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I need school advice
My goal was to try and do my student teaching come December. Due to my mental failing I have fallen desperately far behind. I can try to catch up but the reality of the turn around time for the grading process is not on my side.
The ECT is kicking my @ss, too. It's hard to describe. I feel happier, but I'm in a constant state of paranoia and fear. Like something monstrous is going to come out of the woodwork and get me. You know how you feel when you get the startle response? Yea, I'm feeling that all the time. I'm totally expecting some lurking horror to come at me.
I'm going to work tomorrow and I'm totally not feeling stable, but I need to contribute to the household. I don't want to kill myself, but I want to build myself a fort out of pillows and hide there all safe and warm.
I stopped taking one of my anti-psychotics because the insurance company refused to cover it. I got samples from my Dr. and have started taking them again, but part of me wonders if this weirdness is because I don't have the levels in my system that I was used to and after I've taken it for a while things will be better. Or maybe this is the feeling that comes with having your brain zapped. I don't know.
But as for school, I could bust my but trying to meet the deadline at the end of the month and I have a slim chance of making it. Then there are factors like my demonstration fee that I have to come up with. It is all so overwhelming. If I don't try to make the deadline my term ends Jan. 31 which is plenty of time for me to do the work and I won't feel under so much pressure, but I wouldn't be able to do my student teaching until September and that pushes back my graduation date from June to December. That would put me in the middle of the school year when it comes time to look for a job.
But mostly it feels like such a failure. And here is where things start spiraling out of control. If I hadn't been hospitalized, if I hadn't started the ECT treatment- I was going to kill myself, and it wasn't an idle threat, I had motive, means and opportunity and an obsessional need to die. Now because I didn't follow through I've f'd up in school. I spent 19 days in the hospital and another near month getting ECT treatments, I've dug myself a hole there is no escape from. I can't concentrate. I never imagined how hard school would be because of the treatments. The more I think about it the harder it is to maintain my optimism.
I know I'm just whining. I need some one to tell me to suck it up and get the d@mn work done or give me permission to fail. It isn't going to cost me anything more to do my student teaching in September. I would just go on a term break until then. I could spend that time substitute teaching and get more comfortable in the classroom. But it will look very bad for me to withdraw from the January Cohort. They have already secured my placement in the classroom. Pulling out would look unprofessional.
I don't know what to do.
Re: I need school advice
Oboy.:( I am sorry for your troubles.
The last thing you should have done was d/c any of your meds.Call your doc tomorrow and straight away tell him what you did and why. Maybe he can give you something else to supplement it or whatever it is he needs to do pharmaceutically to help you.:(
What happened to you is not your fault. Please bear that in mind. This was bad luck and bad circumstances and you didn't mess around with school for the hell of it.
Is there any way you can withdraw for a semester or 2? The pressure may simply be too much for you; it's also tough to catch up during a semester if you've missed school due to any medical reason; a guy I know had an emergency appendectomy about 2/3 of the way into the semester and after that, forget it: the semester was more or less lost for good; he was a freshman at the time.
Wishing you the best. Hoping things get better for you.:)
In order of importance:
1. Personal Health
2. Family
3. Job/school
Taking time off or slowing down to take care of your health, is not unprofessional, and it's sure as hell not failing. It's being human, and a responsible human at that. Take the time to let yourself build back up. It's okay. It will be much better for you and your potential students if you feel healthy.
In the mean time, I think substitute teaching is a decent idea. It's not a terribly steady income, but it gets you inside the classroom, and making connections at different schools, and if you need to turn down a day here and there to take care of yourself, that's easily done.
As far as contributing to the household, I'm sure there are things that you do to contribute, besides earning money. But as far as finances are concerned, perhaps, you could see if your eligible for short term disability payments or something like that?
Also on an almost completely unrelated note, Carrie Fischer was on the View, yesterday talking about her new book which chronicles her own ECT treatments. So you're in good company.
I'm giving you permission to fail. Even though I don't see it as failure, because you're taking care of your health.
Remember what I said in a previous post? You need to take care of you first, and pushing yourself to meet a deadline that's unrealistic is not going to help you take care of yourself.
I don't think you would feel so bad about being behind in school if it was because of a bad car accident or something. As others have said, your health has to come before school. That whole thing is such a PITA sometimes. I pushed and pushed myself to graduate on time with a teaching degree after missing school for hospitalizations. It was all self imposed pressure. After I graduated, I wondered WTF I was in such a rush for. I vote for putting off graduation until December. This is not giving you permission to fail. It is empowering you to put your health first.
You know I am not about blowing sunshine up people's butts. I know that your courage to get treatment including ECT is an inspiration to many people including me, Please talk to your treatment team and your academic advisor. Do you qualify for financial help with medications? The antipsychotics are a beyotch to pay for!
Ok, usual lurker here, but if you will indulge me for a minute. I'm 52, and my daughter is 25. about 4 years ago DD was in college, and getting towards her last semester before student teaching when things kind of fell apart. I'm not sure of the details, because she was many hours away from me, but here it is in a nutshell: she recognized the fact that she was thinking about harming herself, so she went to the school clinic. (DD has an uncle and a couple of friends who have completed suicide, so she was smart enough to realize she needed help.) They got her help ASAP, but it turned out she fell a semester behind, and then ended up retaking a couple of classes due to failing grades in those classes. Her student teaching was then the Sept-Dec time frame. She graduated in December. In the end, she thought it was a better way to do things. She was able to get a teaching position almost immediately because there were several teachers that had to go out due to medical reasons, etc. So, she took over for a class, and then was hired on permanent into another school in that system for the fall semester.
I'm not promising you that this will happen, but just want you to be aware of the positive possibilities in this scenario. I'm keeping you in my thoughts.
Big hugs to you Damik, you are a strong woman and I commend you for getting help when you knew you needed it.
It seems (to me) that you are just taking on way too much right now. There is no right or wrong answer or advice in this type of situation. It just seems to me that after having such a major medical event happen that you might need to refocus for a bit & take care of yourself. It concerns me that you are adding more stress to an already stressful situation. The last thing you want to do is have a relapse over all the stress this is causing.
Please take the time to take care of yourself. When you are in a better place with your health things will fall back in line for you.