Suddenly the fog fades

 

Suddenly the fog fades

For as long as I can remember I have been plagued with depression and out of control anxiety. And its never a mystery when I am feeling smothered by them, because you have hear it in the words that I write on my socials, and while I feel like I am pretty good at masking in person, my writing is my give away.

The last post I wrote was about how much I regretted working at my daughters daycare. I mentioned a lot, but refrained from saying much more. Which I will explain, but my wee girl as 3 weeks left there and I am afraid of them passing negativity about me on to Chloe. What has happened though, is that I got a new job. Most of you know that already, a lot of you don't. 

Getting my new job was an absolutely wild experience. During my work at the ECE centre, I was so desperate to get out that I was applying for 10+ jobs a night. I was applying for anything and everything so I didn't have to feel anxious and cry every day before I started (and more often than not, after). I was applying for admin jobs, because I needed a job that would support the wellbeing of my family. And I'll be honest with you, I had lost my confidence as a teacher. After failing since November to even land a single interview in a school I wondered what people were seeing wrong with me. Slowly but surely I lost every bit of self-efficacy and told myself it's because I am not good enough.

Not long after I started looking for jobs, one of them came back to me. It was the Office Manager job at a local school in Henderson and the interview went so well! While I was interviewing, the lucky people who got to endure my ADHD interview said to me "I can see you're a provisionally registered teacher", to which I replied, "Uh yeah... I finished my training in November. But I have had no luck finding a primary school to support me through my BT years, and I need a stable job just to have work/life balance. Which I was NOT getting in my last job."

And so, I had a second interview within an interview. I was given a tour of the school, told what it was all about, what their mission was, and in essence I was sold a dream school for me. I have always wanted to work with children that needed more than just a teacher. The children needed someone to be on their team. For a lot of students at my school, they have some pretty hard home lives and challenging educational and social needs. The idea of my new school is to break barriers to education, to give every student a real chance to their learning journey by removing any cost (lunches are always taken care of, free uniform, all the stationary they need and very low class sizes). I was almost sold, but my time at this other job had knocked my confidence and had me questioning if teaching was the right choice for my family at this time, knowing that with my three wee mates there will be a lot of sickness and that means a fair bit of sick leave (as every parent of toddlers knows). And knowing how much leave I may need to take I hesitated to take the job, I didn't want a repeat of 'they who will not be named'. 

So I set off home, and told Tony about this strange change of events, and eventually we agreed that teaching at this school was going to give me what I wanted and worked so hard for. Still, I was nervous until I met the Principal in person and we talked about my fears. He assured me that family will always come first. He told me to write down my 3 most important things in the world, and if one of them was work then I best scratch it out and replace it because nothing comes before family. That's it, that's all it took for me to take the job. The culture, the school ethos and values, the support and everything else screamed at me to take the job. And I did. 

And here is how its gone so far, I feel supported and valued. I feel trusted to do my job to a high standard, the kids are sassy and think I am both a total dork and actually quite fun. I have legitimately had to take time off work already for my sick kids and the only response I have had to taking days off was "Family first, see you tomorrow!". I have had my praises sung for making deep relationships with the kids already, and being able to plan fast, take on extra tasks, and quickly just become a part of the furniture. 

Am I nervous about teaching year 7-10 math? 100% absolutely. But I have proven reslience time and time again. I love to teach, I love the endless possibility of what we can do within maths, I love these kids creative minds and energy. I love challenging and seeing the "ah-ha!" moments when they get something. 

And so, with this long winded chat, the fog of depression has lifted again. Everyone always told me the right school would come along, and in the depths of my sadness I was always responding with "BUT IT WONT, IM USELESS, NOBODY WANTS ME". Well to anyone I said that to, I take it back because you were right. Onwards and upwards!

Some things my children said on the last day of term:

"Miss, when you call me love or sweet... it makes me feel really good."
" Whaea, are you staying here forever? I think you should, I would miss you if you left" (DW girlfriend, I'm on a permanent contract you're stuck with me until you go to high school lol)
"Whaea Catherine, I think you're our second favourite teacher in the whole school" (WDM SECOND!? Challenge on. I'm only second to their academic manager so I guess thats only fair. Thats still higher than the other teachers lol.