I wrote about my concussion and my experience as a teacher with post concussion here. But that was a lot more about the teacher side of things. This post will deal with other issues that arose throughout my recovery. As my one year concussion-versary, I felt that it was time to share. Also… warning, this is a long post!
When I suffered from my concussion, I was lucky to have an amazing team surrounding me, which really helped in my recovery. But, I remember the first time I saw the neuropsychologist, I disliked him. Not as a person, but because he was telling me things about me that I didn’t want to hear. Things that I knew were true, but that I couldn’t admit to myself. I was in tears sitting in his office, wishing I was anywhere else but in that chair. I didn’t know it at the time, but this concussion was going to bring up so many feelings from the past couple years, things that I hadn’t dealt with properly, that I would be forced to confront before I was able to move forward.
My concussion happened 2 months into the school year. Previous to that, I was in another job. A job that I had held for 5 years and that I absolutely adored. But there had been changes in the management team, values and goals, and things were not going as well by the time I left. I knew that I had been unhappy, the reason I went back to the classroom, but it took being in therapy for my concussion to make me realize the truth. I had been fighting, unknowingly, with depression and anxiety.
Even now, it is hard for me to type this, to put it out there. I pride myself as being a strong, independent female. I have moved to new countries and new provinces knowing no one and have started my life there. I have lived through a near-death experience and fought off most of the PTSD that came with it. But the truth is, depression doesn’t care how tough you think you are. It doesn’t care that you have a life plan. And so, I am putting this out there, because I need to share my truth - what you don’t see in my posts on social media.
When I was told I had to be on leave for an extended period of time to recover from my concussion, I fought with the doctor. I pulled out every excuse I could. There are no TOCs, I can’t be gone that long from my students with report cards coming up, it’s really not that bad. My family doctor was away, and so it was easier for me to convince the string of doctors that I was improving and that I should up my hours at work.
« You care too much about others in this scenario, and you are not taking care of yourself. As doctors, we took an oath to take care of you. We are looking out for you. » I heard a variation of this a couple times over the first 4 months of my recovery. While they were still being gentle with me. After my constant fighting, and trying to convince everyone I was okay, it changes to « What are you trying to prove? Who are you trying to prove yourself to? » And there it was, the sentence that all of a sudden made it all clear. I gave a little chuckle, and I finally gave in and told my counsellor about the previous year at work. I told him about things that I felt were normal at the time, but looking back, I had started to realize that there were issues. Lying in bed 20 hours a day give you time to think. So I thought a lot about the path that got me to where I was.
To make a long story short, there was someone in my work environment that had caused me lots of stress and anxiety, and dealing with continuous strenuous situations tore me apart. I wanted to be at work and do my best because I loved my job and had created a great bond with lots of the teachers I worked with. But I was constantly being told that I was bad at what I did, that I wasn’t dedicated, that I was unqualified. When I finally gathered up my courage to defend myself, this person started to cancel my workshops and change my job to working on other projects, while trying to hire a consultant to do my job « better » than I could. It was devastating.
And so, as I was dealing with post concussion syndrome, I always had it in the back of my head that not being at work, that not being there for my students, was proving to this person that I was a failure, that I wasn’t good enough. I was still trying to prove this person that I am a good teacher, that I am dedicated, that I am knowledgable. It took until 4 months into my recovery, after finally saying all of this out loud, that I was able to really start to get better. I took more time off, and stopped doing all the extras I was doing. I changed my teaching style. I accepted that I couldn’t control what happened in my class while I was away. I stopped trying to prove myself. I started to spend more time outside in nature. And I started to heal.
I am still working on this journey. Although I have very little symptoms left over from my post-concussion syndrome, I still have lots of « symptoms » from that year of not dealing with my feelings. I have been trying hard to notice signs of « relapsing » - overworking and forgetting about the importance of my work-life balance, getting down on myself when something isn’t perfect or done right away. Trying to accept the compliments for a job well done instead of ignoring them or saying thanks but telling myself that people are just saying that to be nice.
But most importantly, I have been more honest with myself and with others. I started to talk about my mental health more, and about how long it took me admit that I was struggling. I still have days where it is really hard to ignore all those negative thoughts, but I am so lucky to be surrounded by supportive people that are helping me with my healing.
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