Tired today. Feeling slightly overwhelmed for the first time. Some part of my brain tugs me toward drama and despair, and I do recognize some of the symptoms from last year - today I wasn't ready for class, was confused about the purpose of the class, and was just casting about for something to do basically. But this was an unusual day - I am giving them a test tomorrow and had to give them one more day to study, and I didn't really have anything I needed to cover during that day.

As I type this out there's a storm of self-criticism that wants to break through (sample: you never have enough time for anything and you couldn't think of a productive way to use the day???) but, using the skills I learned this summer in IOP, I just turn away from those thoughts. Earlier I used other skills from IOP when I reminded myself that I was engaging in all-or-nothing thinking.

Am now reminding myself that generally I have been very purposeful and known exactly what I was doing and where I was going with my units. My 4th period is giving me trouble - correction - gave me trouble today, yesterday, and last Wednesday and Thursday. That's not "a bad class" or a "failure" on my part. It's a temporary issue that may or may not become a more long-term issue. I can think of several solutions. I didn't call parents today because I felt too tired by the end of the day - warning bells go off - that's how I was last year. But again I quiet them and say to myself, yes, it is something to notice, it might be a problem, but just because it happened today doesn't mean it's always going to happen or that it will be a problem.

I'm just generally tired. I guess as the year goes on my physical reserves are slowly drained, and that's just life. I think I may have to sacrifice 30 minutes of sleep for 30 minutes of exercise - I think when I was doing the daily longer dog walks, it really helped my attitude and feeling physically less tired and achy. Either that or I was less tired back then because I hadn't been working long hours for a month lol.

I feel like there's more to say but....... well. One day at a time, as I said in my previous post. One day at a time.

changes...

today i'm thinking how, in a way, i'm the same old me, and how, in another way, my old friends would have to get to know me all over again... i feel the same and different... i'm still the same me with the same likes and loves and so on... but i react differently, i hurt less, i smile more, my moods are gentler. i think this is an improvement, but i wonder if i have lost anything that people would miss. would anyone miss the crazy highs? were they fun or just weird? i doubt seriously that anyone would miss the crazy lows!

it doesn't really matter; i'm not changing back for anyone.

i am wondering if i'm exaggerating the change but i really don't think i am. every area of my life is different.

and i'm also afraid to write about it like this for fear i'll somehow jinx it and before i know it i'll be back in the same situation as before. ugh.

need to go to bed now anyway... one day at a time, that's all. just one day at a time.

miracles of modern medicine

the end of the day comes; the students leave; i eat an apple and chat with a colleague.

i'm not exhausted. i'm not despairing. i didn't count the minutes til the end of the day.

i don't have the drowning look on my face that my new friend the first-year teacher has on her face all the time, poor thing.

i'm cheerful. i enjoy my apple. i didn't come crawling to the colleague's room in desperation. i don't feel that i need anything from her.

after i finish my apple i sit down to work. it's easy to do because my work all day has not been strenuous. and, i have already completed a chunk of work in between other things during the day because i've been using my time well.

the students act up a little but it doesn't bother me. if one of them crosses a line i administer the consequence without sturm und drang. it doesn't bother me - it bothers them. that's how it should be.

are you wondering who i am and what i did with your familiarly fucked-up friend?

i attribute some of this to my new skills from my outpatient program this summer, but i attribute about 90% of it to my medication.

finally, finally, finally my medication is working.

i was reading some things i wrote even six months ago and they seem so dramatic, so intensely high and low, so... insane. i can still have intense feelings but they don't knock me down like a big wave at the beach, whirl me round and stuff my mouth with sand, leave me bruised and scraped and battered. i understand now why Loopy was saying that there wasn't any "me" there anymore, why it seemed i'd disappeared into the extremes...

reading what i wrote six months ago, and comparing it to the state of normality i've reached, i am so grateful. so, so grateful. all my life i've desperately wished for peace, and found it elusive amid all the turbulent feelings and obsessive thoughts. i think i'm finding it at last.

seeing my way through at last...

These lyrics have been going through my head:

Bend, little willow
Wind's gonna blow you
Hard and cold tonight

Life, as it happens
Nobody warns you
Willow, hold on tight.

Nothing's gonna shake your love
Take your love away
No one's out to break your heart
It only seems that way...
~Paul McCartney

(From a song written for a child whose parent had just been killed in an accident, if I remember correctly)

Somehow I find it comforting, particularly the part about how no one's out to break your heart, it only seems that way... but also the part about how no one warns you how hard life will be, and yet, you can bend with the harsh winds, hold on and endure and even (as it says later in the song) "grow to the heavens."

SO job. How is it going. I'm sorry I haven't updated.

Well, parts of it are a thousand times better, and I think I have my outpatient psychiatric program to thank for that. I have been keeping up with the work - lesson planning, grading, entering grades, etc. I've been entering grades every day for that day. As long as I can keep that up, it should be good.

Overall, I have a much more positive and dedicated feeling about the work. Whenever I have a moment, it's "ok, I have a moment now, what can I do to be ready for next week/tomorrow/etc?" I'm just... eager, dedicated and disciplined... finally! Finally finally finally. It's like I can finally do what I know I can do. So that's a wonderful, powerful feeling.

The classroom management is still tough though. I cried already (but at least the students didn't see). The first week I was "on it." One of the students called me a "pit bull;" I said, "I'll take that as a compliment" and he said "it is."

But somehow by week 2 I became afraid of the students again. What exactly am I afraid of. Their judgment, perhaps? That I am too mean? Yes. But mostly, I think, afraid of their power to destroy me. Again.

I'm definitely "back on the horse" (after being thrown from it twice) but too ginger, too scared, barely perched in the saddle. Scared. Scared.

That's where the "no one's out to break your heart" comes in. The students aren't out to get me. It's not personal, even if they think it is. EVEN IF THEY THINK IT IS. They are just being teenagers. They are just bouncing off whatever's there. I'm there, so they push me and bounce off me. They will forget me. I will forget them.

I will not forget how I made myself strong or weak however.

It reminds me of trying to use the exact correct set of abdominal muscles for the back-strengthening exercise I used to do. It was a question of focusing my mind on the desired muscles (that make me strong in the classroom), willing them to be the ones to respond, but from lack of use, they are weaker than other muscles (the strong habits that make me weak in the classroom)... so, more often than not, the muscles I have used the most - the wrong ones - tighten instead of the right ones. So I lower my leg and try again. This time, this time, don't go with the habit, tighten those weaker muscles, strengthen them, strengthen them.

I like this analogy. The weak muscles get stronger with time. I just have to keep doing the exercise. Every day I go in and I do the exercise. "Success and failure are your journey."

At last I start to feel like a teacher. The rest of it - the grading, the lesson planning, etc. - even when the lessons fail - I feel like a teacher, I feel like I'm doing my job, at last, however shakily, however much on newborn-deer legs, one step in front of the other... I'm no longer the deer in the headlights... for now... but I think it's a real change that will stick.

When I get too overwhelmed or scared I just remind myself... one day at a time... one day at a time. That helps a lot too.

So... thank you for caring, for wanting to know how it's going, for being my friends. I sometimes see you as a circle of faces sending me such love and goodwill. I am so lucky! So so lucky.

There's one more thing... lately I have worried that I have become too cold... I watch the other teachers' interactions with students... so warm and loving... touching a cheek, inspiring a room full of teenagers who sit spellbound listening to a loving and powerful voice. I think I am angry at the students - all students. It makes me too cold. I have trouble remembering their names. I look at them without affection. What happened to the loving person I used to be?

But I decided, keep going. Keep going. And now writing this out I say to myself: that warm loving person is still inside me. It's eclipsed right now because of all the shame and anger around my past failures at work. But if I can start to get things right, if it can start to feel less like a constant losing battle, those negative feelings can start to fall away and I can come back to myself... the jewel is still under there, even under the pile of shit, and is never harmed or damaged no matter how much is piled upon it.

I feel much better having written that out. I was crying yesterday with thoughts of how cold I'd become... I should write in my journal more...

Huh. That's in the lyric above, too. "Nothing's gonna shake your love, Take your love away." :)

七転八起　Fall seven times, get up eight.