A Minor Ethical Dilemma
I've blogged about this before, but let me re-cap.
My current life involves a great deal of stress thanks to bad transportation arrangements (which I am lucky to have at all). I spend a total of two hours on the bus every day to go to and from a college that's 15 miles away. I spend another eight hours in a public, often noisy, often overwhelming environment. By the time I get home, I'm exhausted and somewhere from seven to nine on a ten-scale approaching "no brain function left". And then I have something like five and a half hours to clean the house, make dinner, and relax before I have to go to bed and start the next day. (Five hours might seem like a lot; but trust me, it isn't. Not when everything seems to take forever in a state of overload.) So by the time morning rolls around, a significant part of that stress hasn't dissipated yet, and I carry that into the next day.
Once I got used to school, the first few weeks were OK. I had enough time on the weekends to get into my special interests, relax, and get back to zero on the stress meter. I didn't have enough concentration left to do schoolwork, either in the evenings or on the weekends; but it was enough to survive. Eventually, though, without enough down time, it just kept on building up.
Week five, I skipped a day of class. It wasn't enough. On week 6, I attended classes on Monday, then nearly had a meltdown; by the time I was on the bus going home, I was crying and thumping my head against the side of the bus. (Not head-banging. There's a difference. This sort doesn't leave bruises.) I skipped school completely on Tuesday. On Wednesday I tried to attend school again, but it was raining and everyone's shoes were squeaking, and by 7:30 in the morning I had nothing left for the rest of the day. I even found myself growling at some random guy with wet, squeaky shoes... I sure hope he thought I was clearing my throat or something. I haven't actually hit anybody since I last tangled with my sister (who can give as good as she gets, trust me); so that was a bit of a wake-up call. I got a cab home.
I also skipped Thursday and Friday. I tried to do schoolwork on those days, at home; but I found I hadn't any concentration left. Today, Sunday, I finally have some of it back, and I've gotten a good solid hour of studying in already. I'll probably be ready to go back tomorrow--in fact, will have to, considering I have a test. (And missed all the review sessions, and a week of study time. And was behind to begin with, thanks to starting school a week late because I had to rework my schedule to fit in between those transportation times!)
So... the dilemma mentioned in the title of the post? Well, what do I tell my professors? Is it ethical to say that I was sick? Or do I have to explain the whole thing?
After all, if most people were to skip four days of class to do little more than eat, sleep, read novels, and play games, they would be considered slackers, and probably rightly so. Asperger's does give me a reason for what I did; but is it enough of a reason, or is it just an excuse? And is "extremely stressed out" even a legitimate synonym for "sick"?
My current life involves a great deal of stress thanks to bad transportation arrangements (which I am lucky to have at all). I spend a total of two hours on the bus every day to go to and from a college that's 15 miles away. I spend another eight hours in a public, often noisy, often overwhelming environment. By the time I get home, I'm exhausted and somewhere from seven to nine on a ten-scale approaching "no brain function left". And then I have something like five and a half hours to clean the house, make dinner, and relax before I have to go to bed and start the next day. (Five hours might seem like a lot; but trust me, it isn't. Not when everything seems to take forever in a state of overload.) So by the time morning rolls around, a significant part of that stress hasn't dissipated yet, and I carry that into the next day.
Once I got used to school, the first few weeks were OK. I had enough time on the weekends to get into my special interests, relax, and get back to zero on the stress meter. I didn't have enough concentration left to do schoolwork, either in the evenings or on the weekends; but it was enough to survive. Eventually, though, without enough down time, it just kept on building up.
Week five, I skipped a day of class. It wasn't enough. On week 6, I attended classes on Monday, then nearly had a meltdown; by the time I was on the bus going home, I was crying and thumping my head against the side of the bus. (Not head-banging. There's a difference. This sort doesn't leave bruises.) I skipped school completely on Tuesday. On Wednesday I tried to attend school again, but it was raining and everyone's shoes were squeaking, and by 7:30 in the morning I had nothing left for the rest of the day. I even found myself growling at some random guy with wet, squeaky shoes... I sure hope he thought I was clearing my throat or something. I haven't actually hit anybody since I last tangled with my sister (who can give as good as she gets, trust me); so that was a bit of a wake-up call. I got a cab home.
I also skipped Thursday and Friday. I tried to do schoolwork on those days, at home; but I found I hadn't any concentration left. Today, Sunday, I finally have some of it back, and I've gotten a good solid hour of studying in already. I'll probably be ready to go back tomorrow--in fact, will have to, considering I have a test. (And missed all the review sessions, and a week of study time. And was behind to begin with, thanks to starting school a week late because I had to rework my schedule to fit in between those transportation times!)
So... the dilemma mentioned in the title of the post? Well, what do I tell my professors? Is it ethical to say that I was sick? Or do I have to explain the whole thing?
After all, if most people were to skip four days of class to do little more than eat, sleep, read novels, and play games, they would be considered slackers, and probably rightly so. Asperger's does give me a reason for what I did; but is it enough of a reason, or is it just an excuse? And is "extremely stressed out" even a legitimate synonym for "sick"?