Personal Narrative

Tia Collins

12-11-12

Personal Narritive

       I remember 2 years ago every morning I would wake up and get ready for school, but right before I opened the door to leave, my heart would start racing. I would get awful butterflies in my stomach and my body would start shaking. This would happen a lot. I would get nervous to even go outside and leave my house.

Something that would trigger it was when people picked on me, which happened in 5th grade. I remember there were 3 people in particular who would constantly call me annoying, a over reactor and would make fun of the clothes I was wearing that day. Once I saw two of them walking the track and I walked up there and asked if I could too, one of them leaned into the other ones ear and started whispering while staring at me, then said “Sorry, but we’d rather have alone time.” after that they continued walking and they stared at me the whole time. About five minutes later two more girls joined them, that’s when I realized they didn’t want “alone time” they just didn’t want me there. Another memory I have is, I was in the upstairs of my house, when I heard giggling coming from outside so I looked out my window and they were standing in front of my house, one of them looked up and saw me, she pointed at me laughing then the girls ran down the street and hid.

My anxiety got really bad towards the middle of the year to the point where before school I’d start crying begging my mom to let me stay home from school or homeschool me. At that point I started going to see Mrs. April, our school counselor, I also went to another counselor outside of school. I’d have half days, I would go to school till 12:10 then the rest of the day i would do my school work at home, but that wasn’t enough for me.

My mom agreed to take time out of her schedule to homeschool me. I was much happier being homeschooled. At the end of summer vacation that year my mom and dad told me I was going to have to go to public school for 6th grade, that’s when they enrolled me into Pacific Union. I was lucky enough that Sophie, my friend who had gone to my other school, was going there too. I also had my friend Mim. I didn’t make many friends, that was my fault though. I was clingy to Sophie and Mim because I was too shy to talk to anyone else. Sophie ended up leaving Pacific Union the week before Mim went on a trip to Los Angeles for a month which was hard for me because they were pretty much my only friends at school. I got really scared because I didn’t know anyone there. That month I would run to the girls bathroom and call my mom asking her to pick me up from school because I felt miserable, I definitely was making a bigger deal out of that situation then it actually was. At recess I would either stay inside the classroom or go to the library and read.

At the end of the first trimester my mom could tell I wasn’t happy there so she enrolled me back into Trinidad School. I became much happier and everyone was friendly to me. My anxiety was not as bad and I would only get little butterflies in my stomach every now and then before leaving to go to school. Now i do not deal with being nervous before school or have problems leaving the house because i learned how to deal with anxiety.