A Threshold Crossed

I have no idea how to start this post.

I quit. I quit teaching. The decision to do so is something I have struggled with for months. Considering I barely taught this school year because I had to go on mental health leave twice, I’m sure this decision isn’t surprising to many people.

I know this is the right choice. I am happier and healthier than I have ever been with my mental health as the focus of my life. The physical, mental, and emotional demands of teaching have grown beyond my coping skills at this point, and I accept that.

None of this changes the fact that I am heartbroken over the end of my teaching career.

I love teaching. I love the intellectual challenge of breaking down complex concepts to help others learn. I love facilitating adolescents in developing critical thinking skills through inspiring them to fight for themselves and their community. I love helping adolescents develop socioemotional skills through modeling values-based community building. I love providing adolescents the space and autonomy to explore their curiosities and apply their interests.

I also love working with kids! I love having a work environment where no one takes anything too seriously because let’s be real, it’s middle school. Everyone is out of their mind on hormones anyway. I love making up secret handshakes with students, and seeing them make a beeline to me in the hall, at the same time between CCA and first hour, every day. I love recruiting the kids to help me play pranks on my coworkers. I love calling kids out when they’re flirting in class, rather than paying attention. I love making stupid history puns using lyrics from Lizzo songs, receiving love notes and artwork from my students, and taxing the students by making them share parts of their snacks in return for the privilege to eat in my classroom.

One time, one of my students thought he was hilarious and dropped my purple, glitter unicorn tape dispenser out of my second-story window. I noticed it was missing, assumed student involvement, and used my entire prep time to make copies of MISSING posters for my unicorn. I plastered the posters all over my school and classroom. I sent out pictures of the poster to my coworkers (many of whom displayed them on their “bell work” slides all day). I handed out flyers during passing time.

Missing poster for my unicorn tape dispenser

(Eventually a student found the unicorn on the lawn outside and we got to spread the joyous news before the school day ended).

One day, I decided the floor of my classroom was lava. I taught the entire school day without touching the floor of my classroom once (and invited my students to play too if they wanted).

I would always play music during independent work time. I would get so much joy out of watching kids, usually so consumed with being “cool,” dance goofily in their seats while they did their work.

I loved stuff like this, and so did the kids. It feels amazing to work in an environment that allows space for fun. It feels incredible to engage a kid in deep, rigorous coursework by showing them you have a sense of humor too. And I realize that any environment I work in with my peers will be desperately void of these things that made teaching so exhilarating.

I have so many feelings about this transition.

I will miss teaching. I wrapped much of my identity up in being a “teacher,” I will need time to grieve this loss.

I also am completely terrified about what’s next. Mostly because I don’t really know what’s next.

I know building a writing career is central to my focus for my future.

I know I’ve already dedicated my life to antiracism.

I know that mental health needs to be central to my focus for the rest of my life.

I also know I have a partner, 3 fur babies, a mortgage, a small chunk of student debt, and an unfortunate penchant for minor, clumsy, injuries.

At this point the “plan” is to stay grateful, stay open-minded, stay inspired, and stay true to my vision.

And I’ll keep working my ass off to take care of the rest.

I’ve Always Been a Pain in Someone’s Ass

Something that I will always be able to admit to is that I’m a brat. I’ve never not been a brat, I always will be a brat, it’s kind of just part of who I am. I’m sincerely just a pouty mermaid at heart. At this point in my life, I am able to honor and accept my flaws.

I got a lot of grief growing up about being a brat. It’s understandable. Without any knowledge of how to set or honor boundaries, without socio-emotional education around how to compromise, express my emotions appropriately, and be diplomatic, of course my brattiness was a burden.

I’ve always been a pain in someone’s ass.

But here’s the thing, my brain is not “normal.” I have ADHD, anxiety, and depression. All of which manifests in my personality and made me behave in my youth “differently” than you would expect from a “normal child.”

I will never forget how scarily relatable it was in The Joker, 2019, when I watched Joaquin Phoenix write down, “The worst thing about having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don’t.”

The way my brain is wired made me behave in ways dominant society deems inappropriate or negative in little girls. For example, my anxiety makes it difficult for me to cope with extreme sensory experiences; bright lights, repetitive noises, tight clothing, strong smells, etc. Therefore, the fluorescent lights at school gave me severe headaches all through elementary and middle school before I had the power to dose myself with ibuprofen. My headaches made me cranky and I would often be short with people when I would respond to things, leading to being labeled with an “attitude problem” or as a “bitch.” All I desperately needed was alone time in a quiet darkened room, but I had no ability or knowledge to help me express that.

The most difficult parts of my personality, though, are associated with my ADHD. My ADHD, although not a mental illness, is closely linked to my anxiety and depression in that it had a lot of impact on my self esteem. Therefore, a lot of the triggers I have for my anxiety and depression come from personality quirks associated with my ADHD.

With ADHD I: zone out and get distracted easily, have moments of extreme hyperactivity, can be SUPER LOUD, have difficulty finishing tasks, can’t stay organized, get super excited over seemingly small things, exaggerate all the time, and can’t sit still. The consistent negative feedback I received as a child as a result of these quirks showed me how ill suited I was to many traditional institutions. This resulted in me suppressing all of these parts of my personality in order to be accepted by those traditional institutions. This suppression doubled down on my anxiety and depression.

Eventually I wanted to kill myself.

Let me give you some examples of what I’m talking about:

Example: My habit of exaggerating and getting excited about things means I am a really passionate person. This means that when I start something new, I am super passionate (ok, maybe a little obsessive) about it. Same thing goes for: new friendships, new relationships, new projects, new goals, new jobs, etc.

It took me a lot of social missteps throughout my life to learn a balance so I don’t come on too strong.

See, social boundaries like that are something everyone assumes people just have. When really, my ADHD means I’m not necessarily naturally equipped with the understanding around those boundaries. And since everyone just expected me to know them, no one ever really taught me about them.

I had to learn through repeated rejection.

We live in a harsh world.

Then, my anxiety and depression kicked in, and all of the sudden other peoples’ approval became tied to my self worth. I developed a mindset where I felt I had to change everything about myself to get approval, or it would prove I was worthless. I suppressed my passion for other people. I became aloof. I made relationships impossible.

A second example: My abstract mind.

My mind moves really quickly. I am also an extremely analytical thinker. This means I process information at an extraordinary rate. I am also able to see connections and patterns across information quickly. Basically, I am on Step E before most people finish reading and processing the directions to Step A.

This also means I have a great ability to have empathy and see nuance because I see many different contributing factors and extenuating circumstances in every situation. I explore everything through multiple perspectives.

Therefore, I usually want to discuss decisions, assumptions, and conclusions so we can all reach a consensus that would be best for everyone involved.

The problem is, no one ever taught me that people in authority expect deference to their status and respect for their position when suggesting counterpoints to their confident, absolute, assertions. No one ever taught me about social politics, or about the types of bias people carry with them that will change how they look at you.

No one ever told me about the privileges I have in this regard, nor taught me how to sense in a situation when it’s actually time for me to be quiet.

I had to learn the hard way through being called a “know it all” and a “bitch.” Being told I’m “difficult,” “ abrasive.”

Or, “People would listen to you more if you just worked on your tone.”

I didn’t realize speaking to you as if I’m your equal was offensive to you.

I was taught to shut up. By the people on whom my voice was a burden.

A pain in the ass.

They used their power to stifle my voice because they didn’t like what they heard.

People with authority over me bristled at my arguing. They became apoplectic at my persistence, and convulsed at my constant questioning.

I learned how to turn my voice off ALL the time, just to be safe. So I could avoid upsetting what felt like everyone.

I forced myself to come off as demur, submissive, “laid back” *cough*easy.*

I forced myself to disappear.

I was miserable.

I almost killed myself.

We live in a harsh world.

Sidebar: Luckily I’ve started to figure out when it truly is not my turn to speak from the voices of people who have been brave enough, generous enough, and thought highly enough of me, to tell me when I need to shut up and listen. The people who shouldn’t have had to be the ones to teach me this, but did anyway. The people to whom I have unending respect and gratitude. The people whom traditional societal institutions have failed even worse than they’ve failed me. Find a list of resources to explore more diverse voices below.

“Normal” institutions and structures in our society have never served everyone, even before Corona came and fucked them up.

And I am a voice with a lot of privilege in this regard.***

But my brain is different than the “normal” student our school system is designed for. I learn differently. I have a different set of natural interpersonal skills. I am sensitive. I am intensely moral. I am passionate. I am bisexual. I live outside of binaries.

Dominant society takes what is unique about people, that which separates them from the status quo, and punishes them for it. We break people down, strip them of their joy, their culture. We force them to assimilate.

I am one of the lucky ones.

Being able to suppress everything about myself in order to be accepted by the status quo is a privilege I have, as my “otherness” is not visible.

And even with that being the case, I still felt so alone,

unlovable,

dirty,

different,

weird,

worthless,

broken,

that I wanted to kill myself.

As we approach our lives moving forward after Covid-19, I hope we can take all of this into consideration.

Covid-19 is scary. There are so many unknowns and variables here. It really sucks to feel as though you are trapped in something you can’t get out of.

The anxiety is real. Honor that. Process that. Seek therapy. Take care of yourself, please.

Then, when we’re ready, let’s take a critical look at our values and needs as a society moving forward. With many institutions falling apart around us we have an opportunity here.

An opportunity to potentially build a socio-emotionally focused education system that takes mental health, learning style, race, language, LGBTQ+ status, social class, access to technology, culture, etc, into consideration when designing policies, processes, and curriculum.

We have an opportunity to fight for a health system funded by taxes from the people who have made great shows of donating money to hospitals and other relief organizations… because maybe if the tax funding was there, the medical supplies and food would have been there before people started getting sick in the first place (gasp! But isn’t this socialism? Yes. Yes it is… But can you guess who has socialized healthcare? South Korea. Can you guess who has also successfully managed and moved past the Covid-19 pandemic? South Korea******).

I realize I am being hella idealistic here. But I feel like it’s about time someone was.

Because people who have been failed by society this whole time already know what it feels like to live in a perpetual state of anxiety and survival. So this feeling isn’t new for them…

—————————-

Over the course of my life I have felt my otherness, and therefore suppressed my otherness. I hid in my privilege and fooled even myself into thinking I was perfect. And no one called me a brat for like 15 years.

So my bratty-ass self is back and I’ve finally unleashed her full power. I will assert what I want and need because I deserve to be happy and successful as myself, just as everyone else does. I am fragile and I am sensitive and I am dramatic, and everyone is just going to have to deal with it.

This time around though, therapy has given me the skills I need to balance my many needs with my desire to love and be a good support system for others.

This time around, I have the education I need to build and maintain healthy boundaries.

This time around, I am working on how I can make myself feel seen, validated, and loved.

Just like everyone else right now, I am still in my struggle.

But I am working on it.

*** I mentioned several times above that when considering how societal institutions have failed us, I am a voice of privilege. Below you will find resources to learn about how the education and healthcare systems have failed a diverse range of voices (I figured you should hear about these experiences from the actual source:

LGBTQ+ students

LGBTQ+ healthcare

Decolonizing Reproductive Health

Weight bias in healthcare

The 1619 Project and healthcare

****** I recognize this situation is far more complex than I am making it appear here. I just want to remind you how I use hyperbole in the artistic craft of my writing. If anyone has any reliable sources on the actual details of the way South Korea handled their Covid-19 situation, comment a link?

How One Depressed Person is Coping with Social Distancing

Covid-19, Coronavirus, Social Distancing, Quarantine. Potential economic collapse. A president who can’t even speak in complete sentences. Our current context is incredibly difficult for anyone to cope with. I can only really speak from my perspective, though, and as someone who suffers from depression and anxiety I’m here to report: we are not ok.

Holy shit, this is scary. People with anxiety are prone to catastrophizing: jumping directly to the worst-case-scenario possible in literally any situation. This is a legitimate thought distortion that many people experience during times of great stress. The general hysteria leading regular, every-day people to ransack big box stores for toilet paper, Ramen, and peanut butter is all evidence of this.

But when you spend a good deal of your daily energy trying to keep yourself from dissolving into paranoid hysterics on a regular day, the rest of the world succumbing to those kinds of thoughts is a horrifying trigger. One tried and true method for bringing yourself back from the edge of a panic attack while catastrophizing, is trying to find evidence for how likely that worst-case-scenario would be. Usually, it is really difficult to find that evidence because our worst-case-scenarios are super unlikely. But right now, our worst-case-scenarios are what everyone else believes will happen too.

So, what the fuck do we do now?

What we’re going through as a collective is tough. As always, I have been on a little bit of a roller coaster because of it. That being said, I’m doing ok. And I want everyone to be ok. So I’m here to tell you what I’m doing, and how I’m coping; in case it helps anyone out there. No strategy will ever be 100% successful, but together we can help each other survive.

Radical Acceptance

Radical Acceptance is something I learned at my partial hospitalization program I did in December. Essentially, this strategy acknowledges that fighting against painful realities achieves nothing but suffering. In other words, desperately wishing a painful aspect of your current reality out of existence achieves nothing but anxiety. If you are practicing radical acceptance you are: accepting the situation as true and final, understanding what you can and cannot control about the situation, being non-judgemental, allowing yourself to feel your negative emotions rather than pushing them away. Once you engage in radical acceptance, you free yourself from the burden of worrying about the outcome of a situation you have no control over. You allow yourself to build a reality that works for you within the boundaries of what is possible, even if it’s not ideal.

How have I been practicing radical acceptance while social distancing? Well, we are not supposed to spend time in public, in situations with 10+ people, we shouldn’t touch our faces, or go to work, we can’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. All of that is fact. I can’t change it, no matter how much I want it to not be true.

But there are things I can control about the situation. I can use the privilege of my able body and salaried position to help others however possible. On one hand, that means social distancing so I don’t contribute to others contracting something that could impact them worse than it would me. It also means giving the money I’m not spending on recreation due to business closures to those who don’t have financial privilege to get them through this mess (if you haven’t seen people posting about ways to share your disposable income with those who need it, scroll down and check the links at the bottom of this page).

I can also control how I use my time during this crisis. I could spend my days stressing about the rate my supplies are depleting, missing my friends, desperate to leave my house. Or I could see this time that’s been given to me as a gift.

We could all really use a vacation

I want to start this section by acknowledging my privilege. I understand for many reasons this time off of work is stressful to many not in my situation (this is why I have been venmo-ing various people and organizations money for the last week).

I also believe that if we take care of each other, and take it upon ourselves to redistribute resources to support members of our community, we all could take advantage of this time off.

Capitalism is hard, dude. Whether you believe in it or not, the colonial capitalist system we live in is not easy to navigate. There’s a lot of stress in capitalism. There’s always pressure to be the best. There’s a constant race to cover your bills and afford the material goods that prove your worth to those around you, while only ever looking out for “number one.” Our culture doesn’t value breaks. It doesn’t value down time. It doesn’t value taking time out to refuel and support your mental health.

Well, regardless of whether or not Capitalism values it, we are all officially on a break. Seeing this time as a “break” doesn’t erase the fact that it’s scary, it’s difficult, it’s overwhelming, That being said, spending your time being scared and overwhelmed won’t fix anything either. So we’re on break.

What have you been refusing to do because you don’t have time? What hasn’t fit into your schedule because of work and family obligations? How long has it been since you’ve taken a walk in the sunshine? How long has it been since you’ve written a poem? Or learned a new skill? Or practiced meditation? Or made a scrapbook? Or baked cookies? Or learned a new language?

Within the parameters of what will keep you and your community safe, what could you use this time for if you weren’t scared?

Let’s make art

A new friend I’ve recently gotten close to reminded me that destruction is a gift.

This is kind of a radical idea but, what if everything falling apart was clearing the way for new growth? What if desperately clinging to the safe reality we had before is keeping us from creating something that will actually work for more of us in the future? What if accepting destruction will clear the path for creation and growth?

Basically what I’m saying is: during this quarantine, if we’re not making art, finding ways to laugh, and orgasming as much as possible, what are we doing, really?

Links to where you should send your money (I’ll post more as I find them):

Navajo and Hopi Family Covid-19 relief fund

Help youth climate activist Daphne Frias fight Covid-19

No Kid Hungry

Unified Phoenix Service Relief Fund for people in the service industry in Phoenix going without pay right now

Donate to help Navajo families maintain their access to fresh water

An Update on my Life: For those who are interested

Yesterday was my last day of teaching. I am officially on medical leave for the rest of the school year. Deciding to bow out at this point in the school year is the most difficult decision I’ve ever had to make. Half of me wants to write this to desperately justify my decision. On the other hand, I’m hoping continuing to process through my reasons for leaving my job will help give me renewed confidence that it was the right decision. So here we go.

I have been struggling ya’ll. On the best day, teaching middle school is a really challenging job. Middle schoolers are out of their mind, high on hormones. Their brains have not developed the ability to assess risk or think about consequences before their actions; meaning they are impulsive, emotional, and chaotic (and those are the good days). Combine this reality with:

the traumatizing state of national and local affairs,
the rate of family deportations that have taken place within our school community over the four years I’ve worked there,
institutional policies and practices in American public education at odds with the needs of my students of color and LGBTQ+ students,
the individual childhood trauma many students bring to school with them every day,
we don’t have air conditioning so it is likely to be around 95 degrees in my classroom in September and June,
my classroom was built in the 1960s when class sizes were two thirds the size they are today, and the hormones in our food have resulted in middle school students you could mistake for 30 year olds,
political pressure for teachers to prove they are “effective” has resulted in so much standardized testing we’ve lost at least a quarter of our instructional time to testing that does a poor job actually assessing students’ learning as it’s format is at odds with what we know to be best teaching practices (this results in even more loss of instructional time as we now also have to spend time teaching the students how to test),
and I barely make enough money to cover all my bills (and we haven’t received our promised yearly raises a single time since I’ve worked for the district)

By the time you reach the end of this list, you probably can understand why teachers usually burn out after 5 years. The thing is, this is the reality before you add in any issues going on in teachers’ personal lives. One of the most unfair things about it all is that, through all of the bullshit put on our backs, teachers are often expected to act as emotionless automatons that come to school every day, check all the right boxes, and take responsibility for the educational and emotional development of 150+ kids on our caseloads.

Personal trauma, deaths of loved ones, financial struggles, sickness, mental health issues; all of these are inconveniences that teachers are often expected to compartmentalize in order to stay effective in their jobs. I’ve been lucky that I’ve had a supportive administration, as I’ve heard stories of principals telling their teachers to “leave all of that in the parking lot,” because school is no place for teachers to have weaknesses.

And I’ve been going through a lot of shit in my personal life. When I was assaulted at a Halloween event in October, it fucked me up mentally. Obviously, it triggered my trauma from my original rape that happened in college, but it added on to the pile in unexpected ways. My inability to cope with the immediate fallout of this assault resulted in my first hospitalization that forced me to go on medical leave for November and December. But, as I processed through this event, and worked on rebuilding my mental health, there was a sneaky new trigger for my PTSD that I had no ability to discover until I returned to school: crowds.

All of a sudden, I don’t do well in crowds anymore. When I was assaulted in October, I was grabbed at a crowded event because I had my guard down with no ability to control everything going on around me at that moment. So now, when I am in a crowded and chaotic situation, I can literally feel my lack of control and it makes my brain shut down.

Do you see the issue here? Teaching middle school is nothing but spending time in loud, crowded, chaotic situations where any sense of control is an illusion.

So basically, since I returned to school in January, I’ve been living in a constant state of anxiety. I am triggered all day every day. My body is in fight or flight mode 24/7 resulting in a bottoming-out of my ability to sleep, feed myself, cope with sudden changes, relax physically, and accomplish most of my required tasks. It also hasn’t helped that in the month of February we had an evacuation due to a gas leak and a bomb threat.

It’s not that I don’t want to do my job anymore. It’s that I literally can’t. If I keep going like this I will die. I am not exaggerating. Feeling like you’re in constant threat of attack is not a life many people would want to live. I initially asked my district for partial leave so I could cut down to part time. This would allow me to engage in trauma-based therapy, have the restorative down time I desperately need, but still finish the year out with my students (whom I love as if they’re my own. Yes, all 153 of them). Unfortunately, the policies of my school district don’t allow partial leave. They offered me full time leave through the end of the school year, or nothing at all.

Considering the extreme state of my mental health, I obviously had to take the full-time leave.

That doesn’t change the fact that yesterday was one of the hardest days of my life. My students were devastated that I’m leaving them. Just as I feared, many are feeling like I am one more adult in their lives that is abandoning them. My heart broke into a thousand pieces as students cried into my shoulders and clung onto my limbs. I received so many thank you and farewell notes from students I lost count. I have to come to terms with the fact that, although I’m leaving for reasons that have nothing to do with them, I’m still failing these beautiful impressionable souls by not achieving my goal of seeing them through to their middle school finish line.

It would be an understatement to say that I am sad. There’s so much going on here that is really difficult to process, and it is going to take me some time to move on. People keep asking if I will return to teaching next school year, and honestly, I have no idea. At this point, the furthest out I have been able to plan is the next 24 hours. I can’t even conceptualize September, let alone what I’ll be doing in September.

Releasing myself from this school year has officially closed one chapter of my life. I now have to embark on a new chapter where I confront my trauma in a way I have not been able to up until this point. I am terrified, I am sad, I am anxious, but I’m also eager and excited.

I’ll keep you updated on all that this next chapter brings.

Thank you for reading.