Monday, January 18, 2021

Mental health day from work

     Two years later while still working at the Catholic school, a student passed out in the gym as lunch was

ending.  She was laying on the ground not moving and unresponsive.  The principal was standing at the 

door and did nothing.  No call to 911.  It was a big trigger for me.

    At that moment I realized I had handled the suicide for my family, but not for myself.  It was going to

be a hard road, but I would get through it.  This led to me taking a day off from work.  When I returned to

work the next day the principal asked me how I was feeling.  I said fine, I just needed a mental health day.

She kind of looked at me.  So I said I'm not sure if you know, but two years ago I witnessed a suicide.  I 

handled it for everyone else.  Now I'm handling it for myself.  Her jaw dropped.  She couldn't handle

what I had told her.  At that moment I knew I had made a mistake.  I shouldn't have said anything and kept

everything to myself.  From that day forward she treated me differently.  She checked on my classroom

everyday.  It really upset me.  In addition to telling the principal, I had also opened up to and trusted a

coworker who ended up stabbing me in the back.  Ultimately, it ended with me not being offered a 

contract for the following year.  I had never done anything wrong to those kids despite what I was going

through.  With the way she handled it, I didn't even get the chance to say goodbye to my students.  At that

point I was still on just antidepressants with no formal diagnosis.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Very anxious, but good. Tools to cope with anxiety

 Lately I've been extremely anxious, but still doing good. I'm more anxious than I've ever been in my life, but doing as good as...