Breaking

This time I’ve been stretched to my absolute limit. In April/May, I had the opportunity to take breaks whenever I needed despite the relentless workload and deadlines. This time, I’m on my final practical teaching experience, so I need to be prepared and present five days a week.

Everything was looking okay in the run-up. I had a few weeks to prepare. I started organising my initial visit with my school, but they had confirmed late, so I was a couple of weeks behind everyone else on the course. No sweat – I’ve dealt with worse. Then, shortly before my initial visit to the school, they cancelled my practical. However, it turned out to be a positive because I ended up in my ideal school. So far, manageable.

Then, my mother-in-law was suddenly sent to ICU (she lived in another country). On hearing the news, we all travelled there as soon as we could, We learnt that this was probably the last time we would see her. With my practical starting soon, I had to go back to avoid losing our family’s visas (student visa rules). It was a tough decision, but my parents-in-law wanted me to go ahead with it. At the last minute, my child decided to come back too.

Then, everything got harder and more complicated. My wife stayed for a while to spend quality time with her mother for the last remaining weeks of her life. I went back with my child. As soon as my child and I got back, my kid was really unwell and unable to go to school. This caused a knock-on effect because I had a major assignment that I was planning to write that week, as it was due during my practical. I was unable to get anything done.

However, my wife made the difficult decision to come back, to support me in my studies. But going into my practical, I also have to pass another unit which involves collecting data and adjusting lesson planning based on the data. With the assignment coming up, I was already struggling to stay on top.

During the whole practical, I’ve been dealing with what I think is dorsal vagal collapse and cognitive overload, and it happens at seemingly unpredictable times. The physical effect is that my energy crashes so hard that I can barely do anything. The mental effect is that it feels like my IQ crashes and I can’t think clearly. When this happened in April/May, I could manage it because I didn’t have a day-by-day deadline (i.e. lessons to plan for and daily data collection and analysis). Unfortunately, this is not an option now.

Inititally, my planning started off well, but then the assignment was due. I lost a whole weekend getting that done, which also meant no proper rest or recovery. I have no idea if what I submitted was good enough, but the effect was that I did little planning for the week ahead. I got by for most of the week, but then my mother-in-law got much sicker.

My wife booked a flight for her and our child to get there as soon as possible, but when we were all at the airport, she sadly passed away. My wife then had to travel, grieving with our child and without me, back to the family and start preparing for a funeral.

Meanwhile, my family and I were separated during this dark time in the week of our child’s birthday, our wedding anniversary and the funeral. Originally, I had planned to go, assuming it was on a weekend, but it ended up being in the week. It’s been tough to be apart.

With all this going on, I had an observation (an assessment of my current teaching) that same same week. This meant I needed to plan a particularly good lesson and document everything (including for other classes). I put my heart and soul into planning that lesson in a short amount of time. It ruined me, but I pulled off a decent lesson, and it looked like I was going okay on the course. But I still had one day of the week remaining.

The result was that, after the rush of pulling off the observed lesson, I crashed hard. Pride came before the fall – what goes up, must come down. I thought by resting the evening before, I would be fresh enough in the morning to pull off another day of lesson planning. This was not the case, and the next day (the day of the funeral) was almost a spectacular failure.

I reached my limit. I woke up unable to think clearly and with very little energy to get up. I turned up to school with very little of a plan. If my mind was working clearly, I probably would have been okay winging it through because I could make sense of the language patterns I was needing to teach. However, my brain power was limited, and I blanked out.

Thankfully, my mentor teacher stepped in as needed, but it was not a strong lesson at all. Embarrassing, to be honest, but I didn’t have the capacity to do better. Then my mentor asked me what the plan was for the next lesson and what I thought was a plan fell apart after a few questions about what I was going to do.

My mentor teacher whipped up a plan and I had lunchtime to action it. The result was positive. I got through a decent lesson. However, it was clear something was wrong. My mentor asked me what was going on and I told her. She was quite supportive, but there’s not a lot anyone can do. Lessons need to be taught and they need to be planned. Either I can or I can’t do it.

I have two weeks to go. It’s not the end of the world, but I’m already at my limit. This is the hardest I’ve ever been stretched. My body and mind are crumbling under a decade of self-abuse, and the trauma stuff never really goes away. In fact, a lot of my behaviour and responses are clearly linked. But for now, the only thing I can do is to keep pushing.

Living like this is unsustainable. I won’t survive another decade like this. Something needs to change. I’ve started seeing a new therapist who seems to be quite solution-focused. She doesn’t want to delve into the trauma stuff while I’m on practical, so it’s more about strategies to manage the current situation for now.

The past week has been one of the hardest of my life, but I made it through. Probably only because I haven’t had much time to contemplate. I don’t know how well I can survive if I’m hit by any more externalities. I already feel like I’m breaking. Pushing through is unreliable now – my body or mind might not work when I need them to. I’m anxious, depressed and crying every day (which feels like a massive, pathetic weakness as a man), and I’ve started talking to myself.

I’m not okay. I just need a solid run for the final two weeks, and then I can rest and recover.

Wish me luck…