Mrs Dalloway
2002-03-10 || 11:59 a.m.

I feel like I'm waiting for something to happen and I hate that.

I had a chronic panic attack on Friday, so bad I had to go home. Well at least I think it was a panic attack. After my science lesson was monitored on Thursday I went home and took the dog for a long walk. (I can't type today, I keep mixing all the letters up). I hadn't gone far when I got a really bad pain in my chest. I had to go home. It eased off that evening. When I woke up Friday morning I felt rough. I'd woken up in a panic at about 4.00am. My heart was beating really fast and I was very hot. I felt sick and dizzy when I got the bus to work. As the morning went on I felt worse and worse. On a Friday lunchtime we always go to the pub which is about 400 yards away. I couldn't walk there. I stopped after about 200 yards and said to Kylie that I couldn't go any further, I thought I was going to faint. She called Helen and Cathy back and they virtually carried me to the pub. I got in there and they got me a glass of water. I had to sit with my head between my legs. My heart was palpitating and I kept getting this 'rush' to my head. The last time I felt this bad was when I was pregnant and fainted at the dentists. That time I said to this guy next to me, "I think I'm going to faint, could you go and get me some help", the room was spinning and he scurried off. The dental hygenists rushed in but by then I had crawled out of the waiting room on my hands and knees and was attempting to open the front door when they found me. I just wanted air. I passed out and came round to find them tipping water over my face. I felt fine after that but the guy I had been sitting next to in the waiting room sat as far away from me as possible when I went back into the waiting room!

Other times I have fainted:

When I was 12 I had my second period. It was horrific. Really painful. It was the very end of the summer holidays and my mum and nan had taken me and my sister to Gravesend for a picnic by the river. I sat on this bench feeling worse and worse. Trouble was, I thought it was like that for everyone, it was years later I found out that it isn't. I didn't say anything at all. But when I tried to get up, my legs just wouldn't support me. My mum and nan grabbed hold of me and half carried me up back towards the town but I couldn't walk. I sank down onto the ground and at that point my nan opened her handbag and got out some smelling salts (!). If you've never had smelling salts thrust up your nostrils then you haven't lived. They are wild. A bit like (I would imagine) a shot of adreneline to the heart. I shot upwards. Walk? I could have run the 4 minute mile after that.

When I was 9 I was really ill. Don't know what was wrong with me but I was in bed for days. This one night I was really hot and I'd been having my usual nightmare. In fact, it was the last time I ever had it. From as early as I can remember I'd had this nightmare about being trapped in a fire. When I was really small my dad would always get up with me when I was really scared and unable to get back to sleep. I also had scars on my arms at my wrists that I was born with. Wierd. My mum always said that I was burnt as a witch in a previous life mainly because I used to 'see into the future' and know what people were thinking and answer their questions before they said them out loud. Used to freak them out apparently. I don't remember. Anyway, when I was 9 I had my usual nightmare and I woke up boiling hot. I remember falling out of bed and crawling across the bedroom floor, all I wanted to do was get to the bathroom because there was lino on the floor and I thought it would be cool. I made it there and I remember putting my cheek on the the cold lino and thinking how good it felt. I must have made a noise because my parents rushed in and carried me back to bed but on the way I fainted. I remember my mum still went to work the next day and left me on my own with a bottle of lucozade. I was reading 'The Little Grey Men' at the time, all of this is tied up with them looking for Cloudberry, sometimes I think I was actually with them, I was a bit out of it at the time I think.

I must have been quite ill because the 'Egg man' came in to visit me. Probably worried he might lose his grope if anything happened to me but that's another story.

So back to this past Friday. In the pub I felt so bad I said that I couldn't go back to school. Mainly I was worried I would faint in front of my class. Cathy took me to my parents and I laid down on the sofa all afternoon. Then I went home and went to bed. On Saturday I had said I'd take Rebecca and Eleanor to London but I couldn't face it, I still felt a bit dizzy. I went down the town and got my child allowance out and gave some to Rebecca and they went off and I got some shopping and went home.

I don't know if I've had some sort of strange bug or a panic attack. A few years back I was made redundant and it took me 18 months to find another job. Mainly because everytime I applied for a part-time job I would be told that I was 'over-qualified'. Education is fine if you want a profession but if you don't its actually counter-productive. Just because I took exams at school doesn't mean I can't work at bog standard ordinary jobs. I had no choice over the exams I took at school. I live in an area where we have selective education which means at the age of 11 you take a test called the 11-plus and if you pass you go to a Grammar School with the focus on academia and if you don't pass you don't. Well I passed and went to the local Girl's Grammar school. We all had to take 9 'o' levels at age 16 in English, English Lit, French, Maths, 2 sciences and then our own choice. What did I take? Well, Biology and Chemistry, History, RE and German. Then at 18 I took three 'A' levels in English, History and RE. The usual path after this is University but I didn't want to go to University and just as well because I got pregnant anyway. In fact I'd been pregnant 18 months before but miscarried. Basically, when I had Rebecca I needed a part-time job, however you cannot get part-time jobs that require qualifications and I missed out so many times because I would be told at interviews that I was over-qualified and I'd get bored. I think I applied to every supermarket going and not one of them would give me a job. It made me quite angry. At interviews I would get really bolshy and get up and leave saying I would just go and eat my 'A' level certificates then. I applied for a job in a chemist's and when I got there the guy interviewing me said that he had no intention of employing me but that he just wanted to see what I looked like as I was the only person who had filled anything out in the qualification section (!) great.

Well, when I was made redundant I went to an agency to get temp work. I took a typing test. Now, I'm a shit hot typist, I do everything at break neck speed anyway and my speeds are approx. 70 wpm on a typewriter and at least 100 wpm on a WP. The agency told me I'd failed their test even though I only needed a speed of 35 wpm. I'd made a big effort, I'd worn 'office' type clothes and everything. I remember walking home and I had a really bad panic attack then too. I couldn't breathe. I thought I was going to have an asthma attack even though I don't suffer from asthma but I do suffer chest problems, always have done.

I think I'd better stop now. This is turning into a Virginia Woolf 'stream of consciousness' type piece of writing.