Interesting, my DD says she either never felt stress or else she doesn't know how to tell she's feeling stress. She doesn't know or can't verbalize what it is she is feeling when she freezes up with that look of sheer terror at the prospect of writing. Maybe it's dread/panic.
This is pretty common - I think - for folks who have 'social communication deficits.' When DS was small and I wanted to correct some social behavior, I would ask, "How would that make you feel if the other child did that to you?"
He's respond: "I wouldn't mind at all."
I never knew to what extend he was just being defensive or to what extent he was being truthful to the best of his ability. I knew from observation that at other moments he sure didn't like being the object of that behaior, so it made me wonder.
Much of my own knowledge of others come from my use of imagination to put myself in the other's shoes. If I had limited self-awareness, that stratagy wouldn't help me much.
My guess is that if you see the physical signals of stress, that her body is experiencing it, and that it is affecting her mind in some way, even if she isn't aware of it. I liked the explaination in Daniel Goleman's 1996 book
Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala_hijackTake a look and see if it's helpful.
As for the NaNo thing, it's in July, August, and November as far as I can tell. Perhaps someone else here knows more?
Love and More Love,
Grinity
