Alteah
New Member
Hello everyone. I hope I'm not in the wrong section.
This is kind of a rant because I can't really talk about this with anyone in my life currently. I tend to overshare, I'm sorry.
I have an oral exam next Wednesday and I'm feeling terrible about it. I've always had huge difficulties with expressing myself orally in situations I don't feel confortable in. Since I have never had a job, those situations mostly happen in school (now university). I don't know if it's the same everywhere, but in the French system, especially in literature or in language classes, there is quite a lot of emphasis on oral expression and there are often oral exams. I've always hated them, always felt sick several days before them and exhausted for several days after, but I've always endured it, never sought to be exempted from them, since I honestly thought it was more or less the same for everyone. (For context, I think I'm very likely autistic but I have never been diagnosed with autism or anything else for that matter)
Now I honestly barely feel like I can talk about it with anyone. Sometimes I get compassion and compassion is nice but at this point, I want the pain to stop. In December, I had another oral exam and I was so sick, I could barely think straight. Now there are external circonstances that made this particular oral exam (and the few days before) especially difficult. The last months of 2019 (Happy new year to everyone, by the way) were some of the worst of my life and I wasn't as prepared for my exams this time as I usually was and I could only sleep extremely late. Overall I was exhausted and on the verge of a mental breakdown. I was also on my periods, which made the physical pain worse. My "symptoms"on the day of the exam and the one before were: intense pain, especially in the stomach, difficulty breathing, diarrhea (I had to go to the bathroom approximately thirteen times in just a few hours), dizziness, inability to eat or drink, insomnia, uncontrolled crying, suicidal thoughts and something that had never happened to me before: the urge to repeat the same sentences in my head and things I had read mixing up in some kind of echo. I was not really able to communicate (through texting) with anyone at all during that period. I would move on from random thought to random thought incoherently.
You can probably understand why I'm so distressed at the idea of having to relive that in a few days. I have an appointment with a psychiatrist by the end of month to talk about this issue. At this point, I do in fact want to be exempted from taking oral exams in the conventional setting. I just can't do it anymore. If I can't get exempted, I don't know what I will do. When I talked about this with my mom, she told me it looked like I was getting weaker, which I know is not true but still hurt, and do reflect the point of view of most people pretty well I believe. It also makes me worry about the future and how to get and hold a job.
For the time being, I think I will send my teacher a message to explain my situation and we will see.
I wish we lived in a society that was willing to listen to people's pain and would be willing to accommodate to make things easier for everyone instead of holding everyone to the same arbitrary standards. The sad thing is I can't shake the feeling than I am "giving up" and "exaggerating". But, reasonably, I can't ignore how detrimental this all is to my health. I just hope I won't get punished too much for not being able to hold myself to these standards anymore.
This is kind of a rant because I can't really talk about this with anyone in my life currently. I tend to overshare, I'm sorry.
I have an oral exam next Wednesday and I'm feeling terrible about it. I've always had huge difficulties with expressing myself orally in situations I don't feel confortable in. Since I have never had a job, those situations mostly happen in school (now university). I don't know if it's the same everywhere, but in the French system, especially in literature or in language classes, there is quite a lot of emphasis on oral expression and there are often oral exams. I've always hated them, always felt sick several days before them and exhausted for several days after, but I've always endured it, never sought to be exempted from them, since I honestly thought it was more or less the same for everyone. (For context, I think I'm very likely autistic but I have never been diagnosed with autism or anything else for that matter)
Now I honestly barely feel like I can talk about it with anyone. Sometimes I get compassion and compassion is nice but at this point, I want the pain to stop. In December, I had another oral exam and I was so sick, I could barely think straight. Now there are external circonstances that made this particular oral exam (and the few days before) especially difficult. The last months of 2019 (Happy new year to everyone, by the way) were some of the worst of my life and I wasn't as prepared for my exams this time as I usually was and I could only sleep extremely late. Overall I was exhausted and on the verge of a mental breakdown. I was also on my periods, which made the physical pain worse. My "symptoms"on the day of the exam and the one before were: intense pain, especially in the stomach, difficulty breathing, diarrhea (I had to go to the bathroom approximately thirteen times in just a few hours), dizziness, inability to eat or drink, insomnia, uncontrolled crying, suicidal thoughts and something that had never happened to me before: the urge to repeat the same sentences in my head and things I had read mixing up in some kind of echo. I was not really able to communicate (through texting) with anyone at all during that period. I would move on from random thought to random thought incoherently.
You can probably understand why I'm so distressed at the idea of having to relive that in a few days. I have an appointment with a psychiatrist by the end of month to talk about this issue. At this point, I do in fact want to be exempted from taking oral exams in the conventional setting. I just can't do it anymore. If I can't get exempted, I don't know what I will do. When I talked about this with my mom, she told me it looked like I was getting weaker, which I know is not true but still hurt, and do reflect the point of view of most people pretty well I believe. It also makes me worry about the future and how to get and hold a job.
For the time being, I think I will send my teacher a message to explain my situation and we will see.
I wish we lived in a society that was willing to listen to people's pain and would be willing to accommodate to make things easier for everyone instead of holding everyone to the same arbitrary standards. The sad thing is I can't shake the feeling than I am "giving up" and "exaggerating". But, reasonably, I can't ignore how detrimental this all is to my health. I just hope I won't get punished too much for not being able to hold myself to these standards anymore.