In the spirit of the polite conversation that happens everyday all over the place....
Hi, how are you?
Good! And how are you doing today?
Great!
I'm going to break the mold and just be real.
Last week was a doosey to say the least. By the time Wednesday rolled around I found myself visiting our favorite family doctor with these sharp stabbing pains underneath my rib cage that just wouldn't quit. I couldn't get a complete breath without the pain sabotaging my air supply. I couldn't sleep at night in a natural position, but rather needed to be propped up in order to keep the pain at bay. I quickly found that teaching was near impossible. The first week is all about ME. It's high energy, it's lots of conversation and it's about getting 120 students quickly on Team Hanson so that the rest of the year they feel comfortable and want to be (and yes, LEARN!) in their English class. However, all of that was really difficult with, once again, this stabbing, awful, never ceasing, enormous pain.
Ugh.
So by Wednesday I finally took the advice of my hubby and made an appointment. When I described my condition over the phone I was sent back to the nurse's line and then promptly told that I needed to have someone drive me to the ER immediately. However, I told the nurse politely that I couldn't do that because I had one block left to teach for the day.
Would it be okay if I just came in immediately after school gets out?
Warning: Foreshadowing is happening here! Clearly I have a problem.
I quickly get to our great little clinic in town and describe all my symptoms to a very concerned looking nurse and then once again for our beloved family doctor. We get to the point in the appointment where she asks me to hop up on the exam table and do the "just breath" exercises. While she's finishing up she casually asks, "So how is Anthony doing? Are you enjoying your first week back?"
With those words came immediate tears --- a torrent flood of tears. And then we talked. The more we talked the more I cried. The more I was
honest the further I got from the cover of "I'm good. How are you?". When I really opened up and said some really hard stuff I saw our beloved family doctor cry too. Not once. Not twice. But three times. And she hugged me. Not once. Not twice. But three times as well. My honesty propelled her honesty and within that conversation the weight begin to lift and I came to a scary realization of what I had done to myself.
This is the first year that I didn't want to go back to school at all. AT ALL. Although the summer was difficult at times I really enjoyed being able to be just Anthony's mom. (By that I mean the mom that schedules everyday, does play therapy parenting, that brings him to his to weekly therapy, the one that has lost all sense of what just being a mom actually looks like.) Last Saturday night I couldn't sleep and I laid in bed thinking. My thoughts quickly turned to all the things I wouldn't be able to do when the school year started, all the things I couldn't accomplish and all of my shortcomings of not getting everything accomplished this summer. Then I started, unconsciously, making a list of my worries. And I did this until I finally fell asleep that night. My mind raced and my list continued to grow and became larger and larger. When I woke up on Sunday I rolled over and immediately noticed the pain. I immediately couldn't breath well laying on my back or my side so I thought that was my cue to get up. So by 6:00 I was up and ready to tackle the to do list of the day. However, I quickly became nauseated and found myself propping up a blanket and going back to bed until 10:30. I woke up with a start and immediately felt guilty that I had dared to sleep in that late when there was so much to get done before school started and the boys came back from their weekend trip up north.
Shame on you, Tonja! You need to clean, get prepared for the school year and on and on and on...
Ugh. By now your keen senses are telling you what I couldn't even see or begin to understand. I still was clueless.
So I spent the day finalizing the lesson plans that I had stayed up until 1:00 making the night before. By lesson plans I mean every day mapped up in English through December. There was a situation that had happened at work during the previous week and I eagerly agreed to help out by taking on a student teacher and then taking on extra responsibilities. Yes and yes! I did so by knowing that I was giving up my 1/2 day off on Thursday and the whole Friday off of workshop week to get all this extra stuff done. I just wanted to make sure that I had everything in order so that the year would run smoothly in my class and could start smoothly in another. Once again I started to see, though, all of the shortcomings of my planning. I really wanted to do this and that; however, I took the easy way out by writing down a lot of what I have done in the past.
How is my teaching ever going to get better if I constantly do what I've done before?
Fast forward to Wednesday's appointment. It FINALLY hit me.
WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING TO MYSELF?
WHEN DID I BECOME THIS PERSON?
My doctor used words like perfection, anxiety, being too hard on myself, not being able to see the true picture of my life, etc. The more we talked, the more I cried and the better I felt. There would be no EKG required or a further investigation into the source of the pain. At that moment I finally realized that I was the source. I had morphed into an individual who, at that point, looked vastly different from the person I have always known. I realized, crushingly, that all my stress and worries and noted shortcomings were physically making me ill and that I needed to take immediate steps to make sure I didn't continue down this destructive path.
So when she suggested anti-anxiety meds I said absolutely! When she suggested talking to a therapist I agreed wholeheartedly. I walked out of the clinic that day visibly feeling lighter and with the inability to get a full breath receding to a memory.
Right now I am hoping that I woke up wide awake at 3:00 in the morning with this story forming in my head not because I truly am crazy, but because I am meant to share this story with others. When it comes to mental health issues there is a definite stigma attached. Some people don't view what can happen in the mind as significant as say having surgery to remove a diseased and defunct colon. BUT IT IS! I believe they are both damaging and both need to be treated. Plus it is absolutely OKAY to talk about it, share with others and let people IN as you are trying to get back to a healthier you.
I gladly type this with the spirit of telling you sometimes life sucks like shit. (Not my phrase, my doctor's. She challenged me to actually say that to people when something tough is going on or I'm not feeling my best. Just be honest.) I would never have thought to say that to anybody before because I am the smiley face collecting, B+, choosing your attitude, upbeat, full of energy teacher/mom/wife/friend/sister/daughter, but sometimes it might be the most appropriate thing to say. I need to be real with no strings attached. Somewhere along the line I've been losing that and myself. I'll be real, but then worry about what others are thinking and then worry about what I need to do to be better. It's a spiral journey down to nowhere. I choose not to exist there. Wednesday I climbed out of that way of thinking. By Thursday the pain was gone and my mind felt less cluttered. On Friday I got a needed validation from my amazed student teacher who wants me to teach her the layers of immediately forming an environment of learning where students are engaged and want to be there.
The journey of being kinder to myself and giving the grace I extend to others onto myself is the path I am on. The worries that hold me like a vise need to be pried away if I am going to life a healthy life. I just need to be. Exist. Love. Breath.
