More Unraveling

This is an archived post that was originally published at beyond-terminal.com

In this excerpt, you will see how the thread continues to unravel in my classroom. As the chaos increases, I look for things that I can control in my environment – the ceiling panel that can be righted; the pens and pencils that can be lined up; the papers that can be squared.

If you’ve read any of my earlier entries, you’ll notice how this is a tendency of mine whenever I feel like I’m losing control.

As a young adult, I hadn’t developed an understanding that I could have agency and effect change. This lack of awareness is a burden I carry as a result of having no agency over my illness as a child. So how do I handle this sense of helplessness? I look for those things that I can control in my environment, even if they don’t impact the more immediate situation at hand.

Not surprisingly, this doesn’t lead to any improvements.

__________  

This passage follows the last excerpt, when I decide that I’ll need to be even more organized and vigilant to prevent Roger from imploding. It’s from the second half of the chapter “Unhinged.”

Despite this extra effort on my part, this Monday, the third Monday of September, looked and felt different from the moment Donna walked in with Roger in her arms. Today, Donna’s and Roger’s cheeks were both a shade redder; their faces sweatier; their matching russet-colored hair more matted down.

My eyes involuntarily traveled upward. I couldn’t believe that I was supposed to know how to navigate all of this without assistance. Before I sprang into hypervigilant mode, my eyes fixated on the ceiling panel that was directly above Roger and Donna. It was slightly askew. I would have done anything to adjust it right then. For maybe, just maybe, had this panel not been askew, we would be following our normal “script.”

I didn’t have time to dwell on how eerily similar this thought was to the kinds I had when I was sick—because Roger proceeded to punch Donna. This wasn’t their regular physical altercation. It was a brawl, with Donna warding off the punches with her hands, her forearms, her shoulders.

I stood there helplessly for a moment, then sprang into action. I ran across the room to the sparring mother-son pair and screamed, “Roger!” at the top of my lungs. “Roger! Roger!” I repeated. “Stop! You need to stop!”

Just when I thought I might need to intervene physically myself, Roger finally disengaged. In the brief moment that followed, I pressed my hands against my chest. Breathe, Megan, breathe, I counseled myself. There was no way I was hyperventilating in front of my students. I was tough. I had grit. I had lived through a terminal diagnosis and there was no way I was going to let this student get the best of me.

However, within five minutes of Donna’s departure, I knew, I just knew, the stakes had changed and we had entered new territory. But what could I do other than continue on with our day? With our principal on a leave of absence, I was on my own and no one was going to come and rescue me from this situation.

So I continued on with my day like everything was fine. I ran our morning meeting, taught the literacy lesson for the day, and met with the individual literacy groups. All the while, Roger was splayed out on the cold, white-tiled floor. 

A few minutes before 10:00, it was time to get ready for music. Just like I did any other day, I called kids up by the color assigned to their table. “If you sit at the red table, you can line up.” I said the names of the other colors, just like I did other days. Once I had 22 kids lined up, I gave Roger a gentle reminder. “Roger, it’s time to line up.”

It was the gentlest of gentle reminders, but he still didn’t move. I then turned off the lights, another gentle reminder. At this, Roger stood up. Thank God, I thought. We’ll be able to turn this day around yet.

But the second I thought this, Roger picked up the chair closest to him and threw it in the air. The loud clang of the chair hitting the table and the kids’ wide-eyed expressions confirmed that I wasn’t seeing things.

“Roger!” I screamed again. “Roger, look at me!” Rather than looking at me, Roger went for the next chair and threw that one too. A couple of the kids put their hands over their ears.

“Kids, get in the hallway!” I said to 22 of my 23 students. As they exited, I saw a teacher passing by and asked her to bring my kids to music. “And get help! Please get help!”

Now it was just Roger and me.

“Roger!” I said. “You need to stop! Now!”

Roger’s eyes locked with mine for a second, and in that moment, when I saw his glossed-over eyes, I knew. I just knew. He wasn’t coming back. Not until more destruction had been wrought.

I figured my job now was to mitigate the damage until help arrived. However, there was no mitigating this damage. Instead, I watched helplessly as Roger tore through the room, upending chairs and tables; tearing up lesson plans and worksheets; slamming books and pencil caddies to the floor. My room turned into a crime scene.

Once Roger had finally been removed by the lead special ed teacher, I sat in the middle of the room, my face in my hands, pleading with myself to stay strong. Just stay strong. But the brutal truth was that I felt the opposite of this. I felt utterly helpless – and weak. Just like I had as a child.

And then it dawned on me: I felt an even greater sense of helplessness than I had felt as a child. Because now, now I was an adult, and I was supposed to be in control.

__________

It took me a long time to find my voice. To understand that my opinions and feelings matter.

I didn’t want to be loud and issue demands. To tell my supervisor that enough was enough. That this situation was untenable.

How many of us are conditioned as a child to think that what we think and feel doesn’t hold weight? And how does this conditioning impact us as adults?

Dan’s and my goal is to raise our children to be independent thinkers. This isn’t to say that my parents didn’t encourage me to think independently as a child. I’m sure they would have had my circumstances been different. But, because of my illness, I was forced to be more dependent on my parents as a preteen/teen than I was even as a child.

This unique developmental pathway led to a delay in my formation of my own identity. As an adult I now have an acute awareness of how important it is to help our children know who they are and what they stand for. Each one of us matters. And each one of us needs to be seen and heard.