Neurodivergent AP instructor

 

I just want to say that you can still (if lucky) have a successful career as a neurodivergent person.  For example, I have wicked ADHD, depression, anxiety, and HIGH CHOLESTEROL, but I am still pulling it off and have since 1987.  Well, I got out for 6 years in the middle while I was less healthy.  I knew it wasn't working--I couldn't do both: I was teaching 160 kids (mostly AP) at a near-the-top Iowa high school the mom of a middle school boy and a third-grade girl. At least I couldn't do it well.  I find it interesting and lucky that I got back into the profession.  And (at another top Iowa school) I have been able to add an AP English program, been an NCTE teacher of the year (they pick like 10 a year) and published quite a bit in  the ENGLISH JOURNAL. I'm an AP Lang reader.  

Anyway, I have other struggles. My husband fell down a flight of stairs in late October and there have been lots of hospital and rehab facility visits and a tricky transition home. I still have  the job I love, but I am retiring this spring.  It kind of breaks my heart, but I have a long commute (50 minutes), and a challenging schedule that I love (AP Lang, AP Lit, and English 9). Did I mention I have a very manageable bi-polar diagnosis?

I'm guessing lots of teachers may be neurodivergent in some way. I would like to write a memoir about making it mostly work. I take my mental health very seriously, but I keep it on the down low for the most part--I'm treated and have a therapist that I talk to once every couple months as needed. I am proud that my kids' AP scores are high, and I believe I am an especially effective writing teacher. (My ADHD diagnosis is out in the open--it's the hardest to hide.) Who knows? Maybe people suspect the others, too? How much does it matter? I guess it matters enough to me that I have tried to hide it all for years. But I am retiring.  They're not going to fire me now.  Maybe this would not even be a big deal to most people. That would be nice.

If I made it sound like it's never a struggle for me, that would be an enormous misrepresentation.  I fight to function well on the daily.  I mean, teachers, we all do.  I read this post to my husband and my nephew and they were both like, "That's it?" They both thought I would go on.  I felt like it was a lot of it, to share that I am manageably co-morbid.  But here's one thing--I really over-respond sometimes. Like at least twice a week. For example, while someone else would send one email stating their stance with an admin, I will write five: the one that defends my stance, the one that defends being defensive, the one that is kind of an apology, and then the one that says, "Oh, I'm ok now." (There is usually one more.) 100% the truth.  Just today (on a Sunday morning!) I texted a colleague asking when she would be done with the copies of GATSBY. She wrote (logically), "I will check tomorrow." I wrote three more texts and an email explaining my justified worries. She finally wrote back, "I'm sure it will be ok!  I am on a 'swimming trip' with my family in Sioux City." She was so nice to me and she's on a freaking vacation weekend. I feel stupid. I do this all the time. For some reason, most people seem to forgive me (or at least make room for my "passion")--thank God.   And I am super defensive and super sensitive--even though treated for...all of it. Sometimes it's like I'm fighting a problem that I have imagined. It sucks.

 I am the only person I know who is incredibly anxious before classes start every morning--who has taught more than two years at least. (I heard Henry Fonda vomited before each performance he was so nervous, so I guess I resemble a Hollywood legend--a really dead one.)  Worst of all, I used to cry three times a week on the way to work. I work EXTREMELY hard to make up for the ADHD--I will be fiercely indispensable. 

So, I'm also crazy passionate about teaching, about student learning, about teaching comp. I can cover Poe or Steinbeck with the best of them.  I create new things almost weekly to use in class--I'm ever on the prowl for the next better idea.  I like validation partly because it means I'm doing "OK."  I told a the very straightforward principal at my current school when I first started, "I respond better to positive feedback." Who says something like that? He was careful with me after that. I feel that people think I am talented if not invaluable. But  I think I'm a handful and I wish I weren't. 

 I overall am pretty proud of what I accomplish--and not because I'm neurodivergent. It's because it goes well and they seem to learn a lot. Someone once said to me, "Think what you may have accomplished if you didn't have ADHD." But truly, maybe not half as much. Nothing makes me work harder at this job that I love than my emotional intensity.  And I try really hard to be encouraging and kind. Everyone needs that, I think.

My picture at the top is the most polished I have ever taken. I usually look more like the one below. 

If interesting to people, maybe more to come.