Sunday, September 21, 2008

The people pleaser who continues to lose herself

I am a person who attempts to please, or sometimes appease, others. I've been this way for years. I don't want to put anybody out or make them cross with me, so I suck it up and try and do what others want.

It's exhausting.

I find that I still do this at work. I've agreed, because no one else seems to have done so, to allow another person to come and work in my room. There are already two people that work in the room for some of my day and now I am supposed to add in a third. It's making me feel crazy and I know it shouldn't but I don't want anyone else in the room.

I want things to be like they used to be when I didn't teach inclusion and I knew the damn rules. Now I feel like I am supposed to teach something I know nothing about. I'm trying to learn but I am way behind the curve here.

I don't want to have to tell another adult what to do with my students. I don't want to be responsible for anyone else over the age of 12. I can barely take care of myself at this moment.

I want to be left alone to do my job and not have to worry about how anyone else is perceiving me. I don't want to have to think out directions for another person or two people or more. It's all I can do to try and figure out what I am going to do. Not to mention that there is some sort of change in "how we do things" every flipping week now.

It seems like these extra people would be a help for me, and they are in their own ways, but I feel even more strongly that I have to be "on" now. I have to shine every minute of the day because there are other people in the room witnessing what I am doing. I feel like the more people there are, the smaller I become as a human being. I feel as if they are taking away my oxygen.

Every single person at the grade level feels the same way about the constant changes. They also have their own issues with families and other pressures. But, here I am trying to write a flipping sentence on the board and I can't remember what I am writing from the beginning of the sentence to the end.

I spent a good ten minutes earlier sobbing my eyes out in anticipation of another week floating on this ship of fools. The boat has a hole and someone is telling me to row but no one can tell me in which direction. I have one oar and it's stormy weather.

I desperately need things to change soon.

PS: I also had to call the fire department this morning to deal with an early morning issue that the on-site manager refused to deal with. I am so tired of trying to be the responsible person. I don't want people to say how wonderful I am at handling all these problems.

I'm not wonderful; I'm drowning.

2 comments:

Lisa Emrich said...

Changes can be exhausting!! Somewhere a line has to be drawn, don't know where or how, but somewhere.

hang in there!

pb said...

Are they supposed to be your aides? If they aren't doing anything other than getting on your nerves, put them to work.

Match them to a student who needs help. Have them monitor the kids while they are working. Give them the annoying, repetitive stuff that irks you.

I can sympathise. I have coworkers who just plain tire me out.