telling me that it was all in my head.  I think I get it from my dad, not wanting people to worry about me.  He is a person who helps so many people, but when he needs the help he is embarrassed and refuses it.  It also goes along with me living without my family.  My mom struggles with anxiety as well, and I don't ever want to worry her, especially when she is in California and she can't help me.
     I need to cancel out my anxiety, and try to remind myself that getting help is OKAY.  It is GOOD.  People want to help you, you just have to allow them to.  Looking back on this pretty negative experience, I am feeling good learning something from it.  Don't hold back from asking for help.

Health over Education

                          
  Something that is just crazy to me about school and the whole stigma around it is how teachers portray that the only important thing in life is to get good grades.  They don't communicate with each other, and put all of their tests on the same day.  My brain is literal mush right now, studying for important tests I have this week.  I decided to take a break and rant about how much I hate school.  I am not somebody who can just sit down and read a text book.  I get side tracked and can never focus or memorize what I am studying.  I am soon going to get tested for ADD to see if that's what is up, but part of me feels like its just normal.  It's normal to procrastinate and think about other things happening in life.  Especially when you have anxiety.
     The school really likes to think that they do a good job at making sure their students know that their mental health is important.  What they don't do a good job at is pushing that it is more important than our education.  You need to be mentally well before you can succeed in anything else.  It all falls back on how you are doing in your head, and relates to anything else that you do.  Students these days are so focused on their studies and getting good grades they forget to check in on themselves to realize that they're on the verge of exploding and having a break down.
     Something I notice about my studying is how much anxiety it causes me.  As I'm writing this I should be going to sleep for a big test I have tomorrow, but I'm so anxious and my mind is running like crazy I can't even sleep.  Something I wish that people could see through my blog post is that I write them in about ten minutes.  My mind races and goes crazy when I write these, because I write when I'm anxious and ready to rant about something.  I get so anxious before I start to study, because I get worried about what if I can't focus.  While I study I get anxious realizing I just read a whole page of notes but the entire time I was just thinking about taking the test and how I'm going to fail.  Before and during the test I can't even focus because I am so concerned about the outcome in the end.  I'm not blaming my average grades on my anxiety, but it is definitely a large part of it.
     Life is so stressful.  Take time to step back from the world and focus on yourself.  This past week I have really focused on myself and improving my life.  As I'm studying for this test tomorrow, I keep taking breaks of just relaxing and letting my mind take a break.  Even though it still makes me anxious knowing my studying will just take longer and I won't get as much done when I take these breaks, it is still necessary.  Nobody should be spending all of their mind power on their studies.  Take a break, relax, and always be proud of yourself in the end.