Am I going to pass the eighth grade?!

This is the truth…not being dramatic and all, but seriously…

It’s 6:45am. Time for me to get up and get dressed for school, but there’s one problem: my stomach felt like knots so I quickly ran to the bathroom. I did my business in there for five minutes.(Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty.)

I didn’t feel so great because I had really high anxiety and stress at the same time. That’s not a good combination – really unhealthy.

Meanwhile, I tried to suck my stomach problem up. I tried to eat something healthy and see if it would be OK later. Around 7:11am, it got worse. (No Slurpee for me) I texted my mom about the problem:

Me: “Mom I need to use the bathroom but yet i don’t want to”….

Mom: “It could maybe be a stomach bug”

By 7:15am we’re in the school building. By 8:00am I told my math teacher my stomach issue. She said she understood. At 8:30am we started testing.

My skin and my body slowly turned pale. I was scared. Nervous. I didn’t feel well either. My hands kept shaking. I couldn’t focus – couldn’t even grab my pencil and bubble in my answers without shaking. My math teacher walked by and said “you’re doing great” and “you’ll be fine.” But I wasn’t convinced.

I started crying because I was so scared of failing the STAAR test. One hour later, I needed to use the bathroom again. It was an emergency and I started to cry again because I didn’t feel well. Again, I tried to talk myself into sucking it up. But I couldn’t.  I grabbed the trash can, and … you know…

One of the students asked me if I was OK. Through my sobs I replied, “no.”  My classmates told a teacher that I was crying and vomiting so I was shipped off  to the nurse’s office. The nurse checked my temperature and told me I didn’t have a fever. “You’ll be fine,” the nurse said. But I wasn’t fine. 

I called my mom and dad to pick me up. My dad eventually arrived at the school to rescue me. Aside from checking my temperature, the nurse did nothing. I was quite disappointed and mad. She told me it was a “stomach bug.” I overheard the nurse and the teacher talking through the door while I was sitting there, stressed out.

“Most students do it just to get out of class,” one of the ladies said. I thought to myself, “How many times have I come here? Oh wait – ONCE. I went to the nurse’s office just to give her the paperwork to allow me to carry my inhaler. I was not doing this to “get out of class.” However, I do understand what they were trying to say. Surely, there are students who do try to skip class. But I’m definitely an exception. 

Overall, I was angry and stressed out… it has gotten so bad that I had to leave school early. But the most upsetting part wasn’t me being sick but that I had to retake the test. I started to sob and my heart raced ten times worse than before.

My dad drove me home. My dad told me I had diarrhea. According to the WebMD website, I have the some of the same EXACT symptoms of stress and anxiety.  Meanwhile, I was still sad about retaking the STAAR test. My dad tried to cheer me up, saying that it wasn’t my fault I got sick, it was just a nervous breakdown i had. But that’s not what I thought.  I was thinking,“If i didn’t have this much stress, I would’ve been just fine.” 

I let the test get the best of me and I got sick. I’ve never had a nervous breakdown. Taking the STAAR test is probably one of my biggest fears.  I told a lot of adults that I had stress and anxiety but some people assume that i’m healthy. I decided to participate in SSI for math. (SSI is extra tutoring time to really focus on certain learning objectives) Some people may think this was a stupid choice, but it’s for student to get additional help in the first place. It’s there to get students to pass the test and get you to high school.

The re-test is right around the corner.  Hopefully, I won’t have this big of a nervous breakdown…Hopefully, I won’t have a breakdown at all. I mean, really – am I going to let some test stop me from going to high school?