so when I type on my 70+ page self reflection and study report it does not copy and paste well if I choose to transfer it here. Therefore although, right now that is where I intended to start I am coming here because my thoughts feel like they might be worth publishing.
Push-Crash cycle. that is the cycle that is easy to get into after a head injury. It is a cycle I think I lived fairly regularly in since I was 12. After a head injury it is hard to break and aside from the obvious wearing out of crashes it wears a person out long term.
At 39 I had figured out well enough how to stay out of the extremes of those cycles, though I was not in my healthiest happiest place and honestly too much of my efforts to maintain in the more healthy productive ways had been lost and buried over the years, influenced maybe a bit too much by external influences. But I was level and managing. Emotional intensities sufficiently buried and/or masked as far as I thought. But maybe they weren't buried as well as I thought and I am sure they bled through the mask in ways that confused others. But I was fine without anti-depressants or anti-anxieties and I was finding my way once again after some pretty harsh rejection from what we had thought were good family friends.
Then I took a job at a school. I had been looking for part time but decided to take this one because it seemed like it could be a good place to build the career I have been putting off building and they said "family first." Unfortunately they had some very screwy philosophies that included top down training that came in the form of "well nobody trained me on it" and no curriculum resources. They also liked to make snap decisions about their teachers that would effect them significantly without ever getting the teachers input. Those and many other reasons made it a very unhealthy environment to work in and that was pretty obvious from the get go.
So I was in a quandary. This was not a healthy work environment and the demands were ridiculous being a first year charter school, no base curriculum, three grades, mainly troubled or low preforming students that were not getting the help and support they needed, no training on the basics; like how to use the smart tv's, new technology for the classroom and not the standard for the area, or the grading system. But I loved the kids I was working with.. It was a dilemma as I quickly became less and less available for my own struggling family. Since they had not got the numbers they were expecting at the first part of the year they had displaced teachers that could easily walk into my position I decided to start looking into other options.
On September 21st I made a decision to apply for a different job. I loved my kids I was working with but I new that my first priority needed to be to help my own kids. I talked with my administrator. I let her know how I was feeling about things, reminding her that I had initially been looking for part time and that she knew hiring me that family was my first priority. I explained that I was embarrassed, I felt bad about it and even though I was not sure what I was going to do just yet, that I was exploring other options and I wanted to give her a heads up. She was surprisingly understanding and supportive. She told me that they did not expect perfection but she also would support me in whatever decision I made. She let me know that I could just take it one week at a time and I didn't need to make a decision right away. It was the most support I had felt from administration the entire year, so I was encouraged, but still felt it worth applying and talking to the other school.
On my way home is when I go hit by a car turning left.
And that really complicated things.
Everything went black but I hadn't blacked out completely (I don't think). Then I was stopped and my arm and face hurt so badly, my emotions were instantly out of whack and I was confused, disoriented, and my whole body felt off; my right side felt longer than my left and I was limping even thought I didn't know why. I opted out of the ambulance ride, though on hind sight I wish I had taken it and had them do a whole body scan at the hospital because it would take so long to figure it all out and then I would have at least had it all documented from the beginning. They would have found the peroneal tendon tear in my ankle that I let go for over a year before deciding to have it examined by the correct doctor after realizing it was not going to heal on its own. If I had gone to the hospital they may have done an MRI or CT scan on my head that could have checked my sinuses and teeth that I have since had problems with. They may have picked up on why my left wrist will now get week and shaky with certain movements and activity. Maybe they would have picked up on the hairline fracture in my neck and maybe they would have found why my right hip still feels a little off too. But they almost certainly would have caught onto the concussion and given me better advice than the doctor at the insta care who I had to ask if it was a possibility and simply replied "maybe but we really don't do anything for those;" the doctor who was much more interested in my husbands thumb he had repaired the previous month than my puffy face and pathetic emotions.
Push crash became my daily routine.
It took a week and my chiropractors office picked up on the concussion. They realized I wasn't acting quite right and my exhaustion and emotions were telling a very obvious story to them.
It was a relief to know, though I think I already suspected it I was just to tired and malfunctional to really know it or face it.
But it scared the hell out of me.
It scared me because I already worried about my delicate brain, memory, language recall, emotional intensities, all of those things that I had worked so hard to "balance" and figure out how to manage since the head injury of my youth.
...It makes me sick just now, knowing that I found such an excellent doctor of neuropsychology that knows and understands the academic side of it so well and has been able to help me more than he realizes but that I am not allowed to utilize anymore. It makes me hurt a hurt built over a lifetime and all because he could possibly fall for me in some theoretical alternative? It is exactly what I need and I believe I could even be of value to him but I am of none. I am alone again. I have derailed... once again. My thoughts to reprocess and heal are derailed once again by this taboo and too many unanswered questions.
I am an adult. I am strong and solid and confident in so many ways. I have and can handle so very much. I am powerful. But I not a threat. ...unless one really is unethical then I often instinctively or intuitively turn into a natural fighter for justice and compassion. But even then just because I can be a fighter doesn't mean that I will be. Just because I am intelligent enough to go after a person and bring down the fort doesn't mean I will, and this most recent hit has taken so much of my fight out of me I haven't been able to even face the terrible school that is actually causing pain and psychological damage to children.
However I can hold my own but I am also sensitive and I listen. I try not to put "my own" over the needs of others. I can be accommodating and meet in the middle.
But I think this whole idea of having nothing to do with me because I am a potential liability, too complex, or not worth the time is unfair, disingenuous, and this is where it has become unethical. Besides I promise I can sufficiently kill (and probably already have) any feelings that could compromise his position. It's not that hard to face and talk to people. It seems so silly to me. Maybe a bit elitist.
I am not trying to solve this. I am living this and I wish to face it with maturity, like an adult and talk about it. It feels stupid and rather pointless in a way to try and work through this with a different counselor, they can only validate what I am feeling. He is trained and skilled and he can handle this. He has worked with me and understands me but he has withheld too much information and is unwilling to talk about it, that puts us both in the same positions as of the untrained, unskilled, heartbreakers, all of those who are too immature and scarred of facing their own insecurities to be a friend, or a professional, an adult or at least a creative free individual who can think and solve problems outside of the box.
When you have talked hard things out it is well worth it. The other side offers new strength value and insight you would not have otherwise had. Even if it doesn't go well or go as planned. There is more harm in leaving it a taboo; taking away the agency due to rigid conformity to rules that are not always correct.
I am a free thinker I suppose and I suppose in a world of conformity that is a lonely place to be.
I understand the need and value of conformity and I conform when needed and most often for the sake of others but to be able to think and discuss things openly and freely; it is a hidden treasure that is all to often buried and lost.
A conversation would be so helpful for me.
I am taking a clinic on the defensive cycles of communication. Doing what I can to become a better communicator because obviously I make mistakes but connecting with and understanding others is important to me.
... Now back on track to my original thoughts...
Head injuries cause problems. I am more sensitive to sleep and those basic healthy patterns of diet, exercise and sleep. I know this. It has been this was for a long time. But now it is even more so I feel. Though I am better. I can feel that I am better; my balance is better, I can write and communicate more effectively again, etc, I seem to be even more sensitive to those lifestyle patterns and stressors.
and right now it is a bit hard, sad and confusing because I once again have to figure out what to do with myself when I grow up. I love kids. I love working with kids but every time I substitute or if my class of snowboarders is to big I will have a head ache by 3:00 (or sooner) and then little to no reserves left to take care of my family, my house or myself. Often I will take a 30-45 minute nap and that will help but my mood stability is compromised at that point and I cry easy, I become impatient, I am forgetful and whatever else.
I am sad and confused about this because I once again have to figure out what to do with my life. How to move forward. I have to decide if I can or should even try to go back to teaching. Am I capable of it anymore? I likely could and find a balance, but I am not sure that it is worth it and honestly I am not sure how effective I would be... probably still a good teacher but I'd likely end up in trouble because I'd focus on the kids at the expense of all the political, grades, and paper work proofs they keep piling onto teachers. And no doubt I will end each day with a headache as I try to manage 30+ kids and all of their different learning styles at the same time everyday...
As I write this my internal tenacity is pushing back and a determination to try might be building... But...if I try and I find myself failing... I don't think that is a hit I can take. I'd sure like some good sound advice in this and other decisions I need to be making right now...
And likely the biggest problem form me right now is how screwed up my sleep cycle is after whatever weird reaction (manic-like) I had to being dropped by my therapist and then the time changes of Italy and back.
