Teacher insecurities- on the other side

I know the following pictures are not all up right. If you didn't know this, teachers have a file they keep encouraging notes and cards and pictures and drawings and other items. As you can see from the previous post, teaching is a damn hard job and it can wear on a person. So, we have these folders to look at when we are feeling beat up and low. They give us that grit back and let us know that no matter what the scores are or how bad the lessons go or how many more requirements are added by the state or any of the other things we can't control, we still teach people and they need us. These letters and cards say so much. Some of them are recent but some are over 15 yrs old. Yeah. You never know, huh? 

The insecurities of a teacher.

I've been thinking a lot about my career lately. Things have changed so much and the past 20 - 22years years. I have some hard memories of being a new teacher. Straight up, I was not a very good teacher when I started. I was bumbling through and I really was flying by the seat of my pants. I listened to a great mentor and tried so hard to become one of those teachers that makes a difference. You know? But it was hard. Teaching is a hard and unforgiving profession. We work with kids and those kids are impressionable and what we say and what we do, and how we respond can make the difference between building a kid up or tearing them down. Between repairing their heart and mind and ripping them open to bleed out their sense of self. A teacher truly can make or break a kid. Looking back, I can't help but to feel like I have left some scars on some kids that have affected them the rest of their lives. It's hard to carry that sort of reality.

I look back and think about all of the stuff I did and said and some of the choices I made that just make me think. . . man, was I green and over my head! I have grown so much since those first years. I struggled and held on and suffered through while others didn't make it.  And when I look back at all those memories, some hit my mind and heart hard. 

I have very strong memories of some of the kids that I've talked to. And if that happened to me today, I think about how differently I would react to it. 

I remember a day where a kid was sitting in my class. I had just finished cleaning the desks with a bleach cleaner. They were actually having difficulty with the smell and I should have known they were having an allergic reaction. How did I not know? I had no idea about such things. The day I had a kid go into a grand mal seizure. I remember my mind locking up and I was paralyzed not knowing what to do. There was the day where a student told me that their mom and been diagnosed with cancer and I think I was the only one that they chose to tell. I remember sitting after class with them just that student and me alone as they revealed this thing that must have been consuming their every thought every second of the day. And I remember saying a bunch of things that I don't think really made a difference at all.  I don't think I did a very good job comforting them or helping them through that horrible time in their lives. All that would go through my mind is how young they were for this to happen and that I knew the change in their lives and scars they would have would be with them forever. I remember a student tell me how they had a really bad experience with their relationship how they were cheated on. They were crying and I just didn't know what to say. I didn't know how to help them. And today I'm thinking, man, I could have said something so much better than what I did. I had a kid who told me about having a first experience with drugs, acid, and how they were in so much trouble with their parents. They were crying and had to talk about it and had to tell someone about their fears of being unloved and unwanted and being cast aside. I was that person and I tried to let them know how scared they must have made their parents and that all the punishments and restrictions were because they loved them soooooooo much that they had to keep them closer in order to protect them. I remember thinking how hollow that sounded and how I don't think I said it right or with the right words or the right meaning. The day I reported two kids that I suspected were cutting themselves and the look they gave me as they left school with a resource officer. I will never forget the look of pain and anger. I remember how I was left a letter of how mad a kid was with me that when they asked me if they would make a good nurse or radiologist or some other scientist, I deeply hurt their feelings by saying that they may struggle with science. In the letter I could feel the discouragement and how I felt like I was meaning well by letting them know that it will be hard work and that they felt I was saying that they couldn't do it. They were so scathing and mad that to this day I feel guilty about the possibility that I might be the sole reason if they chose not to pursue a career in the medical field. To this day I hope they pursued it with grit and passion despite me and my foolish choice of words. 

The list can go one for pages and pages. There are 22 years worth of stories like that over thousands of kids that have walked through my classes. 

All those memories. 

All those kids that I remember trying to do the right thing for. 

All those kids I tried to encourage or speak powerful words to. 

All the times I felt that I just stumbled through not knowing what the hell I was doing. 

I have been really being introspective a lot lately and it seems like I just don't know if I am doing these kids right. I don't feel like I say the right things or respond the right way. I feel like I am stumbling words and making it all worse. I see the pain in some of their eyes and I know some are seeking attention because they crave someone that will just prove to them that they are not invisible. But am I doing it in a way that is not enabling them? Am I setting a good example? Am I showing them what it is like to be tough loved or what real compassion looks like, or how someone can discipline you without it being personal or to be nice and not want anything in return, or to spend time with no strings attached or . . . or  . . . .or . . . .  I don't even know what I am saying really. Working with people...... kids........... is so impossible and difficult. Who is to say anything is right or wrong or helpful or destructive? 

I have been feeling a bit beaten down lately with family and how my profession is being attacked. People are playing the blame game and teachers are being asked to do more than humanly possible or mathematically possible. They measure how good we are with a moving target and with measuring tools that change every year. There is money being siphoned off to private interests in vouchers and charters and private schools where the money to be made in these ventures is insane. But of course, they could just use less money and just upgrade a current school to do the same thing. But who would line their pockets then? Then there are the parents who ask so much of us when there is not much at home. And the responsibilities of trying to notice if they are being harmed or harming themselves or harming others and the paperwork that goes along with it and the consequences if we don't notice or if we might have noticed but didn't or....... or.... or..... You can understand why teachers are leaving in droves. And then there is the support staff that is even worse off than the actual teachers..... and how they are leaving the system in more than droves. It is a tidal wave exodus.

Then there is our private lives and the ones I love are struggling. It has been a hard year or more. We are teachers but we are people with families and relationships outside of school too. I am struggling with wondering if I am balancing it all and not short-timing either of my boys or my wife and I have not reached out to my good friends to keep those connections. My anxiety is up and I just struggle with whether or not I am making a difference to any of it. I sit at night exhausted and tired and wondering if I did enough or accomplished enough or said enough or spent enough time. 

Isn't that the way of it though? I bet a lot who would read this would honestly say that they struggle with believing they are making any headway either. It is normal they would say and it is not life if we didn't have these stresses. I don't know about that but I know what it is like for me. I would like to believe that I am one of those who has more than the average grit than another but here I am questioning everything and wondering if it is enough. Even I have limits I guess. 

Tomorrow will come whether I want it to or not and I will be facing it again with the same grit I have for so many days and years before. Doubts are part of the whole experience even for those who seem to always have it together. The best I can do is the best I can do. Insert Cleche cleche cleche. In the end though, what else can I really do but to just keep going? It seems like from the above that the world is coming to an end but all that is just a funk I am in. There are truly a lot of good and great things happening too. I am just in a mood where I am blind to them right now. It is ok. I will be fine. You will be fine. We all will fine. 

Because tomorrow is coming whether I want it to or not and I will get up face it just like always. 

How did I do it? Mental Illness SUCKS!

 How did I do it? How did I learn to manage and de-escalate anxiety? How did I learn to trade feelings of worthlessness, loneliness, and other feelings of depression for happiness and contentment? How did I do it?

I remember so clearly those feelings back when I was in school. I remember the fear I felt and the thoughts of being judged. I remember how I felt crowded all the time and that I didn't want to be around others that much. I remember how I wanted to just run. Run out of the building and away from it all. I also remember how I wanted to be looked at by others and for them to smile at me. But instead, I knew that sneers and insults were waiting for me. That was my reality at that time. 

I remember not fitting in. I was not like my peers and that was painfully evident when I took a chance and actually voiced my feelings. My interests and skills and thoughts of relationships were so unlike the others. They were so foreign and weird to the social mindset at the time. So I never really talked much or about much or engaged much. 

I was an enigma it seemed. 

Depression came after where I was self-aware of this chasm of differences and it created such a sense of sadness. A sense of being profoundly alone. This caused me to shy away from people, to go off on my own, and isolate myself in behaviors like hiking in forests and building things in my grandpa's shop. But those things in turn ended up magnifying my differences. My anxiety. My mental struggle. I kept searching for that essence of myself and developing who I was and how I looked at the world. And the more I found deep within, the more I distanced myself from my peers. It was more often than not that I ended up being alone in a room full of people. I was physically there but I was not there. I was unnoticed. I was ignored, I was looked over.

And I truly didn't mind.

But then, I did mind too. 

What a weird sense of reality. 

I never wanted to hurt myself or anything like that. No. I cared about myself too much for that. The depression, though, ended up being like a warm blanket. People can let it be that way, you know? It can be so comfortable and you tell yourself you need to leave but you are snug and warm and wrapped tight. It becomes easier to just leave it on. Familiar. Routine. You know?

Well, I am still that way at times. It is nowhere near where it used to be when I was a teen and a young 20yr old. Far from it. I have actually found my place in the world, my niche, and I thought that would never happen. Then I found my love of a lifetime and I also thought that would never happen either. As I grew older and experience more of the world around me, I found that my differences actually made a difference. They actually made a difference to others and I never thought that would happen. 

But for the life of me, I can't remember or know how I did it. How all those things came about. 

I still struggle though but I have these things now that I do to help myself. I draw and explore and build and tinker and read and enjoy nature and lots of other things. That is what I do now. How did I learn what helped me? How did I learn that those things pushed back the anxiety, the fear, the loneliness, and the sadness before it consumed all my thoughts and feelings? That is the million-dollar question.

I am finding it is a state of mind really. Like, you have to decide to change the way you think about yourself and the world around you. It seems so simple, right? Well, no. No, it's not. It's actually hell and near impossible for your brain to do. It is not that simple. Your brain is an adversary that is in complete domination over you. And when it gets comfortable, when it gets used to the routine, it sets up house. 

Telling your mind to feel and think differently is like making a river flow in a different path. That will only happen one of two ways; Either the world is shook to its foundations and the whole earth rearranges itself or it changes paths one grain of sand by one painstakingly minuscule grain of sand moving only an inch at a time over decades. . . . centuries. Either way, it is not easy and in real life, your brain and feelings are the same way. It is usually painful. 

So, I am back at my original question. How did I do it?  How did I learn to manage and de-escalate anxiety? How did I learn to trade feelings of worthlessness, loneliness, and other feelings of depression for happiness and contentment? How did I do it? 

God, I wish I knew. Because if I did, I might be able to help my son navigate this same thing because lately. . . .  lately I feel like I am only drawing short straws. 

"You just want to get rid of me!"

 "You just want to get rid of me!"

    He says this and I can see the anger and betrayal in his eyes. There is so much pain that I truly believe that I might see tears of blood soon. But I have to stay firm. I have to see if I can get him to understand. 

So this is what I said - 

    Son, that is not even close to what I mean. I don't even know how to explain it to you because it has to do with being parents and how parents feel. Honestly, I really don't know if you can truly know what I am talking about since you are not a parent and have no frame of reference or have experienced the feelings that your mom and I have felt or are feeling right now. 

    Your mom and I wanted to be parents before we were even married. Before we even had met. It was one of the things that we talked about and planned for when we did get married. I wanted to be a dad and it was very important that the person I decided to marry wanted to be a mom. That was one of the reasons I married her. We talked about having kids and when we wanted them to come along and how many. We wanted two kids. You see? You are very important to us and we were very deliberate in our need and purpose to create you. 

    Deciding to have kids is not just to create a human being that we just want to cast off someday. What would be the point of having kids if it was only for the sole purpose of "getting rid of them? " We would not have had you if that was the way we felt. 

    You see, son, your mom and I love each other so much that we wanted to create you and your brother to have the chance to spread our love to more people. We love each other so much that we wanted to have two children that we could raise and nurture to go out into the world to find their perfect person to love just the way we love each other. 

    You get it? It's not about "getting rid of you." It's about creating people that will increase the love in the world. We love each other and we want you to keep that love going by blessing another with it and then have children that you will create and raise to keep the love going to other people and so on. That is the purpose for us. We wanted children to love and raise to love others and have children to love to raise and to have children and so on. 

    I believe this is why God created Eve. He wanted Adam to spread his love to more people and to have kids to carry on that love to more and more people. And that is why we are not "getting rid of you." And I feel like I am doing a horrible job explaining because there is no way you can understand if you are not a parent. But trust me son, when and if you decide on being a parent yourself, I hope you look back at what I am saying right now and realize that I am only urging you to be independent for a reason that is important to us as parents. 

Being humbled by life is hard

 I am going to step away from Facebook for a while. You may have seen or noticed that my posts are showing more and more frequent times of stress that are chipping away at me.

I have been pulling bucket after bucket from my emotional well and the well does not fill back up. I then kept scraping the bottom until, in desperation, I lowered myself in the bucket to get the last drop I could squeeze from the earthen floor. And when I pulled on the rope, it snapped to trap me in the bottom looking up at a small circle of light above.

I am trapped. The way out of this well looks so far and so impossible. My heart rebels and denies my mind for believing it's impossible, but the heart has had a toll taken on it.

My heart quickly gives up fighting it.

And I sit on the damp and drying floor offering my tears to replenish what I had taken. It is in vain though for I know against my denial that this well has run dry. So, I sit, not looking up, while I cry for what I know is true. My well is truly empty.

It's unbelievable that I feel this way. No way can I have fallen to this place, a place so unlike what you know of me.

I have though.

And you know what? I am going to stay here awhile because I WANT to stay. I want to be this way. I DESERVE to feel this way. I want to wallow in it and wear it like a warm winters coat. I have switched from putting out an altruistic personality to weeks of hiding behind a fake personality that puts on a show so that I can ignore what is really eating away at me.

I am worn out emotionally and the hits are still coming. .... Will still be thrown at me. And they will keep coming for who knows how long.

So, I am stepping back and withdrawing myself to just my home....... My family....... And my work. Because I want to and I need to and I owe no one any story or explanation other than this......

I will be back. I will be better and my old self again. It is in my personality and inevitable. I don't know how long but I will make this promise to those who care.. .... I will be back and back to myself.

If you comment, I won't see them. I won't get notified. I won't think about it.

Until then, take care of yourselves while I am taking care of me and mine.

You know, this moment was written before I could have ever imagined. I didn't realize it when we were sitting in the meeting for special education. I didn't realize it when we gave in to ADHD medicine. Then there was the day I was asked to step out at the family doctor's office to be told in another room that he was severely depressed but not suicidal.

But I knew deep down and I was in denial. Or I was managing. Or I was trying to just fix it.

Then there was the therapist and counseling. Which ended up with a psychiatrist and medicine for anxiety. And the failed attempt at his first job with incompetent managers.

The attempted suicide.

I sat on the floor tucked in the corner of the dark sparse hospital room with him ranting as if he was another person or a person with too many demons to hold inside anymore. The next morning they took him away in hand and ankle cuffs since he was a risk for injuring himself...... They chained him up . . . To see him like that...... To hold close in my mind, my heart, that I was the one who made that call......

The guilt......

To see him taken away in chains broke my insides in ways I never could have imagined.

And then college with COVID-19 was ok but another layer of stress..... Another layer of medicines. And then the school year after that and this is where I break.

The fights and yelling and resistance by him with him fighting his fears and anxiety and me coming at them from the flank. But his walls, they would not fall! How can I not make a difference? Why is it not working!? Why am I failing! God! This is hard!

Three days of the start of the second year of college, after three days of mental health episodes of hysteria and ranting and out of control raving mad yelling from fear and unknown things that only he can feel and see and experience in his head......

I finally realized... I was empty. And I didn't want to be me anymore and I didn't want to bear the burden anymore. And I was running dry on mental fortitude myself.

So what do you do when everything else has been done? You have to humble yourself even more and get even more help. . . . More intense and more intervention. It was time maybe for him to be taken to a facility...

But I don't know..... God, it is hard being a parent.

And this is a good place to end this one.