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Colonial Beach senior puts fears behind him Colonial Beach High senior class president overcame school phobia to become top student Date published: 6/10/2008
BY FRANK DELANO It's hard to imagine Patrick Ey being afraid of anything. At 6-1 and 320 pounds, he was a tackle, captain and the biggest player on the championship Drifter football team. At Colonial Beach High School, Patrick (his last name is pronounced "eye") liked "drama and standing up and looking silly in front of people." He is also president of his senior class and of his school's chapter of the National Honor Society. His grade point average is 3.8. Because of it, he'll get a scholarship from Christopher Newport University when he shows up for football practice in August. He wants to become a math teacher. By every measure, Patrick will be a winner when he walks out of school Sunday with his diploma in his hand. But his biggest triumph may have occurred at the beginning of his high-school career, when he overcame a persistent, dark and debilitating fear of school itself. "I'd like be in class when the panic attacks started. I'd get intolerable stomach pains and have to run to the bathroom. I couldn't catch my breath and I'd cry uncontrollably. I'd have to take a pill to help," he said. "The doctor never could figure out the cause of my anxiety," he said. "It was just something in my head that was messing with me. It's miserable when you're in that." He called it his "long ordeal." It started when he was a sixth-grader in suburban Maryland. His mother quit her job to teach him at home and take him to doctors. In 2002, they moved near relatives in Colonial Beach in hopes that Patrick, then 11, would do better at a smaller school. He didn't. "I tried seventh grade at Colonial Beach Elementary School, but for some reason I just couldn't do it. It was a fairly rough year. I got so I couldn't leave the house," he said.
Date published: 6/10/2008
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