My Story

I apologize that it's so long, I wrote this a while ago as like, a blog.

Summer of my sophomore year I went to a month-long sleep-away camp at a nearby college in order to experience what life in college was like.

I was fine for the first few weeks. I'm a shy and socially deficient person and as such, I had only made only one friend - a boy named John who I met while waiting in line for dinner one night and I ended up becoming very close to him, spending most of my time clinging to the only sense of comfort I had from being away from home. Naturally none of the girls payed much attention to me; I was some weird tomboy chick who occasionally put on too much make up because she didn't know how to use it. Not to mention it was an art camp - I couldn't draw for the life of me, I'm a writer and the other girls didn't see that.

I had been to sleep-away camps as a child, but those were only a week long, and at least one of those times for each I either went home sick or begged my mom to let me come home. I was living with my father when I went away to the camp, and after a few weeks when I started feeling sick and wanted to go my home, I called my father and he told me, 'No, you need to stay. It's a good experience for you. You can't just keep faking sick to get out of your problems.'

So I stayed. I spent a lot of my time in my bed when we weren't doing camp activities, I sat in the corner of my 'classes' whenever I didn't have class with John (and out of six classes, I only had three with him). I began 'retreating into my shell' so to speak. I rarely spoke to other classmates, and my counselors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me.

It got worse.

In the middle week of the month, my counselor announced to my group (each counselor had about ten-twelve kids in their group) that our camp would be taking a trip to New York to see The Lion King on Broadway.

I thought 'No f*ckin' way in HELL am I going to New f*ckin' York, you let me go home NOW. I will NOT be dragged THAT far away from my home, an hour and forty-five minutes is PLENTY'.

But no, my dad said, again, 'I'm sure you'll have fun. You love Broadway musicals. It'll be a great experience for you. You're going, end of story.'

So on the designated day, along with my group and the rest of the girls on my floor, we were boarded onto one of the buses taking us to New York (one bus for girls, one for boys). I was separated from John even though I INSISTED I wanted to be with him. Instead, I spent the bus ride texting him on my cell phone and freaking the f*ck out.

When we got to New York, I panicked the f*ck out even more. Instead of hanging out with my group like I was supposed to, they assigned one of the counselors to me who kept me separate from everyone because I kept telling her I didn't feel well and I wanted to go home. She wandered around the city with me alone for a while until it was time to see the show. I kept telling her, 'I want to see John. Where's John? Don't make me sit with my group, let me be with him, I'm really scared.'

When we got to the theatre, Alex's group was already there and Alex brought me right over to John who pulled me close and told me that I was safe and that he wasn't going to let anything happen to me. I wasn't convinced and continued shaking and clinging desperately to him. The show started and I began to get partially wrapped into the show - it was amazing, I have to admit. I love Broadway, but I can't stand traveling to New York to see shows.

I spent the rest of the month with John every moment that I could, and we told everyone that we were dating. We ran around arm in arm singing Avenue Q's It Sucks To Be Me at the top of our lungs when we were walking to classes. We sang together in choir, and talked about anime and things that most people back in our hometowns (which were about half an hour apart) thought were stupid and childish.

But when it was time to go back home...everything changed. The moment I got home I never wanted to leave my house again no matter what anyone said. When school began in September I told my mom every morning that I didn't feel well and couldn't go to school. I went to school about six days out of fourteen before the school decided there was a problem, because even on the few days I had attended I wasn't even focusing in my sp.ed class. They decided that the best option was to transfer me to a temp. school - a diagnostic center for misbehaved children whose job was to keep the children there until they could solve the problem and send them back to their original schools once they were 'behaving better'.

I was told that I would only be going there for six weeks at most. Six weeks...turned into a year and a half of hell. All of my junior year and the first quarter of my senior year were spent in that crazy school, where I had a counselor who had permission to come to my house and drag my a** to school, and if I didn't go to class because I claimed to not be feeling well, she gave me detention and kept me at school for as long as I hadn't gone to class. It took until third quarter of junior year for me to start attending classes regularly, and by fourth quarter Cindy, my counselor, agreed that I was beginning to be well enough to attend my high school part time; I would attend the diagnostic center from 9:00AM-10:30AM and the high school from 10:45AM-2:15PM when school ended (school began at 7:45AM at the high school, but 9:00AM at the diagnostic center).

My first days back were weird - kids I had been in school with for years would be watching me get off the van and giving me weird looks or ask me, 'What nuthouse did you just crawl out of?' It was rough for the rest of junior year, but I managed to pass the few classes that I had been given (English being the only one I remember not taking at the diagnostic center) and passed to my senior year.

Senior year was rough because...it was supposed to be my last year of high school. But because of my time spent at the diagnostic center I was far behind my classmates when it came to my credits. The diagnostic center began classes earlier than the high school and on the first day Cindy told me that I would continuing what I had done last quarter of junior year - part time at both schools. If I proved that I could do it, I could go back full-time for the last three quarters.

The end of first quarter of senior year came and Cindy told me that I was finally ready to go back to the high school full-time. I was thrilled. No more time spent in that crazy school. I finished senior year missing the one credit I needed to graduate and was held back for another semester. I would be a half-day student at the high school and be allowed to go home in the afternoon. I met my boyfriend shortly after and we began dating.

I'm not afraid to be out of my house now, but I am afraid of being more than fifteen minutes away from home. My home is my safehouse. I don't like going far away and I freak out if I have to leave the state for any reason. =\ I always have to have cough drops and tums on me because I still get nauseous when I start panicking.

Hello Shawna,

I just wanted to let you know that even though I don't have any words of advice, I read this post about your experiences... I'm sorry to hear that you are still having a problem with going too far away from your house. I think you were brave to talk about your experiences here. I have a problem with going too far from my house too, into unfamiliar places. I hope this gets better as I am learning more about my past and working on my DID.

Do you have anyone to help you work through this fear of going too far away from your house? It might be something you can get some help with?