Stress

Distractions needed…

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I have been busy distracting myself. Today’s panic attack made me realize this.

This year of work, has been a hard year for the whole school. For months, it felt like a doom cloud was cast over everyone. Morale tanked, in the staff and many students, solutions that were implemented to mitigate this made things worse for a while, and it wasn’t until about a month ago that I, personally started to feel a bit of positivity.

I have been having a hard time focusing on what should be focused on lately. I have a few days left to get report cards finished, and I have not been able to focus on those. I find myself trying to steady my mind everyday and get work done, but some days I just stare at the computer screen with my headphones on for hours. I haven’t even been able to focus much on D&D, which is my usual distraction.

During class time I try to focus on helping the children and explaining things, but as soon as their individual work begins, every sound or action grabs my attention, and tears me away from what I need to be doing.

Last week I had my formal observations, which I felt was terrible. I was trying to help the kids, and focus on the students I was conferring with, but the rest of the class must have picked up on my lack of focus, because as soon as the principal was there, they couldn’t focus. I had students dancing, making airplanes, playing with the class calendar, every action except what they were supposed to be doing, working on their fairy tale story that they are authoring.

Today during lunch, I had a full on panic attack. I was watching the cafeteria, as was my duty, but suddenly my heart began racing a mile a minute, my legs grew weak, and I had to sit down. I couldn’t breathe. I had to close my eyes and focus on breathing for a good 5 minutes.

…and then an hour after lunch, I had my meeting with the principal about my observed class. He was reassuring that I was doing everything I was supposed to do, and to not let it bother me, but I still just felt terrible.

I need this upcoming holiday.

Stress & ADHD

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As previously mentioned, I have been under a lot of stress lately. Some of it professional, some of it personal. I have been weathering it pretty well, considering. I have some good friends at work I can talk to about my difficulties. Some of the administrators in my school know what’s happening, or parts of it. And some are just really kind people. Some are completely ignorant, or if they do know, they just don’t care.

When I started this school year, I promised myself I would focus a lot more on my mental health and try to not be stressed about a lot of things. I do my job, and then I go home to my family, and spend time with them, because that is important to me, especially nowadays.

One of the difficulties I am having, is I am ADHD. A few friends know this, a few guessed. And what this means, is that the more things that get piled on my plate, the more stressed I get, the less energy I have to actually do anything. This leads me to sit in silence sometimes at my desk. I try all my tricks to focus, listen to music, take periodic breaks. Make lists of what needs to get done.

The thing is, because I am trying not to overstress, and I am having a hard time focusing on my work. I am slower at my work. Which has lead to someone at my school to complain that I am “Too relaxed” and “Not focused” enough. Of course these comments make me more stressed, and sap my energy even more.

Here’s where I am at, and maybe some of you have the same problems. For each source of stress I have, my mind needs a separate side project to de-stress. one project does not cure all issues, each project helps me calm down and not scream from one stress source.

So I have several projects on the go. And each time my mind jumps to another problem, I switch projects, and one gets set aside. None of them get finished until the source of stress disappears. Right now, these are my current “projects”

  • Classroom Puttering (Rearranging posters, moving boxes in the back, and trying to read in my rocking chair, things that have no actual effect on the room.)
  • Diary of Julius Valarian (Keeping the diary updated, and writing new chapter/months)
  • Sorting and reorganizing D&D Magic Items into easy to use cards.
  • Rewriting (Yes you read that right) the monsters from the D&D 5E Monster Manual into a more “Monstrous Compendium” format to be printed out and added to the binder.
  • Converting BECMI Races / Classes to 5E
  • Retyping the Mystara Gazetteers and editing them for 5e.
  • Reorganizing my diary. I haven’t written in it for months, but I keep flipping through it, hoping I will have inspiration.
  • Trying to Plan out my next week of Work. (Rarely successful)
  • Re-Organizing my Homework System for Next year. (Requires going back over the last 3 years’ worth of homework.

There are honestly days that I just want to stay in bed, but I can’t yet. I am needed by my family to go out and take care of everything. I used to destress with board games or card games, but my teenagers no longer wish to play, and my youngest is too young for most of my games. So I am left in Limbo for a while longer.