Compassion fatigue

The other day i was having a discussion with Annie (John's sister) and I brought up the idea that "i care way too much." with everything i do... especially with teaching. I get completely wrapped up in my job to where it makes me literally sick to my stomach. i mean literally. my acid production gets out of control but i have high amounts of stress and then my stomach lining inflames for awhile. (as much as 3 months as i have discovered before. horrible!!). I go home and can't sleep. My eating habits go from not being able to eat at all to eating everything that I can reach. I tend to take EVERYTHING to heart.
My kid's problems.
My kid's performances.
My school's expectations.
My school's lack of expectations.
My student's futures.
My future.

I can't keep my mind from thinking at night.
I just sit in bed and think and think forever. I think about what I can do the next day to make the kids better. How I can motivate them. How I can better myself as a teacher. I read articles. I talk to other teachers. I post in forums. I spend lots of my own money buying shit for my kids...
and then in the end I feel the only thing I get in return is exhaustion.
It's REALLY hard to focus on the benefits when you can barely keep yourself from drowning in everything else.

So, when Annie told me about Compassion fatigue it was like my eyes were opened up to a whole new world view. Holy crap that's what I have....
I didn't do research on it until tonight even though we spoke about it a week ago.
It was when I came home from work and I felt the pressure building from school.
My kids are having their winter concert in 2 weeks. I don't feel completely prepared. I am giving the kids 110% and only getting about 20% from them. I work my ass off day in and day out and then I have kids who don't turn in practice records, who roll their eyes at me when i ask them to do simple tasks, who steal items in my class, students who constantly expect hand outs, students who complain about their hard lives when they have no idea about anything I have been through.
I am sorry, young person, that the stress of school is too much for you.
Try finding the love of your life dead in bed.
Now feel better.

that sounds not so compassionate, right?
Exactly.
I feel like teaching is making me more and more immune to the compassion I once held.
It's one of those things I still debate in my head... when I cry at movies that have animals dying and yet sniffle a little bit when people die in films.
What the hell is wrong with me???
That isn't right, is it??

Compassion fatigue is common with nurses, doctors, and people who deal with wounded military vets or children with disorders or deformities.
When you become overexposed to these things you start to lose your passion.
A passion you once had. immensely. You poured your whole being into this passion. But in the end you started to get tired of it... because it wasn't having the pay off you thought you deserved. I know being compassionate isn't always about getting something back. But if you go a long time giving your whole self and don't get any sense of reward... you can't help but start to feel a little apathetic.
compassion fatigue, folks.
Look it up.
It fucking exists.
It sounds a bit made up.
for people burnt out. for people who are too lazy to endure life's hard times. for people who can't deal.
Kind of like ADD or ADHD.
Being a teacher my lack for respect for these "medical" terms has gone completely out the window.
Your child can't sit still in a classroom?
Yeah, they're 10? and they can't sit still??
Oh, they are taking intensive reading and are deprived of physical activity? they go home and play video games and you feed them chocolate for breakfast? AND THEY FUCKING CAN'T SIT STILL? NO SHIT?!



anyway,
now that i have been looking up compassion fatigue it makes me wonder if that's what happened to some of my friends.
That my burden was eventually too much.
and they got burnt out on caring, trying to cheer me up, etc.
and now i feel bad. because i was THAT burden.

But many have never given up on me.
They carry the burden.
and it's something that i can never quite repay them for.
but one day...if anyone ever needs me too...
i'll be there.

and maybe these kids need me after all.
or maybe one day i need to take a new path.
towards a new direction.
a new passion.
or maybe it's time to re-kindle the one i already have.

panacea, please

I AM SOOOO OVER FEELING LIKE CRAP.

I mean.
It's kind of my fault.

I haven't totally been following my bland, stupid diet. But I cut out a lot of stuff. I haven't had spaghetti in almost 2 months now. do you know how odd that is for me?! That I am deprived of the cheapest meal to make? Not to mention I make one mean pasta sauce... filled with lots of garlic... which is also a no-no when you have gastritis.
Coffee?
Non-existant.
:(
But luckily I have found out about the Caramel Apple Spice drink at Starbucks!!!! It's pretty much liquid crack. Order one next time you go and see for yourself. Thank goodness I bitched about coffee on my faceboook so my friend told me about it. Thanks, Lindsay. It's been helpful. but, I still miss coffee. I miss having options. I miss having the freedom.
I miss pizza.
Well, kind of.
I miss having the option to buy it when I am tired after a long day of school and I just want to throw my hands in the air and say "let's just get a pizza, damn it."

So.
I work hard all day.
And in my mind as I go through my dad I pump myself up by saying "just think, Autumn... only __ more classes until you get to go home and spend time with Ryan..."
And then today I am driving home and suddenly I feel so super dizzy I honestly consider pulling over. I make it home... it felt like an eternity to get there. Every red light was complete torture. I walk in the door and Ryan is there to greet me. And I pass him to go straight to the couch and collapse. And then the migraine/stomach aches begin. I threw up a couple times.
It's just horrible.
And i felt so bad because honestly all i want to do is spend time with ryan and he spends his time with me just taking care of me.
This is NOT what I consider quality time with each other.

I feel like I spend all my energy at school and by the end of the day I just running on fumes. That I have just enough to get to my house...and then commence the collapsing. I have just enough time to recuperate when the weekend comes... and when the week comes again I am exhausted.
Sometimes I contemplate what it would be like if i hadn't gone through the grief of john.
I am sure that this stomach issue would have never been an issue... at all.

My doctor the other day told me that what's happening is that I have not completely healed. That my body is still reacting to the grief. still dormant inside of my body. And when I stress... my body is my first warning sign... the first reactor to the tension. So, i am supposed to "relax" and "calm down." (um, band directors can do that????) she also told me i need to stop making doctor appts (and appointments for biopsies and ultrasounds). ... because that's also adding stress.
then she handed me a card for a counselor. it's still in my purse. i have it on my "to do list"
"call counselor"
i have been meaning to.
i am not avoiding it... i just dread the cost...and the time... and the re-hashing... exposing my tragedy again... making it fresh to someone new....


i have more things to work out.
for the sake of my body... which is yanking on my sleeve saying "we're not quite done yet..."

does anyone have a lifesaver?

Ya know... some days I come home and I can seriously look back on the day and think "that was a good day..."
And then there are days (and these have been frequent lately) where all I can do is reflect on things that have NOT gone so well and how I dread the next one.
School is draining. It's sucking my life away. And my energy. And my enthusiasm.
I am so overworked with the new school.
These kids are father behind than I thought... and I have a lot to get done and never enough time to do so. I actually broke a school record and used my alloted copies for the YEAR in one WEEK.
12,000.
I MADE 12,000 COPIES IN ONE WEEK.
AND I HAVEN'T EVEN STARTED TO COPY MUSIC!!!
My principal must hate me....
and I have tried to butter him up... the other day I brought in some hot sauce for him called "liquid stoopid." and noted that it was because "i had been stupid."
I feel like as time goes by they try and make teaching more and more difficult. Nothing is getting easier. Even with all the technology. IT'S A JOKE.
Technology just gives us MORE shit we have to do.
Make a website, make a slide show, edit these videos, turn these in online, do this online course, check out this podcast, do this and that...
have a request? fill the form out online.
have a problem student? find their info online.
ugh.

Now I am just bitching.

When the stress comes so does the next phase... the pity party. woe, is me.

Oh, and tagged on to that I had a nice dose of guilt! My favorite of all.

Ya see, I have a problem.
I am a people pleaser.
I always want others to be happy.
My goal is to make others like me and love me.
No matter how thin I stretch myself out.
So... I agreed to babysit my nephews today (not knowing how horribly shitty the day would turn out or that I would spend 2 HOURS after school making phone calls to parents...)
As I rushed home to let my dog out before heading out to John's parents. (yes, they are HIS nephews...and I still consider them mine too) I started to feel the looming cloud of despair gather above my head. And as I parked at my apartment I felt the rush of heat hit my face and then the next step... the tears. I walked in the door and collapsed on my couch and just cried. and it was the loud kind. the kind that you would never want to record yourself and hear because you would be like "is that a dying animal?"
The kind that gives you a big headache.
 (which i am still waiting on this tylenol to kick in...)
So, John's mom calls about me coming over in the middle of my breakdown and I am still blubbering and crying and she tells me to stay home and cry it out and come over another time.
and this is the guilt part.
i can't pull myself together to go watch the boys.
i can't help out the people who have always been there for me no matter what.
and now i feel like i am letting them down and annie down to boot.
and so what do i do?
i cry harder.

i hate always living with guilt.
for fearing losing people i love because of stupid mistakes i make or commitments broken.
i just don't always feel as dependable as i once was.
i feel exhausted.
i feel selfish.

And i feel deprived of time.

and so pity party resumes.


to top it off.
ryan and i are having work schedules that conflict.... and our time together isn't what it used to be.
and when we do get together it's usually dinner and then bed.
or dinner, tv and bed.
most of our time spent together is spent asleep.
we are both always so tired and i don't know what to do to get us active because I barely have energy to type on this keyboard.

Im drowning.

Endoscopies and other fun things

So,

I got my endoscopy. Turns out that I have gastritis.

Now, that makes me sound like a really gassy person. But that's not what it is, folks. haha

It's basically in inflammation of the stomach lining. You can find out more about it here.

So.

No more soda. fuck.

no more tomato based anything. shit.

so.... THAT PIZZA AND COKE I HAD THE OTHER DAY... BAD IDEA!!! I went home and it felt like someone was taking scissors to my insides. gross. that was a weird analogy.

So I have my follow up appt. with my doctor on Aug. 1 and then we will talk about the endoscopy (they also took a biopsy) and my thyroid.

So, I guess these issues with my stomach and my thyroid have put a spike in my anxiety. I have been having some hard nights lately in the sleep department. Well, not like that has changed that much but I do feel like there was a period of a few months after John's death where I could actually sleep ok. In fact, sometimes I looked forward to it. Now, I dread sleep. If it weren't for Ryan I would never go to bed. I would be an insomniac.

Even times when I am completely exhausted my mind won't let me rest.

Last night I had a pretty bad panic attack.

I had a semi-dream (because I still kind of felt awake) that I was having a heart attack.

when I woke up I had sharp pains in my left arm.

Of course this makes the panic worse because that's a symptom of heart attack... but it's also a symptom of panic attack.

Panic attacks make you feel like you are dying.

It's very traumatic... to go through this all the time.

And very exhausting.

I hate living in fear. Fear of death and how I will die.

fear that when I close my eyes to sleep I may never open them again... just like John.

so, i have been taking my clonazapem almost every night now.

It's something I haven't had to do much until recently.

I think it's the stress of starting a new job. Having to re-start my life again. You have to think... 4 schools in 5 years!!!! That's a lot of starting over. That's more schools than some will ever go through before they retire. I have been around. (school wise)

So, tonight I am going to let the Lunesta butterfly take me away and not deal with wondering if I am going to have anxiety or not. I will just sleep it through.

I long for a time when I feel free of this fear. free of anxiety and stress. free of worry.

I long to have dreams again of fancy free times and not wake up from nightmares where I lose John or where I am dying.

I think a first step towards establishing this new inner peace is praying MORE. I don't pray nearly enough and it's evident.

The other night I asked ryan to pray with me and he did... right before bed we held hands. And I felt a sense of relief after.

The other thing I need to do is relax more.

Tension runs in my family.

I have a high strung mom and dad. So, alas here I am.

I let EVERYTHING get to me. God picked the wrong person to be a widow.

So. Advice of stress relief is appreciated.

Yoga may be a start but I have had times when i am hanging in weird poses where I think I am gonna pass out... I rather have massages. But, then it's the money thing.

So.

How to de-stress on a budget????

here we go again

I tried this post yesterday. Wrote it all out and then deleted it. So, we have all been there. the frustrations were high and i was a bit over it. i was a bit over yesterday.

yesterday i couldn't get out of bed. i made one attempt...went downstairs and conquered emails that were filled with john's dad throwing back and forth ideas about living situations, etc. Stuff that at the time was over whelming me.

But I did have one good thing to look forward to. SUMMER DEFERMENT CHECK!

I log on into my bank and there's NOTHING there. now, i didnt get paid for the last two weeks of school because i was out of sick leave and wasn't there. so, i get that. but where is my summer pay? usually about $4,000???

I called around everyone i knew and finally someone pointed to me our online pay stubs. i hate that you have to access them online now and I feel like a complete idiot looking at the fine print and getting frustrated (like my dad) about the taxes part of it.

I guess my paperwork for deferred payment never went through.

I freaked out!!!!!!!!!!!

No summer pay.

And I am supposed to move, pay rent, and live.

Because we have made the commitment (me, andrea and kelly) that we will have found a place to live by July 15.

And hopefully in that span of time we will have jobs for all.

But I was not prepared for lack of summer pay. Or else I would have saved up more... and maybe not paid off my school loan in a lump sum. that made john so happy. he was all about dave ramsay and being debt free. he even had me chant something about being debt free. john's mission in life was to ;live out of debt. it's mine too.

but what do people with no money do?

and then the anger kicks in.

if john were here we wouldnt have to go through this. this summer deferment check thing wouldn't mean anything because we would still be living with his parents... planning a wedding on a budget... and I would be able to get part time work at Universal to take care of anything else. It's not his fault. Poor John. He would never want me to be in this situation. He always said he "wanted to take care of me." I guess I am back to doing that on my own. And I am not as strong as I thought I was.

I called an airline today to receive a refund for John's flight to MN with me (on my credit card). They said they can only issue that if they receieve a copy of the death certificate. I haven't even seen the death certificate. I was in tears. It was awful. A piece of paper that officially says John Seay is no longer a living breathing person on this Earth.

The paper it isn't is the paper that says Autumn and John are now officially husband and wife.

kiss the bride and so on and so forth.

i would have loved to see him in that tux.

andhis nephews coming down the aisle with the rings and kenzi throwing flowers... sassy as ever. Evan would have caught the bouquet for sure because the way things are going now I have feeling she is next anyway.

john's apple tree is still alive.

he planted it in the backyard. it took him hours.

the soil here in NC is hard. and he had a shovel and his manual labor.

sweat. blood. tears.

that tree got planted by golly.

and it lived!

AND IT HAS THIS SEASON'S FIRST APPLE.

i went outside and looked up at it and cried.

John's hard work.

still alive and producing something.

i am going backto FL on wednesday.

it's going to be tough.

leaving my family... who I have become so comfortable with and so connected to these past few weeks.

i will meet with andrea that night and this will be the first step in our new journey.

a journey for all three of us to find ourselves again. it's like college all over. except no classes to go to and no squeaky bed.

there will, however, be plenty of cats, cooking, and secret garden.

it has to be.

pray for me and pray for us.

just dont stop praying....

i took extra ambien tonight and wrote this. i may regret this tomorrow?