I'm a high schooler, so I guess I'm in a pretty different social
situation from a lot of you who are adults, but I have a kind of
similar story to add...about a month ago, when I had one of
my first panic attacks, it was in math class, and I asked the
teacher if I could go get a drink of water (just to get out of
there). So I left the room, and managed to find my two best
friends (who luckily had a free period then). They helped
calm me down and about 20 minutes later I decided I had to
go back to class, so I didn't get a cut for the class. As soon as
I came back in, a kid called out (just loud enough for the
whole class to hear), "Sheesh, leave some water for the fish!"
The rest of the class thought it was hilarious, but it made an
already hard thing a lot harder for me. I guess, like you've
already suggested, people like her just haven't had the
experience to understand something like this. I can see how
that comment would have been funny under some
circomstances, but if she had been through something like
this she would have noticed that I wasn't just going out to skip
class.
