I've shared some of this with a very small handful of people here, but I think sometimes people here have a view of me outside of this place that might not match up with reality.
When I was in grad school, I battled depression on and off. I never had mood sings or anything to classify as bi-polar, it was just sometimes I had things to take my mind off how shitty life was, and sometimes I didn't. Then in a two week span I: defended my dissertation, graduated, and had a job interview where I either knocked it so far out of the park or the other person didn't and they offered me the job the next day. This started what was probably the happiest year of my life (May 2012 - Sept 2013). I had a job I really enjoyed, I worked with a great faculty, and had some of my favorite students. What this highlighted, however, was that I probably could not make strides in non-professional areas of my life. I realized that my only hope of finding wife-grade material (for me at least) was if the school hired a single woman. It was rural, and it was making it hard to do some things I like doing. I was starting year two of a two year contract, and I was having an honest conversation with a coworker about my uncertainty of wanting to stay in the area, and it I didn't realize it at the time, but at the table behind to me was the school Provost. When I applied for the tenure-track position, I was only given an interview because it didn't cost the school anything - I was later told that the search committee was pressured to find a candidate who wasn't going to leave them doing another position search in a few years (as an aside - it generally costs even a small school upwards of $7000 just to search for a position, on top of tons of man-hours). I was kind of bummed, but I understood and I probably would have been looking for greener grass so I got their POV.
That left me looking for a job, and I landed a one-year position at a school in Florida. On paper, this was a step up in terms of academic prestige. The first two months at work were ok and the non-work issues I had in S. Carolina seemed to be resolved: I was very happy geographically with what was around both in terms of things to do and quality of the dating pool. Then, the wheels started to come off. The faculty at the school was largely unsocial and more uptight than a straight man on his first night in prison, which was completely the opposite of my first job. After making payments on my old house in Virginia I had on the market for two years, I realized I couldn't keep paying for two places, so I stopped paying the mortgage (no choice) and eventually it got foreclosed on, so my credit is ruined. Since moving is expensive, I didn't want to move, so my boss at the school got me the job I had last year - more on that later.
The first week of class after Thanksgiving, one of my students came in my office and closed the door. YOU NEVER CLOSE A PROFESSOR'S DOOR unless you are told to do so. I was trapped in my office. He proceeded to tell me that I ruined his life because he was getting a low C in organic chemistry, that he wouldn't be able to get into med school and that he was going back to his room to kill himself. He then left my office. I immediately call campus security, and they get to his room where he had a loaded gun. If he decided he was going to take me out first, I would have been dead. Guns on campus are a touchy subject for me as I was a grad student at Virginia Tech when the shootings happened there, and one of the students killed was one of my students. At this point, I'm a mess. I don't want to go to work or my office any more. The school got me woefully insufficient counseling.
The second semester I fell apart. I was barely functional some parts of my job, and I had several meetings with the dean where I got bitched at about falling behind on grading and not teaching the class the way the full time professor wanted it done, despite having proved the previous semester that my methods were as effective or possibly more effective based on the national standardized test we give for a final exam. Finishing the year there was such a relief.
So, in order to try to restock my savings, I was given a job at a private high school that my boss at the college was on the board of directors. It actually paid more than what I made at either college, and I was assured that the students were the tops in the county. While there were some really bright students (a few Ivy league students), I would say that about 2/3's of the student population were spoiled rich kids. The administration has neutered the faculty, and if you want to keep you job, you don't give C's, and you better have a damn good reason if you want to give a B. I refuse to participate in grade inflation, and was not renewed due to "student performance". In the past four years, no students had earned a 4 or 5 on the AP Chemistry exam, and only four (out of 48) got a 3 on the exam. Out of sixteen students, I had one 5, two 4's, and four 3's. The rest of the students were Chinese students who probably would have done just fine if the exam was in Chinese, but their English is so poor they really don't stand a chance. Those scores just came in, so that was after the decision was made to not renew me. The kids liked me, the faculty liked me, and most of the parents liked me - but I gave kids the poor grades they earned and the administration was just tired of them bitching. The administration is so incompetent there that they had two teachers quit mid-year, and had 12 others decide on their own not to return, including a teacher that had won "Florida Teacher of the Year" at her previous school the year before. She left to go back to public school after one year at the crazy house.
So right now, I am packing to move because my housing lease ends at the end of the month. I have had two interviews that I am waiting to hear back from, but both told me I would hear from them by July 15. I have no idea where I will be living in two weeks. This move will deplete my savings again. I'm almost 38, single, have a fuckload of debt, my career is in reverse, I am overweight with two shot knees from injuries that make even jogging semi-dangerous, and I'm smart enough to realize what a shitshow my life is and that I'm pretty much an underachieving fuck up. After having dealt with a friend's suicide when I was younger, I can't put anyone though that so don't worry about that. However, if I had terminal cancer, I don't see that as suicide, so I really wish I had an inoperable brain tumor so I had a reason to just go wild, travel the world while I still had my mental faculties, and then OD on morphine in Oregon or whatever the closest state that allows mercy killings for terminal patients is.
If you read all of that, thank you. Here is a cookie for your patience. Also - please do not say anything about this on facebook. Part of my problem is I need to keep pretty much all of my family in the dark on this.
Topic: The Mental Health Thread - Depression, Anxiety, Bipolar, etc. (Read 4213 times)