If I Start Wearing Purple at Work, No One Will Get It

Last week, I fulfilled a years-old curiosity: I went to see Gogol Bordello.

If you've never heard of them, Gogol Bordello is a Gypsy punk rock back from NYC, and they sound exactly like you'd expect from that description.  If you've heard of them, it's probably for "Start Wearing Purple":

Just about every tattoo parlor I've ever been in has them playing on repeat in the background. They've made documentaries about their band and added their bizarre sound to a variety of eclectic movie soundtracks, and they have more band members than I have fingers.  Years ago, the frontman was the lead in the movie Everything is Illuminated, opposite Elijah Wood, and spent the movie (as far as I can tell) being himself.

The band lives for the stage; they tour relentlessly, almost nomadic like their Gypsy-inspired sound, and they are known and loved for their on-stage performance and energy.

Even though I can only name the one song, I've always wanted to see them.  They live as a constant presence in the back of my mind, all tumbling chords and pounding drums and cheerful accordions.

So when I got the opportunity, I bought tickets immediately.  Poor Bishop -- he didn't have a choice; he was going too.

We drove to the venue a few nights ago with the same repeated sentiment: This was an experience.  If the show was awful, we'd leave, but we needed to see them.  Needed to experience it, just to see what it was like.  If the Wikipedia stories of their insanity were true.

They were.

By the second song in,  frontman Eugene Hutz had produced a bottle of wine from somewhere and proceeded to tear the cork out with his teeth.  He waved it around as he danced, unbuttoned-to-his-waist shirttails flying, while next to him, a 70 year old music professor positively wailed on his electric violin.  By the end of the concert, he'd broken half the horse hairs of his bow.

By the fourth song, their second-best known called Wonderlust King, the little kids and the braless women surrounding us were losing their shit dancing, the kids up on the table next to us as their parents danced behind them.  The according player on stage stood on top of the speakers and made faces at the audience while he gave Weird Al Yankovich a run for his polka-loving money.

The opera singer came out next, wearing a steam-punk floor-length orange leather jacket over leggings and binoculars, her stunning voice soaring over the Russian pouring from Hutz's mouth.

Then came the brass section, four guys in white shirts and Beetlejuice-stripped black and white pants that I quickly realized had been hanging out with the audience before the show (they'd been right behind us, actually - how was I supposed to know that the pants and the lime-green headband meant they were in the band??).  These guys, complete with trombone, trumpet, saxophone, and baritone, proceeded to rock the next three or four songs until Hutz took a break to take off his military jacket -- and then the saxophone player got into a duel with the violinist in the most insane, talented display of playing I may have ever seen.  The saxophone player could match every note of every arpeggio rolling off the strings, something I didn't think was even possible outside a symphony.

Even the frontman couldn't resist, and when they booted up the next song, wine bottle in hand, he waved all the horns back out, the opera singer produced an enormous marching band drum, and the drummer himself came out front to sing.  His white shirt was stained pink by the end.

The drum ended up in the audience for the finale, Hutz standing atop it to alternate between conducting the audience and the band (and the bouncers right behind him to catch him if he decided to crowd surf).  The crowd itself was so loud, and so enthusiastic, that when he aimed the mic to let the venue sing the refrain, I could actually understand the words.  That just doesn't happen.

Don't judge the quality of my smartphone camera :) 

And then the lights went purple.

I've seen a lot of fabulous concerts over the years -- I've seen Davey Havok walk across the hands of a mosh pit and Chris Cornell sing a duet with Chester Bennington.  I've seen Dave Mustaine rock the solos of Hanger 18, Bruce Dickinson climb the speakers to wave a British flag during The Trooper, and Gerard Way force the audience to pray to his dead grandmother.  Hell, I've seen Ninja Sex Party cover Asia's Heat of the Moment and Papa Emeritas conduct his ghouls with GHOST.

Gogol Bordell wasn't better than all of those, but it is rare that I've seen a finale with more excitement, more energy, than the refrain to Start Wearing Purple.

It was an experience I wouldn't trade for anything -- but it did throw some things into sharp relief.

Bishop went with me; like me, he was curious about the rumored energy and theatrics of this band, and like me, he was not disappointed.  But... he is the only one I shared this experience with.  I didn't walk into work the next morning excited to share the story with anyone; no one asked.  No one cared. They talk about cholesterol levels and church gatherings and grandchildren, and only rarely do they ask about my life, my interests.  My coworkers and I don't exchange stories -- we exchange problems. We aren't friends.

So though I like my job, my new career, I miss my old... life, really.  I miss seeing my friends on a daily basis.  I miss having people to eat lunch with and share stories with, that daily dose of empathy and laughter that always bolstered the necessary courage to deal with the rest of the day.

I am lonely at work in a way I wasn't expecting.

This isn't necessarily bad -- everything I'm learning requires so much work, so much effort and sheer concentration, that I don't have much time for fan theories or discussions over character development in Stranger Things 2.  Being on my own is freeing sometimes because I can push myself further, faster, than I've ever done before.

I'm going to need it.  In less than two months, I'm starting the job search once again, this time looking for a bigger, more professional place to really grow now that I've kicked down the IT door.

Maybe, just maybe, I can find a place with people I will love, people who want to talk about Thor: Ragnarok and argue about which new Star Wars movie is the best and swoon over all the UST between Dean Winchester and Castiel.

And if I'm really lucky, one day some coworker will ask what I did last night, and their face will light up when I brag that I got to see Gogol Bordello, and I can start wearing purple to work again.

Promises and Relief

A year or so ago, I made myself a promise.

I knew I had anxiety at that point - had for almost a year.  Instead of dealing with it, I did something unhealthy.  Not drugs or hurting myself or anything like that -- I just pretended it didn't exist.

I didn't change my exercise habits.
I didn't change my eating.
I didn't go to the doctor.

I just left it alone, as if it would somehow go away by magic.

But in the very back of my mind, where I pretended I hadn't noticed, I made myself a promise:  If I wasn't better in a year -- after changing jobs and some time to adjust -- I would get help.

That point passed almost a month ago.

Two months ago, I stopped sleeping.  It had happened before, here and there -- I'd have a night where I got only 3 hours of sleep, or I'd lay in bed trying to fall asleep for hours.  It wasn't unusual.  But suddenly I was having trouble every night instead of just one or two nights a week.  When I'd stopped sleeping before, the accompanying exhaustion usually cycled into being so tired I couldn't keep my eyes open, making sleep come easily the next night.

Not the case this time -- this time I didn't sleep, or couldn't fall asleep, or couldn't stay asleep, for almost a month.

When my husband insisted, I gave in and called my doctor.

Within a week, I had an appointment, and an hour after arriving, I had a diagnosis:  Mild depression with accompanying anxiety.  My doctor talked with me for a long time before writing me two prescriptions, Ambien to help me sleep, and an anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication for my mental health.

It was an overwhelming relief.

I walked out of that office thinking that I should have gone to the doctor years ago.  That I shouldn't have suffered through months of anxiety alone.  That, yes, I could end up on this medication for a year or five or for the rest of my life, but it will be worth it if I can flip off this anxiety/depression switch that I don't know how I turned on in the first place.

It's been a month, and I haven't noticed a ton of change yet.  This medication is a long-term gamble -- it's common for it to take six weeks to be even a little bit effective.  Reviews online suggest that wait is worth it; it has some of the highest reviews for anxiety medication out there, higher than Xanax and Prozac and all the personality-numbing stuff I was afraid I'd be prescribed.  Side effects are mild too -- I had a headache the entire first week I took it, but since then it's been pretty manageable.

I have a week or so before I hit four weeks of taking it, a few more before I get to six and a follow-up with my doctor.  Just because I haven't noticed a change yet doesn't mean it isn't coming.

I remain hopeful it will.

I wasn't expecting to be put on medication.  I walked into that appointment expecting to be told to fix my diet, exercise more, sleep more, and come back to see if that helped.  But if this works, if this helps... if I can sleep again, write again, enjoy myself again... it will be worth it.

In The End

I knew it was bad when my best friend from high school messaged me.  It had to be -- we haven't talked in close to two years, haven't seen each other since her wedding.  A message from her could only ever be because something had happened, and likely something bad.

I was right.

Her message:  "Oh my god.  Chester Bennington is dead."

I did the first thing any sane person does in 2017, and I googled it.

She was right.  Bennington was dead, and the news was saying it was a suicide.  It was what would have been Chris Cornell's 53rd birthday.  Just like Cornell a few months earlier, reports said that he had hung himself.

My world bottomed out a little bit.

This friend and I talked a while longer.  Years before, when we'd been freshmen in high school, Chester Bennington was who brought us together in the first place.  We were sitting in study hall, maybe two weeks into the new school year.  I was working on something, maybe, when behind me I heard a heated discussion about hot guys.

Naturally I was interested, so I started eavesdropping.

I didn't interrupt until one of the girls behind me said that the lead singer of Linkin Park was gorgeous, especially the flame tattoos on his arms.  At that point, I couldn't help myself; I twisted around in my seat and demanded, of total strangers, "Oh my god, are you talking about Chester Bennington?? I love him!"

And a friendship was born.

It petered out eventually, as most high school friendships do.  When we talked a few days ago, she mentioned that she hadn't really followed Bennington's life or productions much since high school.  It makes sense -- when high school ended, though we went to the same college and majored in the same field, our lives took dramatically different paths.  She went preppy and party-girl and pop, and I went tattooed and writer and rock.  She dated a string of jocks, and I married my high school sweetheart.  She embraced social media and attention, while I mainly use facebook to catch up via messenger and post sarcastic comments.

We are not the same people we were when we were 15, but Chester Bennington still unites us.

I first discovered Linkin Park during a dorky "teach your classmates about a band" project during 7th grade.  No, I did not talk about LP; I talked about Creed, because I fashioned myself to be super angsty when I was 13.  (I also did not understand the intense religious imagery until I was far older, but that's a different essay.)  Some other group, full of douchebag boys if I remember correctly, did Linkin Park.

They played "In the End," and I was hooked forever.

Roughly 18 months later, Meteora came out.

I could not rush my mother to the local Borders to buy it because I was home with the flu.  Instead, my dad bought it for me on his way home from work that night.  He was so grateful that I was into rock and not the Rod Stewart/James Taylor crap my mom liked that I'm pretty sure if I'd asked for a Korn album, he would have bought it.

Meteora changed my life.  Before that, I didn't know that music could speak to a part of a person that nothing else touched.  I didn't know that music could embody pain, or heartbreak, or all the turmoil that could surround a person's life.

When, a year later, I realized my parents hated each other after a screaming fight one morning before school, I turned on Linkin Park.  In the months that followed, as more and more fights filtered upstairs through the air vents in my brother's bathroom, fights that he and I listened to with growing apprehension and dread, I kept turning on Linkin Park.  I didn't understand that "Breaking the Habit" was about Bennington's ongoing issues with substance abuse; I just understood that I wanted whatever was happening with my family to end.

On mornings after particularly bad fights -- which were fairly routine by my sophomore year in high school -- my dad and I listened to Numb on repeat while he drove carpool.

I followed all the side projects and experimental albums in the years that followed.  Somewhere, probably in a drawer in my mother's house, there rests a copy of Reanimation, and the DVD "Live in Texas" that I watched on repeat because LP somehow refused to travel to my hometown.

I saw the first Transformers movie almost exclusively because "What I've Done" was recorded by Linkin Park.

"Minutes to Midnight" was the first digital album I bought -- the college town where I lived didn't have a dedicated music store.  I remember burning it to a CD so I could listen to it on repeat while I drove home.

Then at Thanksgiving 2007, my parents finally, officially, separated, and Meteora went right back into my CD player for the next year.

There were days that year when I didn't listen to anything except Linkin Park -- I needed the familiarity of albums I'd loved for years, but I also needed the pure, heart-wrenching anger of Chester Bennington's voice.  The man could sing like no other, but there was always something primal, something beautiful and raw about his singing.  Like he felt every word down to his bones, like maybe, just maybe, he hurt like I hurt, and when you're 19 and your mother tells you that you don't count as part of your family anymore, you need someone else to hurt with you.

In summer 2008, Linkin Park finally came to my hometown as part of Projekt Revolution.  My CB-obsessed friend and I went together, a last hurrah of our friendship celebrated with our favorite band. As we sat on the lawn of the amphitheater where they played, neither one of us knew this was the last real time we'd be friends.  We just knew we were fulfilling the dreams of two 15-year-olds who didn't have a clue about the world, and loved the band that had introduced us to its hardships, and its power.

I know now too that that fact that they traveled with Chris Cornell was no coincidence.  It was the only time I saw either man live.

So many important things in my life have their roots with Chester Bennington and Linkin Park.  I learned to love tattoos because of the flames that licked up his forearms.  I first understood just how much drugs and alcohol can fuck you up because I read about how LP almost broke up in 2006 due to Bennington's substance abuse problems.  Anyone who knows me knows I don't drink; they probably don't know that, while today it's because I don't want the calories, when I was in high school, I never drank because of Chester Bennington.

I followed Bennington across music -- I listened to Dead by Sunrise because he was in it, and while I'd always liked old Stone Temple Pilots, I started listening to their new stuff again when Bennington replaced Scott Weiland as the frontman in 2013.

I remember how disappointed I was when STP made him tone down his vocals so he sounded more like Weiland, and less like himself.

And the only reason I ever saw Crank was because Chester Bennington plays a junkie that tells Jason Statham how to get the adrenaline he needs.  It's a two-second cameo, yet totally worth the watch.

I won't lie.  I've never heard The Hunting Party (2014), nor did I buy One More Light (2017).  I probably will now, just because I want to hear Chester Bennington's voice again.  I want to hear the emotions close to his heart before we lost him.

I have dealt with mental health issues for most of my life.  I lived through high school in a fog of depression -- never diagnosed because it started in 2003, before the push of understanding mental health in adolescents, back when an acceptable response to my going to my parents for help was for them to say, "What do you have to be depressed about? Just be happy."  And that was the end of it.

I pushed it away in college because I didn't have a choice.

But Linkin Park has always been there when things got rough.  I was fairly stable until late 2015, sent into a downward spiral that ended up with me leaving the teaching profession by active shooter training early in the school year.  I went home that day and listened to Hybrid Theory on repeat while I did kickboxing and kenpo, anything to feel like I could handle things again, like I could be strong again.

When I lost a student later that year, I played Meteora, and Numb in particular, on repeat every day while I drove home.  I'd sit in my classroom in the mornings and cry because I'd lost a student and my students had lost a friend and I had no idea how to deal with any of it.  I'd accumulated plenty of new music in the years since Meteora was my lifeline in high school, but that didn't matter; Chester Bennington's voice, his frustration, his anger, his furious refusal to give in, his determination to keep going, was what I needed to heal.

I am heartbroken to know that, for him, it was not enough.

I have dealt with mental health issues for years, but I have never reached the dark and painful point of considering suicide.  Once, in high school, I remember thinking that things would be easier if I just wasn't there anymore -- that I wouldn't have to deal with anything if I just wasn't around.  I never pushed past that, never got to the leap between 'not being there' and doing something to make it happen.  I never started cutting or other self-harm activities, and I never did anything that would actively put myself in danger.

I was very, very lucky.  I asked for help and didn't get it, but I was okay anyway.  I survived.

When I struggled with depression and anxiety again years later, as I still do today, I knew better.  I had a support system in place.  I knew how to ask for help and get it.  I knew how to manage it in my daily life, and when I didn't, I knew how to educate myself.  It didn't make the experience less painful, but it meant I wasn't alone.

I can't know what Chester Bennington's life was like -- what he went through on the inside, what his support network was like, how many times or ways he may have asked for help or chosen to remain silent.  I can't know what his pain was like, or what pushed him to make the final, horrible decision that he couldn't do it anymore.

I can know that he was hurting, in ways we have all hurt.  And I can know that I will miss him forever, because what he did for music, and for me, changed my life.

Rest in peace, Chester, and thank you.

An Opportunity

On my second to last day of school, my department took me out to lunch to celebrate.

It was what you'd expect -- lots of hugs and toasts and congratulations as I change careers. There were conversations about where I'm going, and why I decided to leave, and not a few people mentioned they'd never once thought I was unhappy.  One colleague called me a lifer, like teaching is a prison sentence.

That right there tells you a lot about my mindset.

When someone inevitably asked what I'm going to miss about teaching, it took me embarrassingly long to answer.  Eventually though, after kicking around about a dozen things I won't miss, I settled on the people.

It's the truth: I will miss my colleagues and friends at Herbert High.  It's been a great place to learn and build a skill set, an awesome place to make friends, and for a lot of people, a place to spend their entire careers.  Many of my colleagues in my department have been there for a decade or longer, and they are happy there.  I will miss all that.

And this stands in stark contrast to my new job, where I will know no one.

That's the most important part, which I keep reminding myself: I have a job.  It's not the job I thought I'd have, the one I've been writing about for months.  That job vanished into a haze of office politics and fighting managers and never-ending budget cuts to the point where it's not even than they aren't hiring me; they aren't hiring anyone.  What was a vacancy has become true downsizing.

In a lot of ways, losing that job isn't all that bad.  Bishop and I know most of the people there, and suddenly they're all telling us that really, I don't want to be there right now.  That the office politics that made hiring me into a point of contention between two managers are actually widespread conflict in the department.  That there's no money for upgrading the tech, let alone hiring someone.  That the manager on the floor is back to the age-old questioning of "What do we pay the IT people for?" when he should know better than anyone.

And, perhaps most surprising, that many of them are looking for jobs away from this one.

It adds up to mean that maybe I don't want that job anyway.

This info makes a lot of things better.  But it also doesn't change some things, and when you struggle with anxiety, things like an easy transition and knowing who you'll eat lunch with the first day are important.

So when I say that I will miss my friends, I mean it.

I'm no longer walking into a new job knowing people.  That was a huge part of the appeal -- I was going to know everyone! I'd know my boss, because he used to be Bishop's boss, because I've gone to baseball games and happy hours with him.  I'd know my colleagues, because we've played D&D together, because we've gone bowling, because they've had LAN parties in my basement, because they're my friends.

It would have been the easiest transition ever -- I might be new to the field, but I knew the people.

Instead, that's not what's happening.  I do have a job, and it's essentially the same thing: tech support.  It pays better than the other job.  It has the same or better benefits, perks, all that stuff.  It's smaller, so I'll get more personalized support as I start learning more hands-on skills.  I like it.

But it's not the same place I've spent the last year thinking I'd be working, so even if it turns out to be amazing, it will always be a little less.  If the other place were to offer me a job in six months or a year, I'd jump at it without question.

I don't know these new people.

I know the possibilities though.  When I walked into Herbert five years ago, I wasn't thinking about the future.  I didn't consider that some of the conversations I had those first days were happening with people who would end up being some of my best friends.  I walked into Herbert without knowing a soul, and was lucky enough to love it for a long time.  That could very well happen here, again, and five years from now I could be in a place I never expected.

I just have to cross my fingers and hope for it.

A lot is changing that I am looking forward to.

I will never have to grade a paper again.  I will never argue with parents about their kid's grades or effort or anything else.  I will never have to sit in awkward meetings with principals while they attempt to get a 15yo to agree that putting "ISIS can suck my dick" on their in-class presentation is in fact inappropriate.  I will never have pretend to care that a kid said shit (or worse) in my classroom.  I will never have to attend a pep assembly or homecoming parade.   I will never have to confiscate a phone, or a golf ball, or a fidget spinner.

I am sure that, instead, I will get a host of new annoyances, like any job.  There will be paperwork that's frustrating or busywork, annoying coworkers, and since it's new, I have to believe I'll be forced to play at least one mind-numbing 'icebreaker' game.

That's all okay.  In exchange, I get to do a lot of things that are new and exciting, and it won't take long before the frustrations of my old job start to fade.

At my new job, I'll never have to confiscate a phone or computer again.  Instead, I get to actually work with them -- solve problems, help others fix things, figure out new ways of going about issues.  I'll get to do all the background stuff no one thinks about, like digging through the Control Panel for the right settings, or migrating data, or editing the Registry to make things easier.  I will get to enjoy technology instead of police it.

And I will never have to deal with teenagers again.  Sometimes teenagers are great -- they'll open your eyes to new ideas and viewpoints, they come in excited to share events and stories, they'll hug you goodbye and mean it on the last day of school.  But most of the time, even the best of them are frustrating -- they don't want to do homework, they're quiet during in-class discussions, they openly admit that they don't start their papers until the night before they're due.  I won't miss any of those things, even if I might occasionally miss the kids themselves.

I won't travel, which was a part of the other job I was conflicted about.  I like to travel, but I was never sure about traveling one out of every three weeks -- that's a lot of time on the road, a lot of time to sleep in a hotel and eat at crappy restaurants and miss Bishop.  The trade, that I have a job where I'll travel at most twice a year, is actually quite nice.

And sure, I have to get an iPhone, which to a devout Android user is like voluntarily contracting the plague.  But it's a phone coming from my company, not my personal phone, and more than anything, it's an opportunity to grow and keep learning.

Really, all of this transition, this mess of uncertainty where I have a job but another might call me in a week or a month or a year, is just an opportunity to learn.  That's what I keep coming back to: No matter how this plays out, no matter if the boss I know at the other jobs puts me in an awkward position in a month, no matter if this new job is where I stay for years, this is an incredible opportunity to change my life.

That is never bad.

A Grand Theft Auto Proposal

I was sitting in a faculty meeting about three months ago, stuck at a table full of teachers I didn’t know very well.  This wasn’t all that surprising; our administration had decided to do some kind of team-building exercise that morning, meaning we didn’t get to choose our own groups.  God forbid we be comfortable. 

So I was sitting there, making faces at my friends at another table because some things don’t change no matter how old you are, when I realized that the discussion at my table was getting heated.  I tuned back in, only to discover that they’re talking about the latest pep assembly theme. 

Well.  Talking is such a weak word.  Complaining is really more accurate, since the theme the students had chosen that year was Grand Pep Auto, reminiscent (and nearly copyright infringing) on the game. 

Everyone around me was pissed.  They were bitching about the same issues with the game that I’ve heard a million times before: that it advocates cop-killing, violence against women, committing crimes for prestige, and a million other things.  One teacher’s husband is a cop, and so she said she couldn’t with a clear conscience stay silent about the issue. 

Within days, it would go to my building principal, and within days, it would get changed to something more innocuous.  More sanitized.  More acceptable. 

And still none of them understood why I was chuckling as I listened to their argument. 

Grand Theft Auto is the Modest Proposal of our day, and yet no one seems to notice.  It’s as if I suggested we replace school lunches with babies, and instead of laughing, everyone started screaming. 

I just don’t get how no one else has figured it out.

Don’t get me wrong: I 100% realize that GTA = satire is not exactly a new thesis.  But having taught A Modest Proposal, and having witnessed countless discussions like the one above, I still cannot help but be surprised. 

I did not create this image, but fuck, it's funny. 

First: A Modest Proposal.  For years, I taught this pamphlet as part of Senior Literature, and every year, I passed it out and asked students to read it without any kind of preamble or explanation.   This goes against a lot of teaching wisdom – I should be giving them background information, connecting it to other stories we’ve read, making it relevant to them.  And I do, once we read. 

Doing all that BEFORE they read takes away all the fun. 

For some context (just in case you aren’t familiar with this text): Jonathan Swift wrote A Modest Proposal in the early 1700s as a reaction to the poverty crisis of the Irish under British rule.  In it, he suggested that the Irish should, quite simply, birth and raise and finally sell their children to the wealthy upper class in order to make money and work themselves out of poverty. 

The wealthy upper class would then eat the children as a tender, succulent supper.  Yum!

As you can imagine (I hope), this idea did not go over well.

Now, close to 300 years later, this overreaction is still the result I get from my students, and it’s hilarious.  They don’t realize it’s satire, at least not the majority of them.  Here and there, I get students who looked it up before they came to class, or students who walk in going, “Ms. E, he’s not serious, is he…?”  But far, far too many walk in asking why I made them read such an awful story, complaining about what a terrible human being Swift is, and (occasionally) wondering aloud what their parents would think if they told them what I had them read. 

Always, always, always hilarious. 

By the time the day’s lesson is over, most of them are persuaded.  It’s satire. Swift doesn’t really want us to eat babies.  They didn’t miss some important part of Irish/British history in their studies.  No worries. 

But there are always exceptions.  No matter how much we talk about fairy tale satire like Shrek, and sarcasm in writing like Dave Barry, Augusten Burroughs, David Sedaris, etc., some students still walk out going, “What a messed up story.”  It won’t click – they aren’t abstract enough thinkers for this to work, and no matter what I do, some of them will stay that way. 

They then, in turn, grow up to become the teachers and parents and everyone else who doesn’t get what’s going on with Grand Theft Auto. 

This is really a shame, because what Rockstar Gaming has done with the GTA franchise is kind of amazing. 

This series is a satire, through and through. Many, many let’s players before me have analyzed the shit out of this, so I’m not going to rehash all the basics like Sprunk and eCola, the 'deliciously infectious' soda, or Lifeinvader, the social media platform of choice in-game, or anything else.  They've been done, and done well, before.

But there is so much more depth to this satire that just that we Americans are a bunch of over-caffeinated, sex-obsessed assholes.  (It’s terrifying to think that’s how people the world over think of us, isn’t it? *shudder*)

Think about the biggest complaints about GTA.  Cop killing.  Prostitute killing.  No consequences for committing crimes. All those things that, apparently, parents are terrified that little Johnny will start doing if they play this game, as if the world is just one tiny push away from descending into total chaos. 

Then again, we did put an oversized, racist Oompa Loompa into the nation's highest office. 

But the 2016 election aside, generally, America isn’t entirely abandoned to the darkness just yet. 

Parents, teachers, politicians, and many others, however, disagree. 

This is how GTA earned its terrifying reputation.  I understand there are certainly elements of GTA that are despicable, but to me that’s almost part of the hilarity.  Players can visit a prostitute, at times complete with cut scenes, pay her, and then kill her and take the money back.  That’s awful on the face of it, but the sheer absurdity of the exchange is hilarious.  That’s one of the most obvious tenets of satire – hyperbolic events in order to showcase their absurdity.  So it’s fitting, even if I cringe. 

But so much more of GTA is a commentary on what people are able to do, and get away with, in our culture. 

How many times have we as Americans seen men commit violence against women, and get away with it?  We need only think back to last year to the Stanford rapist, a man whose crime was absolutely heinous, and yet the judge was so concerned with the rapist’s future that he only received 6 months in prison – and only served 3. 

Not a word was spoken about how destroyed the victim’s life was.  The media instead often covered just how ‘ridiculous’ it was that such a promising star had fallen, most famously in Michael Miller’s apologist Washington Post article.

There is less difference between how players get to treat women in GTA and how real life men are allowed to treat women than we like to think.  Fewer repercussions in the real world than we want to think.  Fewer consequences. Less jail time.  More like GTA, really, and no one wants to say it. 

People around the country called out the rapist himself, his defensive father, the author of this article, the Washington Post itself.  The case and how it was handled changed rape and sexual assault laws in California, strengthening the wave of ‘yes means yes’ consent and sexual education rolling through college campuses across the country.  That's all positive, but it doesn't change the statistics of on-campus rapes, for example, or the mindset that if I'm wearing a short skirt, I'm asking for it. 

Hearing that that message is absurd needs to happen, and if GTA is the vehicle, so be it. 

How many times are cops attacked for how they respond to crises, whether it’s with too much or too little force, too many or too few officers, whatever the case might be?

I’m not talking about Ferguson, where there are still murky gray areas of what actually happened and how race played a role in the death of Michael Brown.  I’m talking about cases like that of a 17-year Chicago PD veteran who did not shoot the man who eventually beat her into unconsciousness for fear of media backlash. 

GTA, by allowing players to beat up, shoot, set fire to, what have you, the cops in the game are pointing out just how absurd it is that cops really do get treated like this.  It may not be the norm, of course, but when it’s plastered across the news, it certainly feels that way. 

The issue of police violence inevitably leads into issues of racial stereotyping, and here, GTA deals frankly with just how ridiculously prejudiced our culture is. 

How many times have young black men been stereotyped as part of gangster culture?  That they are shitty human beings, simply for wearing a hoodie? 

Trayvon Martin springs to mind, as does Michael Brown and an unfortunately large number of others attacked or killed in recent years.  Hoodies routinely get banned in schools for the reputation they carry. 

And I certainly hope I don't need to break down institutional racism in Los Angeles (or anywhere else in the country) to prove that we as Americans are still prejudiced to a terrifying degree.

How we are still arguing that somehow GTA is the problem in the face of the rest of America is beyond me. 

All these satirical takes on real American issues aside (as if we can just forget them that easily), critics often forget that the game itself is not advocating any of these crimes.  There are in-game penalties for killing citizens at random, for shooting hookers, for running over cops.  Hell, you attract the attention of the police by running red lights, something I know for a fact doesn’t always happen in the real world.

The game doesn’t want players to be assholes – it wants them to follow the story, like all games.  The fact that they’ve built a world where the player can interact with 100% of their surroundings is testament to how much time and effort the developers put in, not that the game should be condemned. 

Rockstar is hoping, perhaps even praying, that their players have at least some morals guiding their decisions.  While I don’t know for sure, I have to suspect that when they first started getting massacred in reviews for being able to murder people at random, someone in their development team was surprised.  Of course, the assumption that people have scruples is time and time again proven incorrect – like the numerous stories of tourists carving their initials into historical icons like the Colosseum or the Luxor Temple in Egypt – but we can hope. 

one of my favorite satirical billboard in the game

Let me also remind you: GTA is not a game for kids. 

I feel like I shouldn’t have to say that, but all things considered, I absolutely have to.  My eleven and eight year old nephews have played GTA, for god’s sake, and then their mom complains that video games are too violent. No shit.

That’s an essay for another time though. 

Whenever this comes up, Bishop inevitably tells me this story from when he worked at Game Stop as a teenager:

A mom came into the store looking for a game for her young son.  Since this was the early 2000s, Bishop recommended Pokemon, a fun and popular game rated perfectly for her child, who was about 10.  The mom, I shit you not, said that she wouldn’t be buying Pokemon for her child because it was Satanic (and if you don’t believe me, just Google it; there is a TON of discussion out there about how some deeply religious people see those little Japanese monsters as demons.  Something about a satirical interview no one understood -- no surprise!)

So, possible demonic connections aside, she didn’t want to buy Pokemon for her kid.  Fine.  Did she instead go pick up Super Mario? Any of the Harry Potter games? Hell, even Lego Star Wars?

Nope.  She walked over to the felony-titled Grand Theft Auto and, ignoring the giant M FOR MATURE label, proclaimed it perfect. 

Bishop also never fails to finish this tale with how pissed this woman was when she tried to return it later, as if her poor parenting was somehow Game Stop’s fault. 

The warning labels are there for a reason, people. 

10-year-olds are not supposed to be playing Grand Theft Auto, or Call of Duty, or Wolfenstein, and the game developers know it.  That's why the ESRB rating system exists -- to help parents make informed decisions about the content of games they let their children play.

Frankly, the whole notion of someone seeing the M rating, shrugging, then being pissy that the game was full of drugs and violence, is as hilariously absurd as reading a 1700s pamphlet and legitimately thinking that the author wants you to eat a boiled toddler for dinner. 

Rockstar doesn't want you to kill hookers in real life!

No one wants a kid under 17-18 to be playing Grand Theft Auto!

Swift doesn't want us to eat babies!

But somewhere, somehow, we’ve missed the point, and GTA has suffered for it.  

10 Things I Know to be True

Every spring, my Composition students write a graduation speech.  It’s a nice way for them to end the year – they get to think about their legacies, small though they might be, and this year, I get to think about mine. 

This is the last graduation speech I will ever assign or grade.  This is one of the last assignments I will ever assign or grade.  This is the last group of seniors I will take pictures with at prom, the last group I will laugh with, the last group I will send off into the world. 

Every spring, when they write the graduation speech, we start off by discussing truth.  What would they have wanted to know as freshmen?  What do we know to be true?  What kinds of lessons matter?

I ask them to make a list: 10 things I know to be true.  Every year, I sit with them and I write my own list. 

This year might be the last time I ever do this. 

I have no doubt that I will continue to find meaning in my life, that I will learn lessons that will affect how I make choices and the path I take.  I have no doubt that I will find new things to be true. 

It doesn’t change that right now, I know 10 things to be true, and they are 10 things I didn’t know last year.  Each year I grow and change and (hopefully) get better, and so, for 2016-2017, the last academic year of my life, here is my list:

1. Changing your life is worth it.

This is the truth I most identify with right now.  I am in the midst of changing my life; I have only a few days left in my life as a teacher, only a few days before I head off into a new world of computers and technology and travel.  So far, it has been worth it – my anxiety is lower.  I feel better.  I sleep better.  It’s easier to be optimistic than it used to be. 

I hope I still think this change was worth it next year.   

2. People are never upset when you tell them why they matter.

I always struggle with this one.  I used to be better at it – I used to take every opportunity in the form of notes, birthday cards, signing yearbooks, text messages, anything at all, to tell people I was glad they were part of my life. 

At some point in college, I got made fun of for it, and it fell off.  I regret it. 

But I’m learning to embrace being open again.  As I’ve told friends that I’m leaving, it’s become remarkably easy to tell them that I value our friendship and want to stay close.  It’s easier to tell colleagues that I admire their work ethic and dedication to this job.  It’s easier to thank my boss for being awesome. 

None of them has ever been upset to hear that they are important to me.

3. Working out is a mental health savior.

This is basic health wisdom, but it's something I often forget.  Working out drops off my schedule in favor of more sleep, taking a longer shower in the mornings, not wanting to wash my hair, feeling lazy -- any number of dumb excuses. 

But it helps.  On days when I don't want to get out of bed, when I'm trapped in my house because school is cancelled due to flooding, when everything feels so empty, working out somehow gives me the perspective I need to keep going, and feel better. 

I may never be the person who adores working out -- I just need to remember why I do it. 

4. Intellectual curiosity is more important that knowledge or education – keep learning!

I was scared to start the journey that led me to where I am now.  I bought the textbook I needed to study for the A+ in July, and while I opened it occasionally, I didn’t start seriously reading it until November.  It was overwhelming – 1500 pages of information I didn’t understand!

When I finally broke through that fear, when I finally realized I really needed to push myself and start learning again to change my life, it got easier.  The book got, I don’t want to say interesting, but tolerable.  The acronyms started making sense.  Bishop and I took apart computers so I’d see what was going on with motherboards, CPUs, and power supplies.  We bought me a new graphics card so I could learn how to make Mass Effect Andromeda better. 

Learning slowly became fun again, something I’d rather forgotten about in the midst of anxiety and a job I knew inside out. 

And as it got fun again, it continued to get easier.  One of the most frustrating side effects of anxiety for me has been how it affects my information processing skills – it was noticeably harder to learn.  I used to be a fabulous auditory learner.  In college I barely took notes because I memorized most lectures as the professors gave them.  I could read a textbook and remember it nearly word for word without much effort. 

But by October 2015, I’d lost that.  I still struggle to process information when I listen; it remains easier for me to learn if I’m reading something.  Thankfully, I’ve adapted.  I studied for close to 150 hours over four months and passed the A+ just fine. 

Learning is finally fun again.  I've maintained my curiosity throughout this entire experience, but now I understand so much more! In the past few weeks, I've read articles about how the development of artificial intelligence is hampered by the English language's inherent bias against women, people of color, and more; how the study of bog bodies is continually changing as technologies helps in new and unexpected ways; how King Tut's father Akhenaten was a true revolutionary of Egypt; and how the bunker under Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado is designed to be actually indestructible, safe from everything from a nuclear war to a 2012-style end of the world. 

I have never been so grateful that I love to learn.  I hope I never forget it. 

5. Take risks.

Anxiety makes me terrified of even tiny risks.  Opening a new book, watching the first episode of a new show, getting words down on paper: these tiny things sometimes feel as insurmountable as Everest.

They shouldn't. 

Risk brings rewards.  Logically I know this -- but as anxiety and depression have made painfully clear, knowing something in your head and feeling it in your heart are wildly different. 

The past year has taught me that risks can be worth it, even when I have to force myself.  It's not a feeling that is going away, either;  in the past week, I've put in over 30 job applications as the school year draws to a close and I remain unsure of where I'm going next.  Some real-life experience has inspired a fabulous idea for a novel, a novel that for once won't be fanfiction nonsense but really me pouring my soul into my writing. 

I have to take risks to move forward, and anxiety can't hold me back. 

6. You’ll never regret pushing yourself to be better.

I've said a lot of what could go here already, but what I haven't said is this:  I'm proud of myself. 

All these changes have been terrifying.  Sometimes the slightest thing will send me over the edge to crying in my car on the way home from work or lying in bed mindlessly watching 30 Rock reruns so I don't have to think. 

Despite everything, I haven't let it stop me.  There is no regret over leaving my job, or trying to learn something new, or anything else.  I haven't given up, even when I wanted to. 

7. Take time to enjoy your hobbies.

I wrote about this on another blog recently because in March, I realized I'd essentially stopped reading.  I'd stopped blogging.  I was playing a shitload of Stardew Valley, an addicting if shallow farming simulator that was absolutely challenge-free, instead of Sniper Elite 3 or the Last of Us or Jade Empire. 

Part of this was reasonable: I was studying 2-3 hours a day to pass the A+. 

Most of this was unreasonable though, and I was boring even myself. 

So I made a change: I set reading goals for myself, like reading all the books people had recommended before the end of the school year.  I built a hammock so I could relax in peace.  I rebuilt my blogs so I didn't forget how much I loved to write. 

It's only been a few weeks, but this is true: Hobbies you love deserve time to enjoy them. 

8. Acknowledge your privilege, and use it to make the world a better place.

The past year has helped me understand privilege in ways I never expected.  I'm just one of likely millions of people unhappy where they are, but I have the resources to do something about it.  I'm employed, insured, and so is my husband -- that is privilege.  I have networking connections and a new certification and experience to help me get a job -- some of that is sheer hard work, but some of it is privilege.  I'll get paid through the end of the summer so there's no pressure to get a job tomorrow -- that is privilege. 

I've been lucky throughout my life to have so many advantages.  My parents grew up poor, but they worked their asses off so I didn't.  My dad helped me pay for college so I didn't graduate with any student loan debt.  They taught me how to manage money so I can pay off my credit cards each month and put money into retirement each year. 

My privilege is tied up in my own abilities to work hard and not give up, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.  I hear that argument all too often.  It's hard to acknowledge that the world has set you up better than someone else by an accident of birth; I fought it for a long time. 

But I'm realizing now as I leave a service profession that I want to leave the world better than I found it.  For the past years, it's been by being a teacher and trying to help future generations.  Looking forward, I see myself donating money and items instead of time until I figure out where I'm going next. 

I just don't want to forget to be grateful for what I have, and to try to make life easier for someone else, too. 

9. Express yourself, but do it intelligently.

I have 19 tattoos, but you wouldn't know it from looking at me.  Every year when my students find out I have ink, they always tell me I don't seem like the type, and I always laugh. 

This is purposeful.  I love my tattoos, but I don't want them to be all anyone sees -- at work, in a job interview, running errands, just hanging out, whatever I'm doing.  Every image, every quote on my body can be easily covered, and this is the conversation my students and I inevitably have (as kids love talking about tattoos):  Get ink, sure, but be smart about it.  Be able to cover it.  Don't get that boyfriend/girlfriend's name.  Don't get a meme tattoo. 

If they remember nothing else, I hope they remember this. 

10. You are more than your mistakes.

I'm the type to mentally relive every embarrassing thing I've ever done.  Just last weekend, I called a kid the wrong name at prom  (I've been calling him his brother's name all year, so of course I did it again.  Of course.) -- it's been replaying in my head ever since. 

Bishop always tells me this is no big deal, everyone does stupid shit.  I know this, but living it is harder. 

So on Monday, I tried reframing it to see if it made me feel better.  I saw some of this kid's friends, other students I know well, and I told them the story, laughing at myself all the while.  They thought it was hilarious.  And it worked; walking away, I didn't feel so much like a moron. 

The past year of my life, really the past six years of my life, have been full of mistakes.  Some have been huge, and some have been tiny.  It doesn't change that I am more than just those moments. 

And I would do well to remember that in the year ahead. 

A Love Letter to Teaching

My mother said something strange to me today.

We were discussing my upcoming career change -- she's been trying to be supportive, which I know must be hard.  I hesitated to tell her I was leaving my job for a long time because I teach in a very prestigious school district, top 15% in the nation, and she's the kind of person whose identity is wrapped up solely in being a parent.  She tied up a lot of herself in my job as a teacher.

She might be a little overbearing, but I still didn't want to disappoint her.

To her credit, she's trying.  Thankfully she seems to recognize how unhappy I was teaching, even if her issues with empathy mean she never asked any deeper probing questions and thus my battles with anxiety remain unspoken.

We were talking about how my school year is drawing to a close, and thus my new job is starting soon.  She's excited for me.  My friends threw me a going-away happy hour yesterday, complete with gifts.  I'm going to a jazz band concert this week, and prom is next weekend, and some other friends and I are going to our principal's retirement party, co-opted only a little since they couldn't make it to happy hour.  On the new job front, two managers I know well are arguing over who gets to hire me.

It's going to be a good end to the year, I hope (assuming my anxiety doesn't get the best of me, as it might).

I explain all this so what happened next makes sense.  My mom listened to all this, and eventually gave me a hug and said: "I'm so glad you're getting a job in IT.  I always thought you were too smart to be a teacher."

My world ground to a halt.

Don't start shouting, my brain cautioned once it had gotten over the initial shock.  She's trying to be supportive.  

In her own way, she was.  She knows how intelligent and motivated I am, how much I enjoy throwing myself into something, how dedicated and creative I can be.  She wants me to have a job I love, something I want to go to every day, something I am proud to do.

My mom was trying to compliment me -- to tell me that she thinks I'll be great in IT.  That sentiment is nice to hear.

The rest of it? Not so much.

There is nothing stupid about being a teacher.  Too much of our society seems to think that for some reason; we even have idioms saying, "Those who can't, teach," which has never failed to infuriate me.  To dismiss educators as stupid maligns the profession in ways that are not just painful, but fundamentally outrageous.

There is nothing dumb about building lessons that will help students learn to read, write, think, more effectively than they could yesterday.  There is nothing foolish in dedicating time and energy to grading, giving feedback, learning from other teachers. There is nothing trivial about the time and love that teachers devote to their relationships with students.

And there is absolutely nothing shameful about trying to change the world.

The teachers I work with are some of the most intelligent, empathetic, motivated people I have ever met.

My best friend at Herbert High* is a guy I'll call Sandman, who is easily one of the smartest, most interesting people I know.  The first time I met him, we talked about how to teach Samuel Coleridge Taylor's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" utilizing Iron Maiden.  I remember being impressed not only that this teacher was into Maiden, but that he had the stones to teach Coleridge Taylor.  Last week, I walked into his classroom to find him using an elaborate metaphor involving some jerk eating all the leftover Easter candy at a crowded lunch table to explain why Lenina from Brave New World sleeps with everything that moves.  In the five years in between, Sandman has taught me how to be a teacher, usually by example -- how to be clever and effective in my lessons, compassionate but firm in my due date policies, empathetic when students are upset but tough when they need boundaries.  We've rebuilt curriculum together, solved a myriad of student-related crises, and argued over whether or not Guardians of the Galaxy is actually a good movie.

Never once have I thought "Shit, this man is way too smart to be a teacher."  Instead I'm grateful to have learned from him so that I could be a better, smarter teacher.

It would be easy to say that Sandman is an isolated example, but you'd be wrong.  Another close friend, Susan*, has been teaching for nineteen years, and every August, she's got something new and exciting she can't wait to try in her classroom.  I'd always thought that, after a while, teaching gets stale -- that's something I feel now, and it's only been five years.  Not Susan.  She learns new things every year, sometimes every day it seems, and it's usually about incorporating technology into her classroom so her students are always trying something different.  The rule in teaching is to change ~10% each year so you don't get bored; Susan easily doubles that.  Beyond the classroom, I have never met someone who reads as much outside of school as she does, both 'for fun' books so she can talk to her students about what they're reading and curriculum/best practice textbooks to help her be a better teacher.  She is constantly improving, constantly inspiring, and her kids are constantly learning as a result.

Geri, another Language Arts teacher I hang out with, teaches her students meditation and mindfulness practices alongside To Kill a Mockingbird.  She's made mental health her priority, and in a school where we've had five deaths (including two suicides) in four years, students adore her commitment to helping them manage stress.  I've never met a more compassionate, truly kind person.

Some of my friends, like Amy, don't necessarily get along well with others due to their commitment to their students.  Amy will often fight with teachers when they push students too hard without reason, and she's never afraid to say what she thinks.  That can rub people the wrong way, but it also makes her the fiercest advocate for students I've ever seen.  She's the person who will be late to events with friends because she's on the phone with a student's parents or helping our counselors write a life plan.

Other teachers in my building, though I might not know them as well personally, do absolutely amazing things.  One of our math teachers has built a program from scratch to get students who failed Algebra I to not just passing, but loving math in less than a semester.  Another Language Arts teacher is routinely at school until 6:00pm working with students to better their writing.  A science teacher routinely destroys her own classroom (and her living room -- I've seen the pictures on facebook) to create a pseudo-crime scene for her forensics students so they get the true CSI experience.   These are people devoted to what they do, and smart enough to do it well.

I'm always in awe that my school is lucky enough to have people like Sandman, and Susan, and Geri and Amy and all the rest.  I have always been proud to be a teacher, especially because I got to teach alongside other teachers.

The insinuation that somehow all these people aren't smart, or that if they are, they are wasted on teaching, is more than insulting -- it is degrading to them and to the profession.  To suggest that somehow I'm smart because I'm getting out is frankly disgusting.

And what does it say about me that my mother is willing to insult my job?  Likely she never would have said it if I wasn't leaving, but I've been teaching for five years.  I have a Master's degree in Education.  I worked my ass off to be a good teacher, and it was never because I wasn't smart.

There was never anything shortsighted about my joining this profession other than failing to understand myself.  Everything else I felt going in -- the desire to help people, the passion for reading and writing, the excitement of getting up in front of a classroom, the joy of watching students actually learn -- everything about that is true, and valuable, and amazing.

I wouldn't have survived the downs of teaching if I wasn't smart.  I wouldn't have been able to pick apart what didn't work, and make it better.  I wouldn't have figured out how to forge better relationships with students so they'd actually learn.  I wouldn't have been able to learn from some of the smartest people I know, and I wouldn't be walking away with some truly amazing friendships in tow.

In a lot of ways, leaving breaks my heart.

I have to do it for my own mental health.  I know that.  Just a few days ago, I found a teaching blog I started in Fall 2015 in an attempt to stave off the inevitable; instead, its entries chronicle the anxiety that slowly started destroying my mental health.  Re-reading it, it's easy to see just how damaged and hurting I was, how much stress I was under, how broken by the emotional demands of this job.  But it has some ups too:  the community I am a part of, the reminders of what I loved about my students, the successes I will miss.

Teaching has changed my life, for good and ill, and I will defend its value, and the amazing people who do it, with every breath if I have to.








*Disclaimer: Though the situations depicted here are factual, all names -- including those of teachers, students, parents, schools, and districts -- have been changed to protect those involved.  The opinions expressed here are mine alone; I do not, nor would I presume to, speak on behalf of my school or district, nor on behalf of others in my profession.

Herbert High is a fictitious title used to represent the school where I teach.  The name was chosen as a reference to Frank Herbert, author of my favorite book Dune.  

#ThisisWhatAnxietyFeelsLike

I stumbled across a hashtag on Twitter this morning, one that's been around for a while but gaining traction the past few days:  #ThisisWhatAnxietyFeelsLike

I was surprised by how strongly I reacted to it.  I've dealt with anxiety on and off for close to two years now, and while I've done plenty of research about how to function with it, I tend to stay away from reading about others' experiences of it.  I don't want to know.  I don't want to dwell on how debilitating it can be, or how painful.  I don't want to be constantly thinking about it, since I'm doing enough of that already.

What I'm realizing this morning is that, yes, I've kept myself from thinking about it even more than I already do.  But in doing so, I've deprived myself of a community that may in fact be crucial to recovering, to feeling 'normal' again and not so much like my life is spinning out of control.  There's camaraderie, community in sharing these experiences, and there's value in seeing that I'm not alone.

I'm very much the "I can deal with this alone" kind of person.  I saw a counselor briefly, but didn't like going.  I didn't like feeling like I needed someone else to get better, to be okay.  My husband knew, and he encouraged me to seek counseling, and keep going, but when it came down to it, he trusted me to know what was best for myself.  When I stopped going, he just hugged me and said that if I changed my mind, he'd support me.

I didn't tell my friends.  They'd always told me I "hid it well" when I just had a migraine at work, when I was in excruciating pain, and they said it like they didn't quite believe I was really hurting.  How would they respond to finding that I was struggling on an even more abstract level?

I didn't tell my family, not for almost a year.  When I finally did tell my brother, he bought me a book about spirituality.  When I told my dad, he asked if it was all in my head.  There wasn't the empathy I needed, even though I didn't know how to ask for it.

Two weeks ago, I resigned from my job as a teacher.  At the end of this school year, I'm moving into IT, which I've written about before here.  As a result, I've had dozens of conversations about why I'm leaving, how I made this decision.

I'm not being honest.  I'm saying all the things you are supposed to say -- that I needed a change, that I was ready to move on, that I'm going to really miss teaching but that I'm excited to start something new.  I've told a grand total of one person the truth: that I have had so much anxiety with this job that sometimes I feel like I'm drowning, and I can't do it anymore.

Thankfully, that person is one of my best friends, and he's been nothing but supportive.  I don't know how I would have functioned if, like so many others, he'd said "you hide it well."  Instead, he's asked how I am, watched videos I post on facebook about what anxiety is like, made an effort to check in on my mental health.  It is the reaction I had dreamed of, that I wouldn't be judged or hated or anything else and instead supported.

But because I have anxiety, I worry that he'll get sick of me, just like I worry that my husband will get sick of me, and so when I found @AnxietyHashtag and #ThisisWhatAnxietyFeelsLike this morning, I had a little bit of a breakdown.

Instead of spamming my Twitter content with tweets, I'm going to put them here.  My Twitter, which is actually for Bishop and I's Let's Play channel (not that we do anything productive with that) is supposed to be funny, not sad. not anxious.

If I can, I want to be part of the community suddenly, so bear with my brutal honesty.  This is my experience of anxiety, and has been for almost two years.

#ThisisWhatAnxietyFeelsLike

• like I've had too many cups of coffee, jittery inside like I can't possibly sit still
• worrying a thought like a hangnail so it can't possibly go away
• wanting to call, text, facebook, whatever, someone but not doing it for fear of seeming clingy.  or crazy. 
• This tweet from someone on the feed: 
  
• having to explain my thought process, like why I checked with a friend that it was really them I waved to on the road a year ago, and feeling like that explanation makes me sound insane 
• talking too much.  All. The. Time.  
• physical symptoms: headaches, stomachaches, back pain, shoulder pain
• not explaining things to my friends because I'm afraid they'll judge me
• worrying that they'll think it's nothing.  or for attention: 
  
• finally working up the courage to tell someone, then feeling guilty when they said they had no idea and ending up apologizing for not telling them
• feeling guilty anytime I talk about it since I told someone, like they'll get sick of me; feeling guilty because that's all I want to talk about now that I've broken through the initial fear 
• wishing that I wasn't such a mess, that I could keep myself together instead of needing other people to help
• worrying that my husband will get sick of dealing with my mental health issues and leave 
• telling him this and having him comfort me and promise it'll never happen, which somehow makes it worse
• knowing that I probably need to see a counselor, but being unable to pick up the phone and start that process 
• Writing, no matter how small: 
  
• losing hobbies I once loved because I'm scared that I won't like that book when I start it. 
• struggling to play video games on bad days because the stress makes me susceptible to severe motion sickness
• correcting this post like six times to make sure it's perfect. 

Overall, I'm pretty lucky.  Bishop knows by now when I'm having a shitty day, and he'll take care of me -- snuggle me, get me food, make all the decisions, whatever it takes.  The one friend I trusted to tell pushes me to talk, won't let me hide and say I'm fine when I am obviously not (and gives me a hug when I start crying, which is usually what I need more than any words).  

I have the resources to get counseling if I ever manage to get myself together enough to do it.  I've pushed myself hard enough to have a new career waiting just beyond the horizon.  

I am doing well.  Everything could be so much worse, and I have come out the other side of this knowing I am so much stronger than I thought I could ever be.  

I worry that it'll happen again, that my career change won't truly alleviate what I feel now and I'll end up just as unhappy.  My friend at work keeps telling me that I have to make choices based on my own happiness, and he's right.  But there is safety where I am now.  I know how being unhappy here feels, and as sick as it is, I am used to it.  Changing my life means opening myself up to something new, something that could be good and could be terrible.  I'm willing to make the leap, and I'm ready, and yet that little voice is still lingering in the back of my mind, wondering if this is really the right move.
  

#ThisisWhatAnxietyFeelsLike