Thanks to the wonderful HR woman at work I have been given the rest of the week off. It is wierd but the moment the pressure is off I keep thinking to myself "Why was I feeling so stressed?" but then something little happens and I realise that I am not feeling better, I just don't have to perform like I do at work. It is amazing how much the little things help though. I cleaned the house today and it felt like it was the most amazing accomplishment. I just felt a bit more in control and a little less useless.

I heard from a friend that anxiety can be a symptom of frustration or anger. I can relate to that. I am not easily satisfied with life and I can lose objectivity with my own situation. I am determined to get to the bottom of this. I am realising that I need to work with who I am and not feel bad about it. I never thought I would have to deal with something like this but when I think over my life so far and some of my behaviours it isn't all that suprising.

My Mum said something very interesting to me yesterday. She said I have always taken responsibility for things which are not my problem, such as how my parents feel or problems at work. It makes me deeply empathetic but also means there is a very fine line between myself and other people and I often don't know how I actually feel or what I think about things. So these little insights are helping me to understand myself better.

I don't want this bol to turn into a diary of my own angst but it has been a bit like that already so I guess this is just a twist in this blog's identity!

Welcome to July! You may have noticed the generally negative posts I have been making over the last little while. Well, after a week or so of being in tears and not really keeping it together and months of feeling down, I went to the doctor. He was fantastic and listened to all my symptoms and diagnosed me with mild depression and an anxiety disorder. He was really encouraging about dealing with it and we are going to hold off on medication at this stage. The first step is easing my workload and then some lifestyle changes such as more excercise and eating healthier. I also want to invistigate seeing a psychotherapist. The doctor said that quitting my job would lead to more depression and I am sure he is right. I know that my personality and thinking patterns are responsible for a lot of how I am feeling and leaving my job would not actually deal with it at all. That is a pretty scary thing because it would be much easier to blame external factors rather than admit that I am my own worst enemy.

I have had a lot of friends deal with mental illness in the last few years and I have always known that I am prone to depression. However it is wierd being on the other side of the fence. I tend to be the friend who gives advice and listens to problems but it is impossible to do that for yourself when you aren't well. I am having to face the hard truth that it is very difficult to fix yourself and stay in control. I need to accept that I need help and support. Part of me feels like a failure but another part is excited about the freedom in recognising something is wrong and that I can't cope if nothing changes.

So tomorrow I am seeing the HR person at work to try and reduce my stress at work. I am hoping that I can keep it together and also explain clearly what the problem is. It is awful feeling that you have to prove how you feel and I know that all teachers are stressed. But I have to do what is right for me. So prayers would be welcomed that my hope for the future would be renewed and that I won't feel like a failure. It is a poerful thing to take control of your situation and that is how I want to feel.

Who came up with the working week anyway, that's what I want to know. I have realised that I don't actually believe in work. The idea of going to the same job everyday so I bring home a pay check so I can buy things at the weekend and then go back to work on Monday seems rather depressing. I freely admit that I am a very people person and rather idealistic so the reality of the need for money is not as immediate for me. That is not to say that I don't worry about paying the bills but my paycheck does not motivate me to do my job. I feel like the financial system we are working in traps us. How can we do what we are passionate about, spend time with family and friends, be servants to our Churches and communties when the working world seems to have such a rigid view of what work is? Job sharing, glide time and contracting can offer some flexibility but not everyone has those options. I think there needs to be greater recognition of the rythms of life and a holistic approach to employment. I know that it sounds like pie in the sky, especially for those who are self employed but we have choices and the economy is a human system, even though it often seems to work against us. Paid parental leave is an example of what is possible when people demand that their real lives are recognised and supported.

For me, I dream of being able to work hard in what I am passionate about but still feel like I can participate in non-paid work which is important to me. Now I need to have the courage to risk moving outside a mainstream way of doing work.

Expectations are tricky things, expecially when they are of yourself. I tend to have really high expectations of myself. Not necessarily in the the things that matter. I tend to expect to be able to fit everything in, to be totally organised and to have everything under control. As is probably obvious these expectations of myself are completely ridiculous. There is no way I can fulfil them. And you know what the strange thing is, if I had to sum up what I really think is important in life, being organised just wouldn't be very high up the list. But actions do often speak louder than philosophy.

What I find scary is the possiblity of changing the ecpectations I have of myself. I feel that if I expect "less" in the way of quantity of work, organisation and how people see me I will be lowering my standards and being lazy, or even worse, that people may think less of me. And I think that's what it really comes down to. Caring what people think instead of what I know is important in life. I know that the only way to combat this form of self oppression is to look to God's opinion instead of people. The trouble with that is that I have no idea what God thinks of me. I know it in the general sense, I know I am loved and that God desires me to grow to be more like Christ through the Holy Spirit. But I don't know how Jesus would say "No" in a work situation or cope with the stress of deadlines, multi-tasking, family and being "healthy".

So I guess I come back to the fact that maybe I need to recognise I am only human and I stuff up a lot and maybe humility is really the answer to it all. Let me know if you have worked out how to be humble but also maintain good self-esteem which is not based on what you DO but who you ARE. I think I have been working on that for most of my conscious life and it still has me completely stumped!

Mmmmmm no answers here...

Hope you like the new look. I just looked at my last few posts and the titles are a little frightening. So many say that I feel stressed and too busy to post and that I feel guilty for not posting. That is so silly. I choose to blog and I want to get my thoughts out there. Not because they are that profound but that I like the idea of shared insight into life. So much of Western daily life is so individual and it is wonderful when you realise that everything about the human experience is shared. Shared pain is so much better than pain alone. Sharing pain may not fix it but it helps lift the weight a little. I have had a few experiences recently which have really showed me this.

On Sunday a friend knocked at the door with a care package of goodies because some of the women at Church knew I was stressed and understood how hard that is. I am really holding onto that at the moment and it was absolutely fantastic to remember I am not the only person who struggles with work stress.

Tonight I was at a meeting with other teachers and just by chance we all started sharing about how many times we have cried at work and in front of classes in the last little while. Heaps of us had and we talked about the fact that we cry and then think "No-one can help me with this. Pull yourself together" and just get on with it again. I guess it is worrying that we could all relate to tears at work but it was comforting to know that I am not going crazy and everyone finds it tough.

Last night I had a phone conversation with a friend and we agreed that we are both having mini-breakdowns, or at least personality/work/who am I crisis. So again, I am not alone.

Tomorrow I still have to go to work and keep it together and keep on top of stuff but at least I do that with a whole lot of others who are barely getting by, just like me. So I don't know how to make things better yet but I hope that together we can work it out.

I am at work and it is a holiday weekend! Hrumpf!
But I have had an epiphany about work and me and my attitude to it.

It all started earlier in the week when I was reading "I have a dream", the Martin Luther King Jnr speech, to one of my classes and I just broke down in tears. Now I have to admit that that speech often leaves me a tad weepy but this was ridiculous. I was a sobbing wreck and had to get a student to take over. This turned out to be quite funny in hindsight as there were so many words the student couldn't read but since they didn't want to disturb my sobbing they had to skip over them which meant much of the meaning of the speech was lost. At the time I wasn't really seeing the joke though.

It was one of those weepy moments when you doubt your own sanity. I had no idea why I was crying and was not really sure if I could get it together to teach the rest of the lesson. After a quick trip to the bathroom and a stern "pull yourself together" look into the bathroom mirror, I returned to my class and carried on the lesson, telling the class I was "a little overtired". My students were great and just let me get on with it. I realised afterwards that my tears were the result of hitting the wall. Work had been piling up and so had the pressure. I have been saying yes to things which I really don't have time to do. Also my lack of motivation and doubt about whether I really want to be teaching had resulted in cumulative procrastination so that I felt as if I was drowning under it all. It is amazing how your body just says "Enough is enough", and lets you know you need to deal with things.

So I am at school this weekend so that I can get on top of my work because, though I am not sure how much longer I want to do this, I am doing it now and I am going to do it well. No more saying yes to things just because I am unsatisfied with what I am doing now because that just results in awful stress and enotional colapse. I am trying to get back into being motivated just because something needs to get done and not expecting to necessarily have much fun while doing it. I feel that I am being taught another one of those "how to be a grownup lessons" about followining through with something I have committed to and learning how to persevere. Again I am learning not be ruled by how I feel about things. Instead I want to have greater integrity and not to be so fickle.

And I am actually enjoying feeling like I am doing what needs to be done adn I am not in denial any longer about it all. I hope that I can manage the demands of work and the time I need with friends and family and myself. But for now I am redressing an imbalance so it might just be work, work, work for a little while.

I am having a rather full on couple of weeks at work. Exam marking, report writing and a filming and editing a video. Making the video has been fantastic. It is so satisfying to create something from scratch and it was really nice to just sit still and focus on just one thing for a couple of days. I know most teachers feel like they never really have time to focus on anything for very long. It seems like continual multitasking, which can feel very frustrating and draining.

I have always struggled to deal with how busy it gets at school sometimes. I just feel overwhelmed by everything and feel helpless to do anything about it. But I am getting better at just breaking it down into small parts and just knocking away at it. Every deadline is pretty flexible in teaching and it is really easy to sweat the small stuff. So here's to keeping a lid on the stress and surviving another crazy week at work!

I had a lovely coffee with a friend today. She really challenged me about taking on too much. Her Grandma once told her "a need isn't a call". I feel often at work that I see things which need to be done and I feel like no-one else is going to do it so I should. Sometimes I even feel like I would do a good job! But often a I say yes because I think someone should do it. I have always been a good starter but a rather useless finisher and I always take on too much. My friend challenged me on my plans for later in the year. I want to reconsider whether I should be taking on more work towards the end of the year. But when the issue is service to others rather than work it is hard to draw the line and make some boundaries.

I spent every summer of my teenage years at these wonderful horse riding camps. I credit these camps and the leaders who sacrificed their time for them, with me being a Christian now. So now that I am older I want to keep giving back to the organisation. But my job involves kids all year round and do I really want to spend another week in my holiday with kids? It is a tricky issue because if everyone who has been involved decides they are too busy or stressed no-one else will benefit from the blessing these camps can be. However a need is not a call and I need to decide whether I am being called.

Boundary setting is such an issue for me and when I am to lead an intergrated life without faithless spaces it is hard to know where to draw the line so that I can actually be healthy, in the most holistic sense.