Exam anxiety / phobia is real

So yeah this post probably won't help me, but maybe it will be somewhat useful for someone else. I wasn't sure whereabouts on the forum I should post it.

(possible triggers)

I suffer from exam phobia and have done for about twenty-five years. Throw in neurodivergence, trauma etc. to make things more complicated. 

There seems to be a hell of a lot of unhelpful misinformation about exam phobia / anxiety. The "solution" for it is usually just to "prepare more", for example. As if that will cure it. 
Have you ever heard of accomplished stage actors who may have been acting for decades, have won many awards, practically everyone considers them to be great actors.. then they develop severe stage fright and aren't able to go on stage. Hmm, maybe they should just "prepare more" lol. 

Obviously being prepared for an exam CAN help in some situations, but it's definitely not a silver bullet or anything. I go to driving instructors and they're surprised by my driving ability and knowledge of the rules of the road. They're surprised I don't already have a full driving licence (I don't live in the USA in case you're wondering). So I'm pretty prepared.. guess what, my exam phobia doesn't even let me show up for the test any more, I get severe mood swings and cancel the test days or weeks beforehand. Please don't try to encourage me to attempt that thing yet again. I even get intense flashbacks to when my issue with exams developed as a teenager, gee thanks brain! Lol

I've tried hypnosis. Feels good at the time, but doesn't work and even seems to ultimately make things worse. 

One thing I might try is yoga belly-breathing or whatever the correct term is. I have tried diaphragmatic breathing but I won't be doing that again as it may have caused me some chronic pain which thankfully went away eventually. 

I have to be wary of some techniques like visualisation as they might make me feel confident and even a little "high" in the short-term, but that crashes into a more severe and longer-lasting "low" mood, in my case.  

I'm not currently on any medication. I tried Prozac once and it didn't help and indeed, side effects were pretty bad. I've never tried ADHD meds but I don't have much faith in them helping with this issue. Also I've had bad experiences from talking about my problems to both professionals and non-professionals. I may well regret writing this, but hey, it could help someone maybe. 

Oh yeah, people often say things like, "everyone gets a little nervous around exams. In fact if you didn't have any anxiety, you might perform worse". Wrong! Or at least, from what I remember about the actual science, a little (repeat, little) anxiety might help a bit if the exam or performance involves a lot of physical activity and exertion. Otherwise, it doesn't help. I'd hate to think of someone worrying about the fact that they're not worried about an exam, because of this misinformation. 

Things which might actually help. Be very careful who you talk to about this problem as chances are you'll just be invalidated and accused of not "preparing enough" or something. Or people might say, oh that exam is really easy, don't worry about it. 

Try not to avoid or cancel an exam if possible, as this might train your amygdala (part of your brain that deals with fear, fight-or-flight responses etc.) that avoiding the exam is good and increase fear around the exam / exams in general. 

Don't be in a rush to do an exam and get it done quickly, if possible. There is a place for "preparing" lol, but try and do it in a relaxed environment. As for driving, if I could go back in time I'd start by watching helpful (not anxiety-inducing) instructional videos about driving, reading about how cars work and so on (where I live most cars are manual / stick transmission, although that might be changing with modern cars). Learn how to do observations in mirrors and all that! Then find a good, relaxed instructor (be very fussy about instructors, change immediately if they're not helpful and don't bother with a particular instructor if you get a bad vibe off them when you call them or whatever). Some instructors allow you to apply online for lessons - this can be a good sign perhaps.
Some say that if you can spend time in the place where the exam is held, when nothing is going on, that can train your amygdala to learn that the exam isn't something to get really afraid of and avoid. This makes sense if possible. Also in some cases you may be able to do the exam in a small room instead of a big exam hall, if you ask. 

Probably a long enough post already! Hope it helps. 

Hey,

Sorry to hear you're struggling with this. I have the same issue but to a lesser extent, I think. I end up dissociating during tests. Ironically, being less prepared is what allows me not to dissociate. Probably because it comes with a mindset of "it doesn't matter, I'll screw up now anyway."
It frustrates me too when people say "just prepare better" or "but you knew everything 5 minutes before!". It's literally not how to counter the anxiety. Your anxiety stems from needing to succeed and fearing you won't in spite of it all. It only feels worse to fail when you gave it your all. It's a shame so little people understand this.

I don't know what your trauma trigger is for this, but it surprises me that nobody has focused on helping you heal from that first. Nothing in the world is going to help you if you just trigger the amygdala thanks to unhealed trauma when push comes to shove.

I wonder if they can't just have someone drive with you normally and at one unexpected point they just "test" you without your knowledge.
It's a trick I've seen used before for dealing with these things. The only real way to deal with anxiety like this is to allow people to succeed after all.
They use this tactic with other phobias too.

I won't tell you to do the test again. I think that would be a bad idea. I do hope you find a way to heal and find someone willing to truly listen to you.

All best,

Grey

Triskelion wrote:Hey,

Sorry to hear you're struggling with this. I have the same issue but to a lesser extent, I think. I end up dissociating during tests. Ironically, being less prepared is what allows me not to dissociate. Probably because it comes with a mindset of "it doesn't matter, I'll screw up now anyway."
It frustrates me too when people say "just prepare better" or "but you knew everything 5 minutes before!". It's literally not how to counter the anxiety. Your anxiety stems from needing to succeed and fearing you won't in spite of it all. It only feels worse to fail when you gave it your all. It's a shame so little people understand this.

Hi,

By the way I typed a reply to your message but the site timed me out or whatever without my knowledge, so basically I lost it all lol. I know there are ways to prevent this from happening, but I didn't think of them at the time. It probably doesn't help that I access the site in a private window. My first reply was better I'm sure lol.

I've heard that exam phobia often stems from other people's reactions. For example, a kid in school is informed that he failed a test, but he doesn't mind until he comes home and his parents are angry with him about it. Or maybe he gets teased about it at school. With neurodivergence these things can be exacerbated as other people's reactions may come as more of a shock. Please don't anyone say "don't care what people think" as that expression is over-simplified to the point of absurdity in my opinion.

Triskelion wrote:I don't know what your trauma trigger is for this, but it surprises me that nobody has focused on helping you heal from that first. Nothing in the world is going to help you if you just trigger the amygdala thanks to unhealed trauma when push comes to shove.

I wonder if they can't just have someone drive with you normally and at one unexpected point they just "test" you without your knowledge.
It's a trick I've seen used before for dealing with these things. The only real way to deal with anxiety like this is to allow people to succeed after all.
They use this tactic with other phobias too.

I won't tell you to do the test again. I think that would be a bad idea. I do hope you find a way to heal and find someone willing to truly listen to you.

All best,

Grey

Probably only a small minority of people know what they're talking about on this subject, including "professionals".

I don't think the driving test people where I am have that level of thoughtfulness and compassion to provide such a service lol, but maybe it's possible. Even if they do I'm not sure my phobia would allow me to show up for that at the moment. I'd probably have to spend time at the test centre days and weeks beforehand. It doesn't help that test centres aren't exactly on my doorstep.

What else did I say in the lost post.. I can think of one or two things but maybe they're not that important. Stuff about how meds are probably either not strong enough to help me, or so strong that they might impair my ability to drive safely, and how money may quickly become an issue if I start consulting professionals again, plus my bad experiences with talking about issues like in the past etc.

In case I'm focusing too much on the driving test, to be clear my issues affect other kinds of tests too, but that hasn't been relevant for a while, plus with the driving test it tends to affect me in the most extreme way.

Thanks again Grey!

Thinking about this stuff, even in a constructive way, has triggered negative thoughts and feelings in me. It also made me crave things that are bad for me.

So basically I'm gonna cease to participate in this discussion. The main point was to warn people about these issues (don't end up like me), when there's so much misinformation, denial and invalidation out there. Exams are largely nonsense too, check out the Finnish education system (also the occasional enlightened school in other countries) for a better way.

Maybe I'll solve my own personal issues in this regard, maybe I won't, but talking or writing about the problem doesn't help me.

Mod note: moving this to Anxiety Disorder NOS but will leave a shadow link in LWMI

floatingtree wrote:By the way I typed a reply to your message but the site timed me out or whatever without my knowledge, so basically I lost it all lol.

A well known issue that affects us who craft long replies or do a lot of rewriting before posting.

Best way to prevent that is to tick the 'Log me on automatically each visit' box when you log in. Then when a post submission times out, most times you'll be returned an invalid form error and you can just hit 'submit' a second time and it will go through without an issue

Just be sure to log out after every session, if the privacy of your device is a concern.

Or alternatively, some people use a word processor or text editor to write very long posts, then copy/paste.