Paranoid meltdown

So I was feeling *ok* at work today. Pretty inadequate but, you know, dealing with it. Then I was sitting in the math office pulling out my laptop to email some parents when the math department coach walks in (the one I've been training with). I hear him in the outer office grab my co-teacher (the one who doesn't like me) and ask to talk to her. He comes into the inner office where I am and when he sees me he just gets this LOOK on his face like he's so pissed i'm there. He doesn't say hi or anything. He takes her back out into the outer office and they start whispering.

I am ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED that he was checking in on me and wants her to report on how i'm doing in class. and i'm absolutely convinced that she's going to trash me.

I froze. like my mind just shut down. It took me 45 minutes to send five parent emails. I felt like i could throw up.

I posted a couple days ago about feeling overwhelmed by everything. Today I feel like such an abject failure that I want to call up my principal tomorrow and quit on the spot.

You all know how I go back and forth with this career and always have. I think it's centered around my moods; when I feel stable, I feel ok about the job and when i'm depressed I feel like I'm a horrible ****ing human being who can't even say my own name right, let alone teach like I'm supposed to. I know there are a few former teachers on here who had to give it up due to BP and i'm wondering if the whole thing is just too stressful for me. This year i'm strictly a co-teacher and I still feel like **** about myself. I'm too afraid to teach more like they want me to because I'm so afraid of ****ing it up because i don't know math that well. Even this past unit, I've been confident in it but I still can't bring myself to ask my co-teacher to let me do the do-now and homework review. I don't know if this has anything to do with BP or it's just my personality. I've been like this for as long as I can remember. I guess I am a perfectionist to the point that if I don't think I can do something perfectly, I just give up on it. I wrote a paper in high school and got a B on it and never wrote another paper for English class again.

I think I'm struggling with a mild depression due to the season change right now and that's affecting everything. I find myself hoping something bad will happen, that i'll get into a car accident or something so I can get out of work. I'm also feeling especially nihilistic; I don't care if I die, I just don't want my son to be alone.

Someone brought up asking for ADA accommodations but I'm not even sure what they would be. Don't be so ****ing hard on me??? Don't expect this much out of me?? Then I might as well just not be a teacher because that's not fair to the students. I don't need FMLA accommodations, although I might if I become severely depressed again.

Sigh. I have an appointment with a new pdoc in two weeks. I might have to go up on my emsam to help me through this downswing. But I don't know what the new pdoc is going to think about emsam anyway. It took a lot of convincing to get my old pdoc to let me try it. I'm nervous about the new pdoc for sure.

Alright alright alright I've blathered on for far too long, as usual. I've got to get my project done.

hugs wildflowerchild

((((((((((((((((Wildflowerchild))))))))))))))))))

You are being much too hard on yourself. I am a co-teacher in a statistics class, and I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. But the lead teacher doesn't expect me to co-teach, and all is well. I contribute where I can. I've been up front with the class and tell them that I am learning as they learn. They appreciate it. I have been a co-teacher in Algebra I, Intermediate Algebra, Algebra II, and Geometry, and each has been a challenge. It is unfair of your supervisor and co-teacher to expect you to actually teach when it's your first time in the math classroom. Tell them that you will contribute in every way you can, but that you are just not ready to lead the class and that you hope to do it the next time you have the opportunity.

So don't quit. Speak up for yourself a little bit and relax. If I were you, I'd take a couple of sick days until you are in a better frame of mind. Best of luck to you.

I’m wondering the same sorts of things about my job; it is really terrible to live feeling stressed out all the time. I’m trying a therapist to see if it will help

I hope things get better

I'm sorry to hear your work life is upsetting you so much. Thinking of you. Hope it gets better...Big hugs.

Wildflower, I absolutely relate and sympathize to what you are feeling and saying. The feelings of inadequacy, lack of confidence, the struggles with you peers, the stress and anxiety. I don’t have any answers for you, as I crashed and burned and was kicked to the curb. You are in a profession that does not nurture or value its teachers. There is a lot of back biting, *** covering, and burn out. The teachers who do a lot of extracurricular activities are the pets of administration, not the ones with their noses to the grindstones trying to be the best teachers they can be. It’s not much different than when we were in high school.

It’s all about how much and how long you can take it.

That’s exactly it. I’m wondering how long I’ll be able to go on. I just don’t know what else I would do if I quit/was let go. I don’t have any experience in any other field and I only have a bachelor’s in English and secondary education. I could maybe do something with the English degree like proofreading but I wouldn’t know how to break into the industry. Or if that would be too stressful too, what with deadlines and such.

I’m hoping I’ll kick this mild depression and feel better about work again. But I don’t know.

*Hugs* I have similar feelings about my job. I work as a school psychologist. It's my first year and I have a high caseload. I also don't know what I'm doing most of the time. I deal with angry/demanding parents sometimes and it's super stressful. I feel like I'm drowning and I know this job is unsustainable for me and my mental health. I guess we just need to keep going for now and try our best. I'm hoping seeing a counselor will be helpful.

Well my fate seems to have been decided for me. I have hit the maximum number of renewals for my certificate. It will expire July 1, 2018. I have to have my graduate program done by then, and I won't. I still have two years left.

Five years ago I was not symptomatic. Five years ago I did not believe I had bipolar. Five years ago I figured I'd be done with school in two years and it wouldn't be a problem. Then bipolar stole that from me. I was unable to even enroll in classes because I was so ****ed up. Then when I did enroll in fall 2014, I missed passing the class by 7/10 of a point because I was hospitalized twice during the class and therefore couldn't participate in discussions (professor didn't care at all). had to drop the other class. I re-enrolled in summer 2015, but then my husband died. Dropped the classes i was in again. Got a new job, re-enrolled in fall 2016. Finally stable. Then went hypomanic and impulsively dropped my courses to join the master's program instead. I might have been done by now had I not done that.

So now because of my ****** life choices I am facing losing my career. I can't teach general education. I cannot handle something like that. I don't really know what to do.

I have to call the state and just find out what happens - like, can I simply never become a special education teacher in the state of new jersey because I took too long to get through school? Is there any way I can plead my case, as it was due to a disability that I couldn't make it through school? I don't know.

Is it even worth it? Do I even want to do this anymore, really? This might be a gift. But i just don't know how to even go about finding another career that pays as well as being a teacher does (and being a teacher doesn't pay all that well, but I make it on my salary). The only thing I can think of doing is being an administrative assistant but I'll only make like 10-12$ an hour and that's not enough for me to live on and take care of my son on.

I wish this damn depression would **** off so I could actually concentrate enough to think about all these things.

A career change might be the best thing that ever happened to you.

Maybe vocational rehab could help you? either with how to make the teaching work or help you figure out what else you might like to do that would be less stressful. I think you can do online aptitude tests as well that might give you an idea what to aim for. Voc. rehab though will help make whatever job manageable through modifications.

Try appealing your case, that is my vote. You’ve been through a lot!!

My daughter had to ask for accommodation in college because her father died.

My husband died in 2012, and I truly believe that bipolar means you suffer grief harder because of it. I got worse after he died; I finally got diagnosed three years after he died.

It hasn’t been long enough for you to recover fully from that. I know how hard it is; I was let go after my husband died, four years after. I wasn’t ready, but I got through it.

You will too.