Resignation

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

I’ve been reading the book, “What My Bones Know” by Stephanie Foo. Her book details how she was verbally and physically abused and neglected as a child.

The first few chapters were challenging to read because it was hard for me to stay with the feeling of discomfort and injustice Foo’s story stirred up inside of me. And yet that is exactly what makes Foo such an amazing storyteller. I felt outraged on her behalf.

While Foo’s childhood looks very different than mine, I could relate to her when she talked about her experiences with dissociating. What is dissociation? It can take many forms, but for me, it meant that I had unwanted flashbacks and felt emotionally numb most of the time. None of this was fun, but I thought this was just something you coped with after dealing with trauma.

Foo, who was also diagnosed with PTSD, states that there are things you just deal with because that’s what you’ve always done. But sometimes we reach that breaking point. What was Foo’s and my final straw? Losing work. Foo writes that she would have kept living the way she was as long as she “…hadn’t lost the thing that allowed [her] to believe that everything was fine. If [she] hadn’t lost work.”

We both walked away from our respective jobs of our own accord, and yet, speaking for myself, things had gotten to a point where it didn’t feel like I had a choice.

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This passage is from the chapter “Resignation.”

It was the last day of winter break, and I was pacing around the house. I was terrified of going back to school. Prior to break, things still hadn’t gotten any better. Roger was still acting out every day, and at least three times a week his behavior was so disruptive and violent that Anne needed to help me remove him from the classroom. Roger’s departure should have offered all of us some relief. However, it was only a matter of time before Anne needed to return to her students and therefore return Roger to our classroom, and we never knew whether Roger had had enough time to de-escalate or whether the cycle would start itself all over again when he returned to the classroom. So I waited with bated breath even when he wasn’t physically in the classroom.

I had been painstakingly documenting Roger’s episodes since November, worried that if I missed a crucial detail Roger wouldn’t somehow qualify for help. Every day I shared my documentation with Donna (Roger’s mom), but seldom did I get any response in return. Donna seemed appreciative of the time I was investing in her son, yet I also got the sense that she was barely holding it together herself, and the occasional “thanks” was all that she had to offer. The thought that I needed to continue this documentation process for another four months to justify the need for a paraprofessional for Roger made me feel disillusioned and overwhelmed.

On top of all of this, I was dealing with some health concerns. The children’s germs, the stress of managing Roger, the long hours – all of this had compromised my immune system, to the point where I had been dealing with a chronic sinus infection since October. Feeling desperate, I had done something I thought I would never do again. I took not just one antibiotic, but three in a row, all because I couldn’t imagine taking time off for myself. While the infection had finally abated over break, sleep was still evading me. I tried sleeping on my side. On my stomach. On my back. I put lavender on my pillow. 

My tossing and turning eventually woke Dan up. Rather than getting upset, he took my hands in his. And this one gesture, this simple, kind gesture, unraveled me. Everything that I had been trying to keep inside came gushing out. I told him that I didn’t know how I could continue to teach in these circumstances for another four months before Roger finally qualified for a paraprofessional. I also told him how my past was starting to bleed into the present and how terrifying this was. How the orbits of these two separate worlds were now colliding despite my best effort to carve out a separate, distinctive life from the first.

With these words now laid bare, the tears ushered forth. All of it came spewing out. My fear, my shame, my sadness. All of these emotions now hovered between the two of us.

Once my tears had run dry, Dan and I sat in the stillness. I listened to the beating of his heart. I listened to his deep breathing. And I tried to get my body to mirror his.  

When my ragged breathing slowed down, Dan put forth a question. “Could it be,” he asked, “that your body is trying to tell you what you’re not able to say aloud?” 

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“That you should resign.”

How could I admit that out loud? There’s no way I would’ve gotten to the point where I was today if I were a quitter. “But I can’t quit.” I started crying again. “Think of all the people I would be letting down. I just can’t quit.”

“Yes, you can. You’ve got to start taking care of yourself.”

I wanted to dismiss this. I wanted to think of different possibilities. Yet, at the same time, I recognized that my Taoist-like husband was coming the closest he had ever come to telling me what to do — and that perhaps it was time to listen to his wise words.

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I believe we all have that one thing that, if it were taken away from us, our ego and self-worth would crumble. For me, it was my job and my belief that I was a “fighter.”

None of us are egoless. But my journey has forced me to explore this concept more than the average person. As I searched for answers in books, I was especially drawn to Thich Nhat Hanh and Pema Chodron and their discussions about mindfulness, meditation, and the ego. In the book “The Places that Scare You,” Chodron states that, “…the truth [is] that nothing – including ourselves – is solid or predictable (99).” Understanding this on a deep level can give us glimpses into the state of impermanence and the concept of egolessness.

I didn’t recognize it at the time, but eventually I came to understand that I needed to work on healing. Healing can be a long process – and you’ve got to start somewhere.

Several months later when I was at a point where I could think about searching for a job again, I wondered if I could learn to approach things differently. In other words, would it be possible for me not to identify myself by and tie my self-worth to my job? I sure hoped so.