Getting Schooled on my Failures

Today has been a difficult day for us.  In the region where we live, the students have already gone back to school, and all my teacher friends are posting their unabashed optimism and excitement for the new school year.

I feel left out.

I feel like a failure.

I feel grossly incompetent.

I still castigate myself on why I failed as a teacher.  Husband asked me last night if it had not been for my eating disorder, would I still be teaching.  I responded that my eating disorder would have made sure I wasn't teaching or working in any manner for that fact.  And so it would be.  My inability to cope with life would have energized my eating disorder, regardless of the type of employment, and made working a fright and an impossibility.

I do think I have some skills as a teacher.  I am caring, outgoing, and understand my content matter and how to convey it to students; however,  I am not by any appearance skilled in handling stress, chaos, or anxiety.  My eating disorder and dissociation came between me and teaching,  and teaching will forever lay at my feet in the throes of death.

So today is long and disturbing.  I'm paralyzed by the memories of my own inadequacies and deficiencies.  I can not move; I can not breath; I can not speak.  I wish I were teaching, but even at my best, I know unequivocally I was never good enough.