Emailed this to a friend then thought I'd paste it here... These are not new themes and it sounds a little whiny, but I just wanted to provide an update...
In other news, I have received a warning at my job ... I have 10 days to shape up... I initially thought that I would be fired if I did not reach the stated objectives, but after some suspense and confusion I was able to clarify that - it's just an initial warning, several steps below the type of write-up that would go in my file or result in termination. So I guess that's some comfort.
But I still feel quite a lot of despair... the job feels so hard and it seems to take all my energy just to get up in the morning and get through the day... my psychological "issues" seem to create enormous obstacles where none should exist, and everything seems impossibly difficult, and at the same time I can see that any normal person would just move through the same spaces without any trouble.
My colleagues and my one friend at work begin to look at me askance... I know they are starting to wonder, why doesn't she finish her work? Why can't she seem to get anything done? (Or maybe that's my imagination...)
Anyway I really begin to see that something is seriously wrong with me, psychologically... my last therapist happened to mention during our last session (in the context of a discussion of some problems with
insurance) that I could be diagosable as having a personality disorder, if not for the quality of my interpersonal relationships. At first this was slightly comforting (so there is actually a good reason why everything is so hard!) but it really doesn't help make anything easier. All I can see is that there is a lot more hard work to try to become a functional human being, and I just have to hope I can pull it off before i get fired.
Or maybe I should just give up and say that it's too much work to be a teacher, that maybe people like me don't make good teachers, and maybe I could be something else. It's like, I have a handicap, and I could try really hard to be the star of wheelchair basketball, or I could save myself the trouble and take up flower arranging. Or something.
Teaching is all I've really wanted to do, but it seems to trigger all my "issues," pretty much bring out the worst in me - paralysis, anxiety, confusion, immobility.... wellllll I guess it is also bringing out the best in some ways as I struggle to overcome these obstacles... but I'm so tired of struggling all the time.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
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2 comments:
I think, as I've said before, that you should give yourself a break and do whatever the hell you want. It's not shameful or failing or whatever if you don't want this job anymore - you know that. This is one of the hardest gigs around - you know that. This isn't the only way to teach - you know that. You are not your job - you know that.
I love you, and want you to be happy. If you want to plug away, do it. That's great. But I worry that your sense of duty might be stronger than your sense of self-protection, in some ways. I don't know. You know yourself and your situation better than I, especially now, when I'm not right up on it.
Anyway, these are just initial thoughts. Keep or discard as you wish. But know that I'm on your side.
One thing I also didn't hear in here is that this teaching position, in particular, is really fucking hard, and would send most new whitey teachers running screaming. *In* addition to the fact that also, yes, you in particular are having a hard time with it and some of your personal issues are also coming in the way - so not instead of, not as an excuse for, just good to acknowledge at base level that this ain't your "typical teaching post" and even if it were? That would STILL be really rough the first year...
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