Dear Anita
The counselors at Stockton have been helping me cope with my stresses and I have appointments with them every two weeks, my next appointment is February 25th. I have decided to go part-time by dropping the meditation class so that I can focus on my two science classes- Genetics and Organic Chemistry. The meditation class was on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:30am-10:20am and since I have to drive an hour and a half to get to Stockton campus I had to wake at 5:45am to prepare and left at 6:30am and would arrive on campus at 7:45am where it would take a few minutes to go to class and prepare. Since I had to get up early I found myself quite tired throughout the week so I decided to withdraw from the meditation class. Since I had three classes on Wednesdays and got home late, I found it tiring to have a class so early the next morning. So withdrawing from the meditation class made me be able to sleep more and I could rest on Thursdays after having the most of my classes on Wednesdays. I also could spend time on Tuesdays before my Organic Chemistry lab class started at 2:25pm to study and prepare for lab and just focus on that rather than having to go to a meditation class early in the morning. I am thinking of establishing a meditation routine of my own to help deal with the anxiety I’ve been feeling lately and the class helped set a background and even though I withdrew from it, I still learned some useful tips. I am also part of Student Success Services and have a mentor who helps me plan ways to dedicate my time and study effectively and it’s helpful. My gender dysphoria has been getting more intense lately and it’s difficult to focus on things and I find myself always feeling anxious about myself. I feel shaky, my throat hurts and my heart races most of the time and I am always wondering if I look masculine enough and whether people will say anything to me that might make me feel dysphoric and it’s been quite straining lately that sometimes I feel like I want to just fall asleep and not wake up since I’m anxious a lot. Since my parents are paying for my college tuition, they will yell at me when I feel stressed because they are disappointed at me and think I’m not regulating my emotions well enough or that I have nothing to be stressed about and they say that maybe I’m just not smart enough to pursue science and that gives me more stress. Sometimes when I cry, my parents will yell at me and say that I don’t need to cry and that crying is a waste of time even though I find that after crying I feel better because not crying and hiding the feelings inside sometimes makes me feel detached from myself and I can feel the emotions pricking me like thorns and then I become detached and feel like I’m not living. I have found myself crying a lot lately because the anxiety is quite intense and I always feel like I’m unsafe like there is someone who will hurt or criticize me because I try to be myself. Sometimes I worry that I am not good enough when I get lost in gender dysphoria because others seem to be able to focus on their studies. I do tend to understand some things that the professor says in Genetics and Organic Chemistry but sometimes  I find myself fighting to keep my anxiety from bubbling up because little things like not understanding a problem fully will trigger it. I wish my professor went slower in class for genetics because I find that I have just started to work out the problem for fifteen minutes and he will go over it quite quickly and then move on. My Organic Chemistry professor explains things quite thoroughly and saves time to help students understand things, she also gives students time to think about the problems and will take time to explain in more detail if students don’t understand. My genetics professor if you ask him a question he answers it briefly and then moves on and sometimes I feel like I haven’t fully grasped the concepts yet and when I ask him again in a different way, he will re-explain it more briefly than before and will crack a joke saying why the student didn’t fully understand before and ask if they were fully paying attention which is why I sometimes feel intimidated to ask questions to my genetics professor because it makes me feel more anxious when he explains it briefly and expects students to understand it after a while. I am grateful that my Organic Chemistry professor goes slower and gives students problems to try and explains how things relate to each other much better. The genetics lab fruit fly lab report is due on March 6th and I am still working on understanding the fruit fly data because the professor didn’t really explain much about data interpretation, he just gave example problems of fruit flies and said that students could include relevant data and only gave a rubric for the lab report without really explaining much. My organic Chemistry lab professor explains the lab experiments quite clearly and also helps students understand what tools they need to use. He helps students understand how to analyze the data and gives them good advice on how to work on the lab report and since he explains things quite well I find that I understand Organic Chemistry lab much better. Currently though because of intense gender dysphoria, I have been missing some Organic Chemistry lab assignments (four lab reports because I have been struggling with focusing). Likewise my parents have been having loud discussions when I try to study and work at home about financial things or the car that I have which needs a few repairs and I find it distracting. I find that I set a time to work on my lab report for Organic Chemistry because there is a lab report due for each lab experiment and my parents will move things around (sometimes they are my stuff that I placed there because I decided that would be a good place to put it so I can find it when I need it but they move it around and it causes me stress) or my parents will be talking with their family members on the phone and the conversations are a bit loud and distracting or I have to use the computer and I planned my schedule to work on the assignments at this time and my parents are fixing something and the noise distteacts me or they are trying to rearrange things that I specifically placed in a way that works for me in another way and I find it irritating. This is why I tend to do most of my studying on campus in the library where it is quiet and I won’t be disturbed but there are some assignments I need to bring home as well. I find that when I am preparing for a presentation and will read the material aloud to prepare for it, that it helps me work on it but there aren’t many places where I can work on practicing a presentation where I won’t be disturbed. I was thinking of perhaps printing out the presentation slides and going to my bedroom and doing it that way. If you have any advice on places to prepare for a presentation without getting distracted or ways to work on presenting I am looking forward to hearing them. Lately I feel like the gender dysphoria is quite intense and I sometimes feel like it would be better to withdraw from my classes and retake them in the fall 2020 semester but I like learning about science and being on campus gives me access to resources like the counselors. I do feel like I am strained but I think that if I withdraw from my classes, then I won’t have counseling because counseling is only available to enrolled lstudents. Although I withdrew from meditation class and am part-time taking Genetics and Organic Chemistry still takes lots of work. I enjoy science because I like to analyze and understand the world around me and the nature around the campus is relaxing. Part of me wants to withdraw from all my classes and take a break, part of me wants to enjoy learning and having access to the mental health resources provided to students so I’m hoping for advice. So far, I have taken two quizzes in Organic Chemistry and received a 71 and a 76 on them. I received a 67.75 on my Genetics exam which isn’t great. The semester has been a rough start and the car that I drive to campus with often needs tune-ups and repairs so that takes some time. I have a Organic Chemistry lab 5 Prelab due Tuesday, Ch. 7 questions for Genetics due Sunday, Organic Chemistry exam February 27th and a fruit fly lab report due March 4th. I hope that I can make it through the semester if I decide to stay since I will have access to mental health resources even though part of me wants to withdraw. I’m not sure how my Organic Chemistry lab will turn out because I’ve already missed four lab assignments but there are still five to go. Thank you for being here and listening, blessings to you Anita.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by Janus.