I'm a teacher, too, so I know about having the brave face on in front of a crowd while collapse is going on inside. Sorry you're going through that. We need the job, but keeping up the facade takes its toll.

My fight or flight response gets triggered a couple of times a week, at least. In my old age it's less fight now and more flight. But I've fled and found out that, wherever you, there you are. Again. And then the whole thing goes around again: lather, rinse, repeat.

I'm sick of it, personally. I can't afford moving financially any more. I'm trying to stay put. Trying. This is my third year at this job, and usually it's 3 strikes and you're out for me. I once stayed on a job for 10 years, an eternity for me, but usually it's been 3. Hoping to get through this 3rd year and maybe go for a 4th for the first time in 13 years now. We'll see.

To get cause between fight or flight for me can be agony. Hope you feel better soon.

Mujicaptsd this is the first time I've met someone else that has had trouble holding down a job too. I can stay, but usually I quit for one reason or another. It's interesting that you have the same thing. Is that a part of having PTSD?

Oh, yeah. The "fight or flight" impulse, they call it. Absolutely. Any time I'm stressed, that's the fire alarm that gets pulled.

Yes Jen, all of the above!

I come from a long line of escapers in my family going back generations. I didn't grow up around my family, so I didn't know it until I was an adult. But my grandparents fled their home in the middle of the night and moved to another neighborhood just because they had trouble with their neighbors. My father moved the family 8,000 miles away to get away from his father. Then in 12 years of school from 1st grade through 12th grade of high school he moved our family so much that I went to 13 schools in 12 years.

It's no surprise, then, that I got the escape bug. The thing is, the geographical cure doesn't get rid of our inner issues. Our inner issues are portable. They move with us. And when we move so much sometimes we lose the support systems we started to create to help us face our issues.

I don't regret how much ground I've covered. I've actually enjoyed that, I've learned a lot by what I've seen going from place to place. What concerns me is whether I've balanced that with having roots enough to grow as a person as much as I'd like to grow.

As for escaping into death, I can see how it's tempting. But it's a big gamble, isn't it? I'm not that worried about going to hell for trying to escape my problems into death. What gives me more pause is the thought that Buddhists might be right about the afterlife with reincarnation. Their idea is that the law of karma is such that if you try to escape your problems through death you're sent back to this earth and have relive all of those problems all over again.

No one really knows if there's an afterlife, and if so, what it's like. But that Buddhist idea really does give me pause....

Hello, fellow teacher.

My assignment constantly changes, so it's LIKE I've had about 5 jobs over the past 14 years, but I've been employed as and English/Reading teacher at the same school district.

But I'll tell you what gets me... sometimes, my kids' attitudes triggers me. But what can I do? That's when I thank God that my temper/reaction didn't get the better of me. I could have easily lost my job. There are times I fantasize about suing the district for administration exacerbating my PTSD... Hmmmm... Class action suit over NCLB, anyone?

DeliAnnem, that is so funny that you should say that! I have had seven different jobs within seven years! I've been moved every year against my desires! Fifth grade social studies, reading and language arts 5th grade, 7th grade reading and language arts, and now 8th grade language arts... I find the older kids... especially now that the boys are so much more full grown trigger me much more often. Today I had three boys surround me. Innocently! They weren't going to harm me, but I instantly felt panic. I'm short :(.

I call NCLB All Children Forced Forward! We are now doing so many district/state tests to prep and predict test results that happen at the end of the year for the all powerful culminating test that I don't feel like I have time to teach anymore! I've been "joking" with my colleagues that I'm going to turn in my inner city teaching job as an eighth grade literacy teacher for a job at Home Depot working in the nursery with the PLANTS! The frustrating part is I'm really good at my job, but the bad part is the job really isn't good for me. :(

mujicaptsd - I have complete faith in God, so no Buddha fears for me. However, the pain that I would inflict by me offing myself to the members of my family and friends that I love would be too great. I can't be ... "Did you hear about that teacher that committed suicide in middle school..." I can't make people that messed up. I'd just be passing my shit on to others :( BOOO! Not my desire. So I try to remember that in the midst of the worst pain. There are days that I feel like my nerves are so raw that my insides feel like they are boiling and my skin is on fire. The slightest pressure sends me to the ends of will power. I'm trying to train myself to go to my bed and try to wait it out. Instead of lashing out. I feel like this now.

Yeah, when you wrote " I can't be ... "Did you hear about that teacher that committed suicide in middle school..."" I know what you mean. After all the inner struggle, for it just to come down to that tidbit of office gossip around the water cooler in the faculty lounge? Hell, no.

It's amazing how much we've all been teachers moving around, whether in the same district or not. Wow. There ought to be some teaching endurance award or something for people like us.

mujicaptsd... you are so right! Do you teach inner city too? I wonder if I moved out of the city if I'd be happier, and less intimidated by my students.

Today I started teaching by standing in front of the classroom and talking, writing on the board, doing chants with the students... My students, eighth graders, spent their mornings passing notes, chatting out loud like I wasn't there, and not caring at all about passing. I went into my second classroom with a new attitude and strategy (this is my worst class...), this time I did a lot less talking - they don't listen, allowed them to do their work while I assisted, they chatted about ex girlfriends. I collected their work at the end of the class... In my final class, I let the students teach the lesson following my notes from the previous classes (they are very independent students), I let them work in their groups on their materials making their choices as they would assisting as they needed, and then collected their work at the end of the class. All this after a thirteen hour day the day before when I helped teach two parent classes "Help your child with their Literacy class" and served nachos to two hundred parents. I got paid exactly $0.00 extra dollars, but worked 5 extra hours! Add to the fact that my neighboring classroom was out of control with a sub all day, and I had to go in and break up fights twice, and dismiss a twirking (sp?) competition for the sub. Oh - did I mention that I found out today that the school gave a survey about the teacher on record's performance in the classroom last year while I was in BOSTON with Rickie having his stem cell transplant for brain cancer. I was the teacher on record, but not the teacher in the classroom. Did the survey indicate that information? NOPE! It counts as 5% of my score as a teacher - I WASN'T EVEN THERE! Now don't worry because I am a great teacher, and 5% won't damage me! But ... Wow! Wow is all I can say!

I've taught inner city, but now I'm teaching in Appalachia, and it's the same at the opposite extreme, another kind of neglected part of America low on the education totem pole with all that goes with it. Sometimes it's like the movie Deliverance--yikes. Then other days, it's just amazing because you know it's unique for students to have a positive interaction with a teacher coming from these hollers and hills. For real.

Sounds like you had a heckuva day. I like how as it progressed so did your teaching strategy, though: " In my final class, I let the students teach the lesson following my notes from the previous classes (they are very independent students)." Smart. After all, we can be the greatest teachers in the world, but it's up to them to want to learn. Very smart of you to get them to teach themselves and each other.

I know. I do extra, too, and get paid the same $0.00 for it. Last night I stayed at school after my night class talking to an Iraq vet who just needed to be heard. Didn't get home until after 10pm and, as you know, it was one of my super Tuesdays, the day of the week when I teach from 9am to 9pm with only an hour for lunch and an hour for dinner.

You mentioned believing in God. Me, too. I'm an ordained minister, in fact, not as a pastor but as the hospital chaplain I used to be. That's where I learned about Buddhists and people from other religions as my job made me go from one patient to another on rounds every day, covering two floors a day. Anyway, believing in God gets me through the fact that we get paid that $0.00 you mentioned. There'd BETTER be a heaven, dagnabit.

After all, your example of how you were evaluated (actually misevaluated) while in Boston and not even in the classroom speaks volumes. It tells how depressing it would be if all our just desserts depended on the fairness of the system.

I hate to say it, but it doesn't surprise me at this point in my career the way it should. There's tons of bureaucratic machinery built to evaluate us, but in the end it seems to exist for its own sake more than for anything else. In my lifetime the number of administrators in education above me as a teacher has doubled, and the quality of education hasn't.

Take care of yourself tomorrow as you go in to break up those fights in the sub's classroom next door, ok? I know...

Good sharing about teaching tonight. I had an African American young woman stop by my lunch table today to tell me she's so happy that she's graduating in December, doing well. She used to be one of those twerking party types, but she grew up and became an actual good student. Nice to have one of those every once in a while.

Good night mujicaptsd - I look forward to teacher-ptsd-God-talking again soon. This was therapeutic! (Too tired to spell :O )

Tizzy- I gotta go to school right now, but PM me and we can chat later. SO much in common, I can't even begin!

Great to have friends with PTSD who love to work as teachers, too, even hard as it can be. Looking forward to more!

Had a weird day. Morning was great, but afternoon had a class with students who just couldn't pull it together to be teachable. Felt sorry for the poor kids. They weren't misbehaving toward me, they were just unprepared and couldn't find the handle on the class the whole hour.

What kind of day did you all have?

I had a good Friday at work today. Both in the classroom and, surprisingly, in a committee meeting after work (not my favorite setting).

How about you all?

I've been haunted all week by this inability to breathe, darkness of spirit, and escapism. However, at work I had a great day! We did a swat mtg w/ right of our greatest behavior problems. It was so fun. Overall, I had a great teaching week. I'm playing around with technology in the classroom, the flipped model, digital and techy supports and deliveries... And student leadership. Overall.. A good week at school. Home.... Another matter.