Classroom Panic Attack

Quite recently I experienced a situation where I began to breathe rapidly, my heart started racing and my mind was overwhelmed with pressure. No I wasn't presenting in front of my class, no I wasn't in a small space and feeling claustrophobic, nor was I triggered by a smell, sound, or image to have a mini panic attack... I was simply telling a visiting public speaker for my class where I was from. His directions were clear:

"Tell me your name and where you are from."

For the majority of students in my class, that is a simple and easy sentence. Example: "My name is Sam and I am from Banff, Alberta." Clean, to the point and concise. WELLLLLL, I began to think, "Well, does he want to know where I am FROM FROM or from?", "If I tell him I am from China, he'll probably assume I am an International student and make a comment about how good my English is. It's 8:30 in the morning and I am really not feeling it," "Maybe I'll just say Toronto... but a couple of the same kids from my other class where I said I was from China will be confused," "CRAP IT'S ALMOST MY TURN," "KIRA, just choose, it's really not that hard, "AHH, THIS IS HARD," "EFFEFFEFFEFFEFFEFFEFF," "uhhhh, my name is Kira and I am from, uh, China and Toronto." *eff*

As I am forced to state 'where I am from every year, I find my ability to not freak out before speaking is still riddled with anxiety sometimes. I have no doubt that other adoptees from other countries feel this way. Of course we could say that we are from the town we were previously in [within our current country], our current town and mention nothing to do with our birth country - that's the no-questions-asked approach. Personally, even if I say Toronto (I lived there as a baby to the age of 10), people always ask me about my ethnicity, so might as well kill two birds with one stone right?

The problem is, what if that's like I am lying? Sometimes when I tell people I was born in China, but adopted as a baby, they seem to think they're entitled to say, "Oh, so then you aren't ACTUALLY Chinese." Really, you wouldn't believe what people say. Yes, I am very much so Chinese. Just because I wasn't raised by a Chinese family or raised with a traditional Chinese culture doesn't mean I am any less Chinese. I guess my own anxiety is intertwined with people's perception of me and my identity.

I am learning every day. I am learning to not care about others' image of me, I am learning to be satisfied with who I truly am, I am learning to hide happy secrets about myself so I am the only one who can smile about it, I am learning that it's really NOT A BIG DEAL what I choose to say and to not think so much about it. So those are the things I have taken away from this experience and will be working on. Yay for self improvement! I hope to help other adoptees relieve anxiety when talking about where they are from as well.