4 countries. Almost 8 weeks.
Others may look at my life and feel jealous of me.
After all, I'm basically getting paid to travel and work remotely. Right?
But let me tell you, it's not as glamorous as it seems, not as glamourous as it could be.
Especially with the unwelcome, relentless company of the unwanted companion: anxiety.
Yes, I'm so grateful for the chance to travel and see the beautiful things I've seen. I'm grateful for the chance to visit friends and not have to deal with classroom management (in real life).
I'm most of all grateful for this gift of a little extra time.
But it's not all daisies and roses.
It's not like I wish it could be: work for a few hours and enjoy the majority of my time, embracing and experiencing real, true life.
But instead, the stress I've been feeling literally eating my soul over the last half year has intensified. I've never struggled so much in my life. Depression sucks. But I've never really experienced anxiety, or at least named it that, so I didn't even know what to call it. I just thought I had to try harder not to stress. Try harder not to cry. I had to mentally beat myself into caring less. But I just couldn't, no matter how hard I tried. Logic and reason revealed I was overreacting and crushing myself with this stress, but I couldn't seem to beat my obsessive thoughts into submission. I was drowning in the weight of them. They followed me everywhere and seeped into other areas of my life. I dreaded going to work, I dreaded the inevitable weekly breakdown. I hated how it affected relationships, sucking the life from them, and instead turning my presence into a wet blanket, raining on the party wherever I went.
I debated quitting since day 1, but I also couldn't bring myself to do that. I went to meetings and left feeling 1000 pounds heavier, feeling like I had gotten punched in the gut, just wanting to curl up. I was convinced something was wrong with me. Maybe I needed to pray harder, trust God more. Then maybe the mind-racing stress and anxiety would ease, or maybe even finally leave. But it didn't.
I felt like a burden. An annoyance to my colleagues due to my incessant questions and secret hope for affirmation. With the anxiety came a total loss of self-confidence and trust in my own abilities; how could I, the drowning mess, know what was best for my students?
I left for Christmas, more grateful than you know for the break. But coming back just intensified the anxiousness due to the disillusionment of the hope I had coming back. I wanted so bad to like my job or at least not dread it. On paper, it was an awesome job, but that didn't match up to my reality.
Then another break for Lunar New Year. A chance to get away and start fresh the next semester. New schedule, hopefully refreshed mindset, and hope. But the Coronavirus had other plans.
A 2 week vacation got extended and cut short at the same time. Midway through the break, we found out we'd be teaching online, so I lost half my vacation to figuring out how to use the online platforms and plan lessons for a group with English levels on all shades from black to white.
So stress began to threaten again. Determined not to give in, I tried to convince myself it was a positive thing, for although I was losing the ability to relax and block out school for the tail-end of my break, I was getting paid to learn how to use new technology. And I love learning new things. But that optimism was short-lived as the stress quickly overpowered and strangled any hope of positivity. It was all new...too much. Completely overwhelming. I knew in my mind that nobody cared enough to tell me I was doing a bad job, that it didn't really matter what I did, as the world wasn't depending on me pulling through, yet the anxiety started to overshadow everything. The fact that I knew I was the cause of this stress and that it was irrational only frustrated me. I felt completely helpless. Powerless to defeat the thoughts that literally plagued me.
On the outside my life looked grand. An extended stay in Vietnam, then Thailand because my visa ran out. Still getting paid, but working/teaching remotely. With someone I cared about and his brother. A perfect life.
But this silent monster I recently discovered may be anxiety was hijacking this perfect life and shoving my head underwater, preventing me from breathing, watching amusedly as I flailed and gasped for breath, trying to relieve the stress and grip of this invisible hand. Through a few conversations, I realized this invisible grip may be the potentially deadly claws of anxiety. Obsessive thoughts plaguing me, anytime I loosen the focus in my mind, it is immediately yanked to work. Thoughts that almost paralyze me. I don't know how to control them, but I can't keep living in constant dread, hating who it's made me become, and fearing that the anxiety will never end.
Maybe it's not something I can will myself to beat. So I've started reaching out. But this Coronavirus situation has made that hard. I'm working online, now from Germany, where I'm with someone who knows me and loves me, teaching live in the middle of the night. On platforms I'm still learning to use, teaching kids who have been inside for 6 weeks, sitting in front of a screen. I don't have a home. I'm living out of the school backpack I brought for my '2 week holiday.' I miss stability and routine. I don't know when I'm going back. My visa for China expired, so I have to reapply in Hong Kong whenever things calm down and schools have an opening date. All my stuff is in my apartment. I don't know if they'll ask us to work weekends and into the summer to make it up (even though we've been working extremely hard to do our best with this online learning). I'm living in someone else's space, so thankful for the friendship and hospitality offered.
You may have noticed that the first part of this is in past tense. That's in part because since I've been in Germany, the anxiety has slightly eased, and I'm hopeful that this is start of the road to getting healthy again. Yet I'm still constantly afraid it will come back with a vengeance, deeply affecting all aspects of my life. I want help, to see a counselor, but with all the instability and being in a new country (for who knows how long), it proves challenging.
I don't know what'll happen or where I'll be in 2 weeks. I'm trying to enjoy this 'extended vacation' during which I'm working extremely hard to curriculum map, lesson plan, design tasks, differentiate and assess learning of 28 kids who vary greatly in ability and independence, with no school textbooks or resources.
But in this time, I want to practice gratitude. In the midst of a seemingly losing battle with anxiety, I will choose to reflect on these things. Not as a way of humble bragging, but simply because in my current state, all I see is the negative, the lacking, the anxiety.
- Emmalee, who's let me invade her home for the foreseeable future, offering love and laughter and adventure in this new country
- a family who loves me and gives encouraging words when I need to hear them and says they always have space for me
- a boyfriend who is patient and helpful and supportive, even when the monster of anxiety makes me feel like a huge burden
- Time... to journal and reflect
- Opportunity to practice being satisfied with good-enough (as opposed to perfection)
- Some superstar students who are truly amaze me with their motivation and independence
- The Alps
- A few colleagues who have been truly understanding and supportive
- Beautiful mountains and hills
- Delicious Vietnamese and Thai food
- Hope
- A healthy physical body that can run
- Sunshine
- Water you can drink from the tap
- Coffee
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