Renee B
Mental health issues related to work can pop up at any time, and sometimes without warning. Let me share what happened to me.
About 5 years ago, my grandfather died by committing suicide. As with many suicides, it was very unexpected. He had not shown any suicidal inclination before that, and he did not leave much of a note afterward. His family knew he missed his wife, who had died maybe 10 years prior, but nobody realized the depths of his despair. He died by shooting himself in the heart. I felt as if I had a good relationship with my grandfather, so I was pretty upset by his suicide. However, I felt as if I had managed it well emotionally. As time went on, the pain and confusion and sadness abated, and the guilt wasn’t pervasive. I moved on.
About 2 years ago, I was at an opening day institute where we were receiving ALICE training, which is a program for schools to follow in the case of an active shooter. One of the exercises included listening to audio files to see if we were able to tell the difference between a gunshot and other sounds, like fireworks, thunder, and cars backfiring. As we were all sitting there, listening to these sounds, I felt myself becoming anxious. It was an odd feeling, this anxiety welling up inside me, one I had never felt before. Then a thought popped into my head: “This is the last sound my grandfather heard before he died.” Suddenly, I was crying, shaking, and hyperventilating. I stood up and ran out of the multipurpose room in which we were all gathered (it was all the staff for my whole school district). I tried to calm myself down in the hallway, but it wasn’t working very well. My superintendent -- an incredibly kind soul -- came out into the hallway and checked on me. He was able to talk me down. I was shocked and, honestly, a bit embarrassed. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. I chalked it up to a one-time thing and decided not to worry about it.
A few months after that we had another institute day, where we were receiving mental health training. I knew the issue of suicide would come up, but I assumed that since this training did not specifically involve guns I would be okay (since it was the gun shot activity that triggered me previously). While watching a video of a suicide survivor sharing his story, I started to feel the anxiety rise in my again. This particular survivor had actually jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge and lived to tell about it. One of the things he said was that after he jumped, he had a moment of clarity where he realized he did not want to die. After he said that, a thought popped into my head: “My grandfather didn’t have the time after pulling the trigger to change his mind.” And I proceeded to have another full blown anxiety attack.
Once I calmed down I decided that maybe I was wrong about having processed my grandfather’s suicide, so I started seeing a local counselor. It has made all the difference in the world. She took me through a number of valuable exercises and discussions to help me understand what was happening to me and how to manage my grief.
All of this is being shared just to show that mental health issues for educators don’t always come directly from the educational environment, which is stressful enough on its own. Sometimes things from your personal life creep in and impact your educational world -- and when you least expect it, as well. It is important for anyone who works in education to take care of themselves emotionally as well as physically, otherwise it just isn’t possible to be the best possible teacher you can be for your students. Do not ever sell yourself short and think that taking care of yourself means less time for others. It is quite the opposite. Taking care of yourself allows you to give so much more of yourself to others, including those little souls we teach every day!