Old Habits

Take a well-earned break @BlackCat13 Spending a week at your parents sounds like it will be hard but relax in the other week as much as you can. Hope you get everything done you need to and then can find time for yourself

Been struggling with strong self hate today. I really don't know why people bother with me. I'm not fun. I'm hopeless at anything social. I'm emotionally broken. I don't fit in anywhere. I'm unwanted by anyone in any capacity- friend or relationship in real life. I only feel wanted by my cat because he needs me to feed him.

It is also the eve of my week with my parents. I am steeling myself for those comments from my father that make me feel useless, lazy and hopeless and the discord that is between my parents after a tough 2 years health wise for them. I really don't feel like going but going is easier than dealing with the not going.

Feels like forever since I was here. Life has been crazily busy. Between work and family I have had very little down time or even alone time. I have somehow gotten sick over the last week and my psychiatrist has tripled one of my antidepressants over the past couple of weeks. I do feel more level again with my stress and anxieties. However there is a slight side effect going along with the increase, clenching my jaw both day and night. I usually wake up with a headache and have it throughout the day. We were hoping I would develop a tolerance for this dose, as it was looking to be a successful dose. Not sure what will happen when I see my psychiatrist on Thursday. I don’t want to start fiddling with my meds as work is about to hit high level stress of assessment and reporting in the next 2 months. Here’s hoping the tension headaches disappear quickly.

hope everyone else is doing well on their journey.

It is good to hear from you @BlackCat13 and great that you are doing slightly better. I hope your side effects decrease for you very soon and know the next couple of months will be very busy with reports and end of year things that need to be done. The big positive is that 4th term always seems to go rather quickly but I know there is a lot to be packed into the remaining weeks. Look after yourself as best you can and let us know if you need support @BlackCat13

Thanks for the support again @Zoe7 just knowing there is someone out there who gets the teaching life is a big help because I don’t have to keep justifying my stress and anxieties to those who think we have no right due to the “amazing” holidays coming up.

i hope you are doing well at the moment and looking after yourself too.

Teachers are the life blood of any nation.

@BlackCat13 @Zoe7

I agree but we also seem to be the first ones sacrificed, scape goateed etc by the media. I know our school opinion survey results are in, so the dadta will be crunched, passed along and left to us to fix everything as best as possible so the percentages will be greater in 2019.

@Appleblossom @Zoe7

Sadly teacher stress is real. @BlackCat13

I know some people are concerned that education departments are adopting similar hiring strategies to fast food outlets.

Embarrassed for the ed depts.

What most people don't understand is that we send most of our holidays planning and organising things for the next term though @BlackCat13. It is a very hard job we do and the amount of out-of-hours work we do is massive - and that doesn't often include the amount of extra hours we have to do to enter data and do 'paperwork' aside from planning and marking. The Teaching part is the easier part but then we have to deal with the behaviour of 30 kids and all their individual histories and behaviours - and then outside forces that want us to teach even more and more - there is not enough time in the day to teach what we need to already