Unfiltered Story #236320

(I suffer from Conversion Disorder, which causes physical symptoms of stress ranging from shaking my hands wildly to having me falling down for a brief paralysis. The symptoms are random and are sometimes set off by loud noises, and at this point one of my symptoms is that I am unable to walk and I am currently in a wheelchair. I’m sitting in my last class for the day and it’s a classmate’s birthday, so we are having a little party in the class which includes blown up balloons. I already know that one was going to get popped and I was going to be in for a very bad time despite already being in the wheelchair. Before I can make a comment to the teacher and the class about not popping one, the inevitable happens. The reaction is immediate, my eyes screw shut, my hands start shaking quickly and because I can’t see I can’t control where to move my hands so I don’t hit something which causes me to hit my desk and wheelchair very hard enough to bruise my fingers for days afterwards. The icing on the cake was when my shoulder would rise up my head would slam into it repeatedly. If you just happened to see me like that most would have thought I was having a seizure, but all I do is let out a sigh and say to my class in a loud voice.)

Me: “I was going to warn you that if you popped a balloon it would set me off, but I guess I don’t need to do that now. So I hope you are all happy now. I can’t see, I’ll possibly break my fingers since I can’t see and I might get a concussion with how hard I’m pounding my head on my shoulder. So now I’ll have to explain this to my mom when she comes to pick me up. Just great. Can I at least ask one of you to wheel me over somewhere so I don’t hurt myself even more?”

(I was wheeled to the front of the class and someone put a pillow or something between my shoulder and head so I would stop hurting myself and eventually I got my eyes to open only to look out amongst my classmates who were looking at me as if I was possessed or something. It was silent. I never explained myself and when I got some control of my hands, I told the teacher, I would be texting my sister to pick me a couple minutes before class got out. My sister came to get me and only gave a sigh when she saw the state I was in before wheeling me out of the class. When I went back to class the next day the student who popped the balloon apologised and after that the class was very careful with any noise they made to not set me off again.)