Back to School

I’m overwhelmed, exhausted, and terrified. Who knew going back to school could be so uncomfortable? I thought I’d eagerly await this day. I was wrong.

Let me back up for a moment, like a sentence or a short paragraph. I’m a high school math teacher. We’ve been teaching virtually (in multiple formats) since March 2020. This past week, teachers started back in the building. On Monday, students return. And all of this transitioning to something new has me feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and terrified.

Okay. That’s my headspace. Let’s proceed.

Event Horizon

It’s been about two weeks since I’ve published a post. I’ve written a couple, part of an extended metaphorical discussion of mental illness that I’ve been adding onto for maybe two months but have yet to feel like it’s “complete” enough for publishing.

Probably that doesn’t matter. I don’t need five or six or maybe seven posts on backlog, although that might not be a bad thing since school starts again in two weeks.

The truth is, I want to write meaningfully. Cheap writing isn’t my style. (Not that cheap writing doesn’t have value; it’s just not the right fit for me.) But this often means I’m struggling to find inspiration. Which is often shorthand for “my depression is making me so lethargic and lackluster that I’m not sure I could write something even if I tried” or “my anxiety is keeping me so strung up that I can’t stay still long enough to even think about writing.”

I’m a work in progress. The world is a work in progress.

So we progress.

Something something anxiety and control maybe

If I had known having a therapist would provide so much writing material, I’d have gotten one years ago.

That’s my weak attempt at starting writing something I don’t know what I’m writing. I was left a little…unsettled? after our last session on Monday, and writing is the best way I know how to process my own thinking. So I’m hopeful inspiration will strike, separate the clouds, and grant some clarity amid the beautiful mess that is my mind.

And maybe you’ll find a spark of inspiration for yourself amidst my chaos.

What would it mean?

I was on the phone with my therapist today, discussing the possibility of an ADHD diagnosis. About forty minutes in, he started asking, “It sounds like you’re…” and my brain finished for him, “hoping to be diagnosed with ADHD.” Part of me feared, for a split second, that he thought I was being selective with what I shared, painting a picture of what I want to see, not what’s really in front of me, but instead he said, “It sounds like you’re looking for a medical treatment,” so I just answered, “The thought I could take something to fix just things is very hopeful.”

And then, because I know rushing to medication immediately isn’t always the best answer (I was in counseling for depression two years before I began any prescriptions), when he asked if I would be open to continuing psychotherapy or adjusting the medications I’m already taking, I told him, of course, I’d be willing to give it all a shot. I am. In fact, waiting for a new medication is probably wiser, whether or not I feel impatient waiting for things to finally change.

When the call ended, he hadn’t given any diagnosis, but in addition to scheduling a second meeting, he also scheduled me with a psychiatrist in his practice whom he feels is especially good at teasing out what’s depression and what might be ADHD. That sounds a lot like what I need, and I’m hopeful for what’s to come, but now, hours later, that first impulse in my brain still lingers: What if he thinks I was being selective? Why do I feel such desire to be diagnosed?

What would it mean for him to say I actually have ADHD?

Muse Misplaced

Spoiler warning (for a novel not yet published).

My first full-length book was an unintentional experiment in proving the fact that quantity does not imply quality: At the time I believed that “real books” had to be a certain length, and based upon a non-representative sample (the Lord of the Rings), I believed I needed to write a novel at least 150,000 words long for it to ever have a chance of getting published.

The year was 2006 and I was a first-time NaNoWriMo participant. The challenge of National Novel Writing Month is to write 50,000 words–which while shorter than the average novel today (which is between 80,000 and 100,000 words), was a lot closer to the ideal length of a breakout novel than I realized: turns out most publishers won’t even touch something bigger than 150k if an author hasn’t already been deemed profitable because of before-published book sales.

Anyways. I digress. I want to talk about story, not statistics.

Processing

So many parts of my identity cannot be seen that it’s easy to feel invisible. But like a pane of glass, it still hurts to walk into it.

So this morning (by which I mean last Friday, when I wrote this) I tried to shine a light on things.

Ironic aside: Shining light on an invisible thing does nothing. The failure of mixed metaphors.

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I was responding to a recent YouTube video by Wood Hawker, a favored content creator I follow who frequently reviews video games and occasionally talks about mental health. He was asking for suggestions as he begins building his new channel, and I said I enjoy his videos about mental health but at times they feel too long and heavy. And I realized that when I talk about mental health I fall into the same pitfall: I only talk about it when I hit the bottom, but I never talk about the real day-to-day life of living with mental illness.

So I thought, why not? When I hear how others struggle to win their daily battles, I feel like I’m not alone. I feel empowered. I feel more confident to take on the day.

But I haven’t done that myself, so today I want to change that.

Burnout

Sometimes it’s like building a bonfire and throwing in all the things you own to fuel the flames. You’re waiting for the fire to burn bright. To burn bright enough to illuminate something just out of sight. You know what you hope to see, but you can’t know for sure.

Yet it doesn’t matter.

Now, tell me why?

I hate it when you’re right

I slept anxiously last night. The snow began falling before I’d left work, and by the time I stepped out to get my haircut, the roads were disastrous (thankfully, I only have to walk across the street). By nightfall, already a few dozen schools had closed.

So I tossed and I turned and every thirty minutes I opened my phone, checking the time in case I’d overslept, and then checking the school closings: the number steadily grew and grew and grew until, at 7 o’clock, I could wait for it to be called no longer: I was going to work today. So I got dressed (my poor little puppy crying as I did so, because she always knows when I’m going to leave), and then met the bus.

Surprisingly, the buses were on time. That, however, was the only surprise.

Mental Illness Sucks

If you know me personally or you’re a long-time reader (sometimes I wonder if any of you are still here…), my history of mental illness should be no surprise.

And it sucks.