Ah, apropos of discussion elsewhere. PTSD is not really uncommon on here, so like ... take with a grain of salt, and other people are welcome to pipe in. But I did have a ... fun college experience, so uh. If you have questions, go for it. And yes, you are welcome to use this as writing/RP research, no worries. Do the thing, traumatizing characters is fun. tl;dr, when I was sixteen, some shit went down. I vaguely coped until I got to college, and then I spent four years skipping class, hiding in my room, and having panic attacks every couple hours.
1) If your teachers/professors are not absolute jerks, TELL THEM WHAT'S HAPPENING. Most will be very cool about it and will try to help provide coping mechanisms. If you're not in touch with a therapist and guidance counselors or the disability office (if you're in college), hit them up. 2) Is it the material that's triggering you, something about the environment, or generalized stress? If it's the material, see if you can skip the worst of the class and do makeup material. You don't have to explain the exact problem; you can say, "[content] is giving me anxiety attacks because I had some bad experiences. Is there anything I can do instead?" If it's something about the environment, are there coping mechanisms that would help? For instance, I get triggered by cool weather, especially by my forearms being cold, so I always have a sweatshirt with me. It doesn't matter how it looks; if you need a teddy bear in class, do that. Sometimes the environmental factors are really hard to pin down, so it's worth trying to figure them out; imo one of the worst things is "I'm flashbacking and I have no idea why, it just happens at random." Especially if it's generalized stress, take care of yourself. Eat, sleep, do things that are relaxing. Do not run yourself ragged because you "should be getting more done"; it just makes the panic worse. Taking care of yourself is more important than going to classes or getting your work done; if you're at a point where you can't take care of yourself and pass classes, that's when you need to take a break from classes. That's a disability. It is okay to be disabled. 3) If you're having a flashback, your only job is to calm down. If taking notes is making it worse, don't. If texting friends will help, do that. If you need to step out into the hall and cry, do that. If you're making enough noise or motion that you think you're being disruptive, it's okay to step outside until you can calm down. When you start having a flashback, the only thing that's important is taking care of yourself and calming down. Trying to push through and ignore it is just going to make the anxiety worse. Getting through it and out the other side will let you get back to functioning faster, and take less of a toll on you. Most people aren't going to be watching you or judging whether you're taking notes. And something like "I'm having an anxiety attack; some bad stuff happened" works really well for me, when people do notice. Personally, I got through most of my classes by continuously texting friends and liveblogging my classes; knowing that someone supportive was there "with me" and having something to stim with made it a lot easier to get through class, and telling someone else about the material helped me pay attention and absorb it. I also always sat in the back, with a clear escape route if I needed to run out of the room, and I took comfort objects everywhere. Mostly books and my laptop; on a bad day, I would sleep with my laptop cradled in my arms, and refuse to be more than arms-reach away from half a dozen books. If it makes you feel better, it's not silly. (I still missed a good half to two-thirds of my classes because I was agoraphobic; I should have dropped out for a while, and I regret that I didn't, even though it got me a degree. I spent every single spoon I had on passing my classes, and that means four years of my life is a complete haze.) 4) Longer term, the goal is to work through the bad shit so many times that it's boring instead of terrifying. It does happen, I swear. CBT exposure therapy is the big thing there, and it's probably best to get a therapist to work through it with you if you can. I did mine myself, but that was... not really a smart or efficient way to go about it.
Fistbump of solidarity; agoraphobia sucks. Ah, other than the above, and "if you have not seen a therapist, that would probably be good, because agoraphobia is really hard to work through on your own"... One, try to be somewhere where basic self-care functions are not going to be an agoraphobia trigger. Dorms were awful for me, because the bathroom and kitchen were Outside, and that meant that when the agoraphobia got bad, I couldn't keep myself or my space clean, which just made things worse. Both because of the shame of "oh god my space is filthy", because I was taking crappy care of myself physically, and because I couldn't socialize in my space because it was a den of filth. Two, try to have at least one space Outside that feels safe; somewhere that has people in it, but which is a pretty controlled, quiet environment, mostly full of familiar regulars. I highly recommend knitting groups, if you craft, because you can sit and stim without talking, and it tends to be quiet, with a small group of regulars, and avoid Aggressive Jerk Guys Flirting. Having one thing outside the house that you look forward to, and which doesn't cause you a lot of stress, helps a ton. It's okay to miss it - self-care is the most important thing - but there was a huge difference for me between "I literally do not socialize in person" and having one social outlet. Three, don't try to push it too hard. The time to go out is not when you're desperate or being forced to; it's when you have a lot of spoons, and you go "Okay, I could spend some of my spoons Working On Agoraphobia, today". The corollary is that if you're planning to go out, the best thing you can do to prepare is get a lot of sleep and have a good meal, and try to put yourself in the best frame of mind you can. Not being nervous isn't easy, but anything you can do to boost your spooncount helps.
Wow, thank you so much! That's incredibly helpful. I'm having so much trouble right now because the bathroom is down the hall, and it doesn't matter that it's pretty much my undisputed bathroom. It's not my hall. It can't be my hall. The stairs are right across from the bathroom door. I share a wall with the bathroom and I can't tell you how many times I've fantasized about knocking a crawl way into the bathroom closet. I'm ridiculously grateful it's not just me. I'm going to have to look into outside spaces where I feel comfortable and motivated to go. I'm not really much of one for crafts. I may have to be a little creative with this. Again, thank you so much.
