God Bless the Power of Xanax

12:57 am

So. The short talk is tomorrow. In 16 hours to be exact. Right at this EXACT moment, I'm not nervous. No stomach aches. No vomit coming up in my throat. No racing heart.

See blog title.

I had several fits of hysteria on Friday night because I was just absolutely dreading Monday because of the short talk. Lots of crying got done (but it was good... like I said in a recent post, I believe in the power of a good cry every once in a while). All day Saturday I was mopey and didn't really enjoy myself at the car show. Today I woke up and felt like breaking down again and ultimately did when I went and talked to my stepmom about it. She told me that she would give me two Xanax pills, one to take today and see how it affected me, and one to take tomorrow for the speech. So I took it today around 4:00 and... well I didn't feel significantly different. Definitely was mellow for the afternoon. I kept assessing myself to see if it had worked and every once in a while, I would start thinking about the speech and... nothing happened. No reaction. Ordinarily when I think about it, it feels like a feather runs up and down my spinal cord and my stomach clenches up a little. But nothing really happened. It was quite nice that, for once, I had an afternoon where I wasn't stressing out over... everything. I think it might be starting to wear off a little bit now... it's been 9 hours. I'm still chill right now and when I think about doing the speech, the spine thing doesn't happen. The only thing I worried about all day was worrying if it would work on my worry tomorrow. Lol.

I can't remember if I've already blogged about this or not, but Friday I had a really, really brief presentation to give in Core. I figured if anything, it could be used as a warm-up for the short talk on Monday. When I walked into the room, I was fine except for the alternating clenching and fluttering of my stomach. I sat down and as soon as she started calling the roll, it felt like the room spiked about 20 degrees because I knew that my presentation would follow right after roll. Somewhere in the G's, I could start to feel my heart beating... in my throat. It felt like my eyes were starting to bug and I knew my face was already starting to turn red. Finally, when she told me to go up there and do it, something inside me burst. When I stood up, I felt my body moving, but it felt like I was still sitting in my seat. I didn't breathe until I got up to the podium. When I finally got there and started talking, I didn't look up at the class hardly at all, maybe two or three times. I read from my paper and played with my fingers and rocked on my heels. The whole time, I felt like I couldn't breathe... but I probably wasn't breathing so... y'know. Finally it was over and I walked back to my seat. After about 5 minutes, I felt better... My heart had quit beating in my ears and my neck and I felt the redness and the splotches leaving my face and chest. And that was that. Less than 5 minutes and I panicked that bad. The one tomorrow is 15 minutes.

I told Joel about it, and he told me to get Xanax. I told my hairdresser later that day, and she told me to get Xanax. I told Victoria, and she told me to get Xanax (or get drunk and go do it). I told my stepmom, and she laughed at me. Which sent me rolling into the crying Friday. Nobody in my family knows what happens to me when I'm thrown into a situation like that (be it social or just doing a presentation). It's one of the worst feelings in the world. It's hard to describe, other that just pure awful. Panicky. It's awful to feel so helpless.

So anyway, after making a fool of myself in from of Terri, she finally suggested that I take the pills. So I did. And here we are.

I just hope it works tomorrow.

***
11:36am

The stomach clenching is back. Five hours to go until the speech. I'm just psyching myself out, I know it's gonna be okay because I have my paper to read from and I have my happy pill.

This morning in the dragon lady's class, my group got picked to act out a skit about RNA processing or some bullshit. Cue new nerves.

Bleh. Hell week was supposed to be over after the speech today. I'm thinking it won't be though...