What a beautiful thing it is, to be able to stand up, dust the pain off my shoulders and say, “I was traumatized in the process of advocating for my students, but I have learned and I have healed and I am ready.”
I didn’t know if I would ever be ready to teach again but in the middle of October, I started feeling a sense that the time had come. Since the majority of my post-traumatic stress disorder was acquired through decisions in conversations outside a classroom but within a district setting, I was unsure of how my mind and body would respond returning to an actual classroom. While the trauma of being removed from my students and community is real, there is a difference between sadness and trauma. Sadness is a real and really painful emotion that lets you know what you miss and what you care about. Trauma, specifically if it turns into ptsd, is your mind and bodies way of trying to keep you safe from being hurt… wether that be emotionally or physically.
For about two years I lived in an intense state of hypervigilence, something I hope to never experience again. I wasn’t sure how returning to the classroom was going to impact me. In fact, I prepared for the chance of being re-traumatized… just because you never know and I’m a planner 🙂 My gut assured me I would be fine but I still felt some fear. I took the chance knowing what I would need to do to continue the healing journey and knowing I had the right supports in place.
Love and safe relationships heal all different kind of adversity in life… There is a lot on my healing journey that I take credit for, but even more that I don’t, Behind the strength I acquired to walk back into a school was an immense amount of love, time, faith, grace, and support from a few core people in my life..and I don’t know where I would be without them. What allowed me to feel safe and strong on my first day back was perhaps a beautiful coincidence or a gift from God… because I couldn’t have orchestrated a more healing experience than the one I was given.
Safety- the most important thing for trauma survivors. I was in the classroom of someone I know and trust, while in the building being ran by the beautiful human that inspired me to become a teacher… subbing in a self-contained, EBD classroom. Even knowing that, the night before I slept about 3 hours and was worried I would forget what to do. What if there is a crisis? What if I the kids are out of control? What if the sub plans don’t make sense to me? What if technology fails? So many “what-if’s… I haven’t read up about educational practices or tuned up any teaching strategies since I was forced out of my classroom and I didn’t know what skills I still had, what skills had been lost in the ptsd… what parts of me might had been lost as well.
Turns out, I didn’t lose any of my teaching skills or strategies… well with the exception of content design on the fly 🙂 and I might even be more empathetic and understanding than I was before. I felt and made some really strong connections with a few of the kiddos and it regrounded me in this: not every thing happens for a reason, but you can find a reason in every thing for why what has happened, has happened. It’s up to us to create, find, and believe in that reason, it doesn’t just appear because we think it will… it’s up to us to be the searchers of light.
I still don’t know the reason for every thing that’s happened or the role it’s going to play in my life some day. But what I do know is every day, especially on my first day back into the classroom, I see glimpses of the reason… in all the new relationships I’m forming, experiences I’m having, and opportunities that await. Healing isn’t linear and resilience doesn’t happen over night, but I do know, what ever I’m struggling with, or you might be struggling with, can and will beautifully shape us into the people we’re meant to become, even if we can’t see who that person is yet.
And on another bright note…I’m basically booked solid for the next month 🙂 so much more healing and outfits to come!
with kindness | ashley