Feeling Snarfly after a Bad Day
I had a stressful morning at work Friday. It had nothing to do with the students. I was stressed for unrelated reasons. However, because things have been going so well, I was able to recognize on the way to work that I was stressed. My experience last year, however, made anxious about how the day would go if I was less able to control myself in the classroom, which only added to the underlying unrelated stress and brought me pretty close to the breaking point. I took my paraprofessional aside before the day started and explained what coping mechanisms he was likely to see and to ask him, if it started affecting our classroom, to please tell me so I could get out of there and calm down. He seemed to get it.
We got down to the business of teaching and I settled into my routine. I could tell my stress level was still relatively high, though not as high as I had anticipated. (It certainly helped that the students were in good moods.) I did point out the self-calming tool I was using at one point (self-talk) because I was using it almost constantly. My paraprofessional smiled and shrugged in a non-verbal statement that I think I correctly interpreted as “that’s just part of you being you, no big deal.”
Feeling safe, and the passage of time, brought my stress levels down. (I didn’t get any resolution to the underlying cause of the anxiety.) What had been an overwhelming anxiety when I arrived at school was a nagging thought in the back of my mind by lunch time.
A stressful (or at least, stressed) day, but I came home at the end of it feeling quite good. Certainly a lot better than I anticipated when I left for work. Why? Because in my classroom it's okay to be Autistic and be a teacher. Because I can use my coping mechanisms and other compensatory tools, even when they don't look 'normal' and still have the respect of those I work with.
Yes, I'm feeling pretty snarfly right now, even after a bad day.
We got down to the business of teaching and I settled into my routine. I could tell my stress level was still relatively high, though not as high as I had anticipated. (It certainly helped that the students were in good moods.) I did point out the self-calming tool I was using at one point (self-talk) because I was using it almost constantly. My paraprofessional smiled and shrugged in a non-verbal statement that I think I correctly interpreted as “that’s just part of you being you, no big deal.”
Feeling safe, and the passage of time, brought my stress levels down. (I didn’t get any resolution to the underlying cause of the anxiety.) What had been an overwhelming anxiety when I arrived at school was a nagging thought in the back of my mind by lunch time.
A stressful (or at least, stressed) day, but I came home at the end of it feeling quite good. Certainly a lot better than I anticipated when I left for work. Why? Because in my classroom it's okay to be Autistic and be a teacher. Because I can use my coping mechanisms and other compensatory tools, even when they don't look 'normal' and still have the respect of those I work with.
Yes, I'm feeling pretty snarfly right now, even after a bad day.