Pride

This weekend has been one of the most difficult weekends I have experience since being up here, and I've only been in Oz for 2 weeks (going on 3).

Rugby has been awesome! Practices are difficult for me because well, I'm a fat-ass and I can't run (also my knee can't take the impact from running anyway). I do what I can and I've decided I will go to practice when I  can. I have a lot to do this semester and well I said it in my last post so I digress.

Friday, about a half hour before my class started, I started having a huge anxiety attack. It came on very suddenly. I was just sitting outside in front of the building where my class was and then BAM I was all jittery, I had a hard time breathing and so on. I thought maybe if i walked to the counseling center, I might feel better but as I was walking there it just became worse. I sat in the CSC office for a few minutes. I didn't tell the secretary that I needed to see someone, I just wanted to sit and see if I could calm down on my own. Jane, who's our Active Minds adviser, came in and she wanted to talk to me anyway about the Active Minds conference this year. After that we went into he office and I just completely broke down. I was just stressed out and having an anxiety attack. It all came from several things. I started thinking about Grandpa Bob who was in the VA hospital around this time last year and passed away October 3rd last year. I was thinking about him, I was thinking about the financial struggles my family is dealing with right now. It's pretty bad and I have been trying to find a job up here but, like all college towns, the jobs are already taken. Even trying to find one on campus is hard to do. I was also freaking out about being away...again. It just felt like a lot. I was away in Italy for 4 months, home for 4 months, and then off to Oz again for another 4 months. It just felt like a lot of back and forth and not enough time to settle. It felt like I just didn't have enough time at home to really regroup myself. It was just overload on so may levels. Jane gave me a letter stating that I am eligible for the welfare program up here call Human Concerns due to our financial situation. That really killed me, my pride. It's not that I really have anything against those programs, I take issue with people who abuse those programs and take away from people who really need it. I felt like one of those people who didn't need it and there it was being handed to me. I'm not lazy. I've worked and gone to school when I was home but it's been difficult to find something up here to even have a small source of income. I'm a hard worker. It just really hurt my pride to have to use a welfare program while I'm in school or really ever. I guess I got that whole ' if you can't provide for your family' thing from my dad because he thinks that way. I don't really know how I quite feel about it right now but I am thankful that I have it.

It was just a tiring weekend. I've pretty much cried all weekend and trying to tell myself that this isn't forever, it's temporary and when I get home I'll be working again. I'm trying to better accept what is before me and I know I cannot change what I don't know but the things I do know and then worry about just creep up and then the anxiety attacks come again. I just need to power through this last semester and be done with it. I just want to be done. December 15th can't come soon enough.