Melancholia

I had a nice experience a few weeks ago in which somebody wrote a post on their own blog about my blog. It was called "new teacher types" and it broke us (new teachers) down into type ones and type twos. Just now re-visiting that blog, I see some exciting-looking entries up about exciting-looking ideas that are being created ... and I'm here sitting in my classroom drowning in self-pity. That I created. I mine self-pity like it's a resource, like I might be the envy of all when I actually hit the mother-lode.

I have been given up on as hopeless. I come from a defeatist family and their aspirations for me are limited by their defeatism. I read about positive thinking and I don't stick with it. I am suffocating myself with negativity, and I don't even know if I want to stop.

I probably have no business teaching kids, because I am basically insane. I have tools and helpers that can rotate me out of the mess that I'm facing, but I tire of calling them; they're all ... they've all heard it before. And they've determined that I don't really want to help myself, that I'm too addicted to self-pity to really follow any of their well-meaning advice.

That above-referenced blog post was well-written and probably had some good points as far as it goes, but I think my problems go well beyond what was diagnosed--I think my problems are more likely to be found in the DSM for bipolar disorder. Which is to say that ... while I felt a little guilty or sheepish having named this blog "Melancholy Math Teacher" ... not as positive as I'd aspire to be ...  I guess in this moment I feel like it is titled about what it should be titled. "Bipolar" would be more accurate but "melancholy" gives it alliteration, so there you go.

I am lying to myself. I lie to myself all the time. I tell myself that I am a helpless victim. I try to pull myself up by my bootstraps to fix what's ailing me. I wonder if alcohol or drugs is the answer after all--I'm sober for over three years, but is that helping or hurting?

I'm having a midlife crisis, and I lack coping skills, and I lack the willingness to use the coping skills when they are presented to me. These are the whiny mutterings of an adolescent, but I am 36 years old. What am I doing with my life?

Sigh. Whaaaaa!!!!  Time to get to work.