reckoning

Well, I accept it. I need medication for my anxiety.

Because hopefully, anxiety is what makes me see myself as wholly unloved and unlovable. I'm not convinced when any of my "friends" tell me they love me, because it just sounds hollow, like they're including me in their events and gatherings out of obligation or gracious kindness. But it doesn't feel terribly kind.

I've been essentially abandoned by the people who did claim to love me, the ones I genuinely believed loved me; they're gone without explanation.

I'm surrounded by coworkers who avoid conversation with me. My students are resisting nearly every task I ask them to do.

And I notice, this is how I feel about this time every year. I know already that I desperately hate my job, that I'm more than over the nature of the industry and the shoddy way our administration "manages" things. The subtly corrupt things, the glaring sexism, the ridiculous accountability I'm forced to assume, I want out so badly.

Knowing myself better, taking a long hard look at myself, as I'm obliged to do from time to time, has offered me some insight. I live in the moment. I am transparent. I am passionate and sensitive. I have anxiety and it makes so many things difficult. Anxiety turns into depression frequently, and though I realize it's a sickness of habituated thinking, it is a sickness nonetheless. I want very badly to do the right thing and be a good person and perform well at my job. I want to impress the love for learning and for the system of life into my students.

I don't want to battle them every fucking day just to accomplish this. I don't want them to lie to me, to criticize me, to attempt to sneak things in a way that insults my intelligence and demonstrates what little respect they have for me.

It's impossible to be breezy and take everything in stride when there are so many of these kids and they so plainly couldn't care less about anyone but themselves. They are so desperately emotionally immature. Not a surprise, of course, because my students are this age every year. But I'm weary of this battle. This age is tedious and feckless. They are ungrateful. They are sarcastic and ignorant. They value nothing beyond social status and immediate pleasures.

I hate who I am around them, battling them. I am not winning. I am imploding. I am rotting. I am ugly. My passion for my subject is obscured behind my frustration and confrontational attitude. I am the worst possible version of me and I hate myself for it. All I want is to get away from this horribly toxic environment, and yet, I'm supposed to stay here and perform perfectly for the next seven months.

The only thing, I've discovered, that makes me feel as though the yolk of teaching is off my shoulders, is medication. In half an hour, I hope to have a prescription for something that might just salvage my sense of self and my job performance.

Does self love come in a pill?