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Doing Something Important When You have Anxiety

Have you ever listened to Lose Yourself by Eminem? I feel that it's a good example of what I want to talk about today.

If you've ever read my blog before, you know that I have a chronic anxiety disorder. Typically, on a day to day basis, I feel like one of the opening lines of that song; "sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy". I'd feel like that 9/10 days in the morning going to school, and on that 1/10, I'd feel that way by the time I've come home. That type of anxiety is tiring, but what happens when you're doing something important to you, or if there's a lot of risk.
I'm one exam away from finishing my leaving cert, the Irish final exams. It's the main route into getting into university, something I've been encouraged to do since I was small and something I've wanted to do for years.

These exams are corrected in an odd manner, so there's a lot of competition and pressure, which doesn't help when it's the key to your plans for the next four years. I also only have one shot, one set of exams, once.
You could say I could repeat, but if you've read my blog, you know that school is a somewhat toxic environment for Becky and I.

So what happens when faced with this? Something that is personally very important?
Sleepless nights, illness, loosing weight. I had just finished one of my Irish papers, and was sitting in the school canteen waiting for my biology exam. People were talking away to me, and I noticed my hand violently shaking.
The anxiety nightmares come regular and plentiful, even though most of them make sense. They take up so much energy that sleep felt useless.
I've cried after exams and Becky has accepted her fate of failing every single one of them.
The most frustrating thing is that I don't feel present. Nine of my ten exams were very close together, and those days feel like a blur. I don't remember being particularly anxious in them. I don't feel like I really did them. I'd see myself in the mirror, and there was am exhausted woman, hair frazzled, bags under the eyes, skin almost translucent.
Was that really me?
Apparenlty so.
It was like I was a puppet carrying out actions that I wasn't paying much attention to.

I suppose this absence of me is how I've coped with these exams. I've been building up to them for years. I know everyone else has too, but not everybody wants to go to university, not everybody needs high grades, not everybody has anxiety. This has always been a huge deal for me, and it's passing by my eyes in a way I never thought Becky would allow.

This, I'm presuming, is purely a coping mechanism I've unconsciously developed. Is it healthy or would it be better to acknowledge it more?
Maybe not, since I couldn't bring myself to do the leaving cert, which didn't have half the importance as this does.

~~~
Have you had any experience of this? Let me know your experiences. What's important to you, and how do you cope if you have anxiety, depression or any other mental health issue?
All comments are welcome but asked to be respectful
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