Probably more about me than anyone cares to know

[camdendayton]

It's long:


Three years ago I was a full time teacher in a low-performing, social-economically challenged school in LA. (Otherwise known as "ghetto.") I had purpose and pride in what I was doing, and an unending refrain of "it's not enough, you're not doing enough, you aren't saving these kids!" The other teachers, my family, and my friends, all reassured me I was doing all that I could, and much more than most would ever dream of doing. But it didn't stop those thoughts. It was my forth year teaching and I still felt like a fraud. There were still days when my students wouldn't listen to a thing I said, when I had trouble controlling the chaos in my classroom, when students cried and confided in me that they were being bullied and I didn't have a clue of how to really help them (ok that's not totally true, I'd send them to our school social worker who was awesome.)

When the refrain in my head wasn't crippling I'd get a burst of energy and stay up all night making lesson plans and other plans for my classes. THEN I wouldn't be able to sleep the next night, even though I knew I could no longer be productive as I was hardly thinking straight. I made calendars with pictures from the school website to share with my coworkers who were helpful and trying to make a difference (this was not all of them.) I watched endless Office reruns on Netflix and tried to sleep, but to no avail. After four nights of this, one in which my boyfriend stayed over at my studio apartment and I woke him up multiple times as I felt I would go crazy if I didn't have someone to talk to RIGHT THAT SECOND, one in which I stayed at my mom's apartment. She stayed up with me until I thought I was ready to sleep. The second she went to bed I was again wide awake. I tried to ride it out alone. I called Kaiser's help line and they told me if I was short of breath I needed to go to the hospital. I then felt short of breath so I woke my mom up to take me to the hospital. She told me I didn't need to go to the hospital and scolded me to be quiet so as not to wake my brother who had a grad school exam the next day. That's when I went in to full panic attack mode. She still refused to take me to the hospital (I can't help but mention here that I took her to the hospital during a panic attack where she was sure she was having a heart attack a week before I left for college, but I digress...) and I tried to use her phone to call 911 but was shaking so bad I didn't press the correct numbers on her BlackBerry. This led to us both in the hall screaming and me crying.

She eventually relented and drove me to the damn ER. The drive calmed me some. Somehow there was no wait at the ER and when I spoke to the doctor they diagnosed the panic attack and gave me a shot of something to calm me down and help me sleep and sent me on my way. I laid on my mom's couch the rest of the night and still didn't sleep.

The next day I saw a general practitioner (not exactly sure why) and my dad got into town so my brother and I picked him up from the airport. I had an appointment with my psychiatrist so we all went (as I didn't feel with it enough to fully explain what was going on.) I decided to check myself in to a mental health center (psych hospital.) It was so relaxing I almost didn't want to leave.

My boyfriend, who I had been with only a bit over a month at the time of my hospitalization (though I had known him for years before), inexplicably, at least to my warped brain, stayed by my side through this ordeal, and we recently celebrated our three year anniversary.

The school I was working at was getting worse and worse (we had a new principal that year and she had no control over the students.) Even older teachers who I looked up to and respected described, at staff meetings, situations where students were more disrespectful than they had ever encountered. I started calling in sick two - four times a week as my stomach was in a nearly constant uproar and I'd wake up early and not be able to even imagine spending the day in my classroom. I'd come back after these absences to find graffiti that said things such as "Fuck Ms. M____" which I'd clean or cover up and try to go about teaching. Near the end of the school year I took a leave of absence from my job. When I spoke to my principal to inform her of my leave she said she'd never seen so many teachers taking leaves during a school year.

At this same time my boyfriend's company wanted him to move to Northern California and give him a promotion. We knew this was coming and I had planned to move but not until I had a job and could get my own apartment. When it became clear I would not be able to return to my job (I was making little progress despite weekly therapy sessions and being under the care of a psychiatrist,) I took him up on his offer to move me with him and support me for six months so I could establish myself.

Now it's been two and a half years since our move. I've worked part-time as a tutor for nearly a year but I still haven't been able to contribute to rent. I have to constantly remind myself that he choose to have me move with him and that if I was too big of a burden he would send me packing, but I have tremendous guilt that I am "sponging" off him, living in a beautiful flat in SF, and that I don't deserve it and am just on the whole worthless. I haven't made many friends.

I know I need to let go of these feelings. I have accomplished a number of things in my life and I need to let myself feel pride. I have seen a psychologist for nearly a year and a half up here, and I'm trying to find a psychiatrist as well since my progress in therapy has plateaued.

My anxiety is still sky-high, but I have many things to be thankful for. I am thankful for the love and support of my boyfriend (though unsurprisingly things are not perfect on that front. I am thankful for my amazing brother, who now lives only an hour away, and his continued support. I am thankful for my friends, both near and far. I am thankful for my boyfriend's family who is very supportive of both of us.

[manuel_moe_g]

Hello camdendayton, welcome to the forum!

I can tell from your writing that you hold yourself to a very high standard. There are many who have done less than half of what you have achieved and accomplished, and they would feel twice as entitled and worthy as you do.

You are a good and worthy person - and you just happen to have the burden of a very high internal standard of conduct.

I am inadequate to give you advice. The only thing that struck me is that maybe instead of western treatment, you might benefit from a spiritual component to gain relief from your real suffering - maybe meditation, or yoga, or Buddhism, or something secular like secular Stoic or Epicurean philosophy.

You are a helper. Maybe your boundaries are not loving to yourself. You can help so much, and still have effective boundaries that protect and nourish yourself.

Please take care. We here are all cheering for your greatest today and tomorrow. I am so happy to think of you continuing to contribute your writing to this forum. All the best, cheers!

[RationalMuse]

Hello from a fellow teacher. I haven't taught in such difficult environments as you have described and have considered each and every year of my 14 years teaching if it is all too much and is going to eventually crack me. It sounds like you snagged a great boyfriend - I know my husband still married me despite the fact I spent the entire year before we got married in the deepest depression I had ever had and was unemployed and I am amazingly grateful every day. Don't question it too much, if you respect his intelligence then he was smart and insightful to see something special in you even when you can't.

I recently recognized that I have worked under a workplace bully for almost 10 years in one form or another. And that's the adults making your days unbearable not the kids. I don't know about your classroom but I can teach and work with the absolute most difficult students as long as I have back up from admin. The last 4 yr at my high school the admin was led by a narsistic, smarmy, unethical, blowhard and discipline declined exactly like you described. More of my colleagues went on sick leave, applied for jobs at other schools in our district or retired early than ever. One year 30 teachers left for one reason or another at a school that had the reputation of being the jewel of the crown in the district where teachers hoped to get a job and stay at until they retired. It was sad.

Could it be that missing the joy of running a classroom and not being with students is contributing to your anxiety? I know one of the reasons I chose not to go back to get my masters to get out of that school was that I would be away from the kids. They are what I am addicted to (In a totally legally appropriate way ) . Feed your soul, use you skill and passion to try to get back into a classroom - even part time BUT look for a school admin and a school that feels good. There is something totally different working with a group of kids than tutoring. It didn't sound like the kids per se was what escalated your totally justifiable and reasonable anxiety from being someplace where you weren't supported and backed up. Find somewhere you can teach something, anything to a group of kids, paid or unpaid - pretty please. Your skills in a classroom don't get a chance to be exposed very many other places.

[camdendayton]

RationalMuse and manuel moe, I really appreciate both of your thoughtful responses! Rational, I'm too tired to respond to both of you right now but Thanks, I'll get to it eventually! (deep breath while I try to silence that perfectionist voice in my head.)

manuel,

I hear you as far as not relying only on western medicine. My therapists actually is also a yoga instructor, so I hear it from her probably once a session. I've been hearing this for a year and a half, and while I recognize it's what I should do (or I guess I should say would most help) is get myself on a schedule, have exercise as part of the schedule (not just here and there which is my typical style,) include yoga and/or meditation groups. I've been told, I hear it, and I agree, but it still hasn't happened. *sigh* that's why I think that in spite of my reservations about going on meds again (side effects.)