Oh boy I’m glad it’s the weekend. I had zero patience for one of the students today. He’s nonverbal so he communicates through noises, which is fine but he has learned that if he screams at the top of his lungs he gets whatever he wants (at home). So when he doesn’t get what he wants at school, or has to do anything he doesn’t want to do, he just screams. And he can go on and on. He’ll only stop if you pay zero attention to him, like don’t even look at him while he’s screaming. It’s wearing. Some days it’s minimal but today he was just screaming all day. Some of it was understandable (out of routine) but sometimes I just can’t deal with it. Luckily my teacher is understanding and I’ll just excuse myself to use the staff bathroom at the opposite end of the school. Take a walk, sit in silence for a minute or two, then head back refreshed and ready for the screams.

I’m thinking of getting the noise cancelling earbuds, the ones where you can still hear what’s happening around you but it’s dulled a bit. There’s another girl in the class that also screams a lot but hers is almost like a tic, she just screams repeats of what she hears at home (quite colorful language at times, actually). And another girl throws tantrums too, hers can last a good while. It might be nice just to dull the noise a little bit. Maybe I won’t be so overwhelmed on days when I'm already struggling emotionally.

I have an ECT treatment scheduled for next Friday. I’m on a three week schedule now for the winter. I’ll have to be sure to collect notes so I won’t get in trouble at the end of the year. Though I had notes for almost all my absences last year as they were all mental health and thus medical related and I still got talked to about my attendance. I’m worried about getting fired. I wish you could get tenure as an assistant but you can’t. And it doesn’t matter, I’d still worry.