Her class teachers see no problem with her. Her school counsellor said that she can’t sit for exams. Not that she doesn’t do revision and gets herself prepared, but she just gets so anxious, palpitating, hands trembling, sweating… as if she’s going to pass out.
Yet if she gets to sit for the exam alone in a room, she can do it.
Ok, so it isn’t exam phobia.
It could be agoraphobia (a fear of being somewhere where there is a chance of having a panic attack that others may witness, and not being able to get away rapidly) then? But she never really experiences panic attack in her 15 years of life. Though she is definitely going through some very severe anxiety and fears in any exam hall. She’s supposed to be the last batch of students taking PMR this year, she is now missing it.
She seems a bit shy when she talks to us. But she’s having eye-contacts with me as I explained things to her (probably better than how I was when I was at her age, despite being call as an extrovert I used to avoid eye-contacts) and her mother. During waiting time she stays outside of the clinic with her mother. I wonder if there’re some degrees of social phobia in there.
The mother said that she doesn’t really make friends. Her friends laughed at her weight and body size. Well, based on the standard nowadays, everyone thinks that they are fat, everyone is on a constant diet, everyone has to lose weight all their lives (ok, this is “a bit extreme”). I see no problem with her weight (but she’s in fact overweight), but I understand peer influences very much. Because of this she avoids making friends…
So there could be some peer pressure leading to social anxiety and social phobia. But what about her problem with exam? Why is it exam only? She survives just fine in class, and she survives just fine sitting for exam alone.
Sitting for exams with peers phobia, it is then. I think this could be under the parent of Agoraphobia, but I think in mental illnesses, we sometimes don’t have to fit people into any available categories, everyone has their problems and symptoms, which can be very unique to them.