obligatory post-exam rant
May. 6th, 2008 12:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
callistaThe past few weeks have been a bit hellish, but once again finals are over. Not without some mishaps, unfortunately. I never thought it'd get so blown out of proportion though. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
So, last Saturday I had my most difficult exam (on Protein Structure and Function). I wasn't particularly stressed about it (not because I was feeling confident or anything; it just takes a lot to stress me out), and I went to sleep on Friday night not expecting anything unusual to happen. Unfortunately, I had a hard time getting to sleep that night because, frankly, it was hot as hell and I was (and still am) too stingy to turn on the aircon. I apparently still managed to get some sleep, because I woke up feeling like the end of the world was coming. I couldn't breathe very well and I felt really tense, but I decided to ignore it and went to school thinking that it would pass. An hour before my exam, while I was eating lunch, I still felt like crap and I had to consciously stop myself from hyperventilating; I remembered enough of my Psych class to recognize it as something like an anxiety attack. Obviously, I needed to do something about it before my exam so I did the first thing that came to mind - I called my mom. I described what I was going through and she said it was an anxiety attack, but I told her that I wasn't stressed enough for that. Then she asked if I had gotten enough sleep and I said I hadn't because of the heat. Apparently, not getting enough sleep can sometimes cause a level of stress that can lead to anxiety attacks. So basically she just told me to take deep breaths, try to find a place with airconditioning, and meditate. I swear, my mom can be such a hippie sometimes. Anyway, I managed two out of those three things and felt reasonably better (although my breathing still wasn't normal yet) by the time my exam started. I thought I was in the clear when suddenly, an hour into the exam, I started to feel nauseated. As in I really thought I was going to throw up on my test paper. Fortunately (although I don't know how I did it) I managed to finish the exam. Which is funny, because apparently a lot of my classmates couldn't finish it (and the expression on their faces when they found out that I managed to finish even though I was sick made me feel a bit better).
So that hellish day eventually came to an end. At least I thought so. And then I emailed my dad today to let him know that my exams were done and to update him on various things such as the Bangkok trip Cassy and I have been planning. He replied pretty quickly, and I wouldn't have been surprised if he had scolded me about not emailing sooner or something. I certainly wasn't expecting him to say how relieved he was that my "ordeals" were over and that he'd heard from my sister that I'd "overstressed" myself and had "panic attacks". And then he scolded me for not telling him! It's funny (and annoying) how easily information can be mangled when it's transmitted secondhand. First of all, a panic attack is very different from an anxiety attack. A panic attack is what you see in movies, when a person suddenly collapses and curls up into a little ball and can't move and goes all hysterical. That's obviously not what happened to me. And that's the reason why I didn't bother to tell him - because it was nothing. I hadn't "overstressed" myself, nothing was wrong with me, so what's there to tell? Then I thought, maybe he's miffed at the fact that I called my mom instead of him. But if you take a moment to think about it, it was the logical thing to do. My mom is a psychiatrist. My dad is a brain surgeon. If I happen to have an anxiety attack, who would be able to help me the most? And if I understood his email correctly and he really can't tell the difference between a panic attack and an anxiety attack, it was a good thing I didn't call him. But still, my sister should know better; she's a Psych grad. And she should know how calm my mom was about it (she was telling me to meditate, for crying out loud), which means that it really wasn't a big deal. *sigh* My family is so weird.
In case anyone's wondering, I'm not really annoyed at my family for overreacting. I just needed something to rant about, and given that nothing ever happens in this excitement-forsaken place (I think Singapore exceeded its excitement quota when they let that terrorist escape), this was all I could come up with. Oh well, only two more days until our Bangkok trip. At least that's something to look forward to (I hope).
So, last Saturday I had my most difficult exam (on Protein Structure and Function). I wasn't particularly stressed about it (not because I was feeling confident or anything; it just takes a lot to stress me out), and I went to sleep on Friday night not expecting anything unusual to happen. Unfortunately, I had a hard time getting to sleep that night because, frankly, it was hot as hell and I was (and still am) too stingy to turn on the aircon. I apparently still managed to get some sleep, because I woke up feeling like the end of the world was coming. I couldn't breathe very well and I felt really tense, but I decided to ignore it and went to school thinking that it would pass. An hour before my exam, while I was eating lunch, I still felt like crap and I had to consciously stop myself from hyperventilating; I remembered enough of my Psych class to recognize it as something like an anxiety attack. Obviously, I needed to do something about it before my exam so I did the first thing that came to mind - I called my mom. I described what I was going through and she said it was an anxiety attack, but I told her that I wasn't stressed enough for that. Then she asked if I had gotten enough sleep and I said I hadn't because of the heat. Apparently, not getting enough sleep can sometimes cause a level of stress that can lead to anxiety attacks. So basically she just told me to take deep breaths, try to find a place with airconditioning, and meditate. I swear, my mom can be such a hippie sometimes. Anyway, I managed two out of those three things and felt reasonably better (although my breathing still wasn't normal yet) by the time my exam started. I thought I was in the clear when suddenly, an hour into the exam, I started to feel nauseated. As in I really thought I was going to throw up on my test paper. Fortunately (although I don't know how I did it) I managed to finish the exam. Which is funny, because apparently a lot of my classmates couldn't finish it (and the expression on their faces when they found out that I managed to finish even though I was sick made me feel a bit better).
So that hellish day eventually came to an end. At least I thought so. And then I emailed my dad today to let him know that my exams were done and to update him on various things such as the Bangkok trip Cassy and I have been planning. He replied pretty quickly, and I wouldn't have been surprised if he had scolded me about not emailing sooner or something. I certainly wasn't expecting him to say how relieved he was that my "ordeals" were over and that he'd heard from my sister that I'd "overstressed" myself and had "panic attacks". And then he scolded me for not telling him! It's funny (and annoying) how easily information can be mangled when it's transmitted secondhand. First of all, a panic attack is very different from an anxiety attack. A panic attack is what you see in movies, when a person suddenly collapses and curls up into a little ball and can't move and goes all hysterical. That's obviously not what happened to me. And that's the reason why I didn't bother to tell him - because it was nothing. I hadn't "overstressed" myself, nothing was wrong with me, so what's there to tell? Then I thought, maybe he's miffed at the fact that I called my mom instead of him. But if you take a moment to think about it, it was the logical thing to do. My mom is a psychiatrist. My dad is a brain surgeon. If I happen to have an anxiety attack, who would be able to help me the most? And if I understood his email correctly and he really can't tell the difference between a panic attack and an anxiety attack, it was a good thing I didn't call him. But still, my sister should know better; she's a Psych grad. And she should know how calm my mom was about it (she was telling me to meditate, for crying out loud), which means that it really wasn't a big deal. *sigh* My family is so weird.
In case anyone's wondering, I'm not really annoyed at my family for overreacting. I just needed something to rant about, and given that nothing ever happens in this excitement-forsaken place (I think Singapore exceeded its excitement quota when they let that terrorist escape), this was all I could come up with. Oh well, only two more days until our Bangkok trip. At least that's something to look forward to (I hope).
