Psychoanalyzing Myself

June 10, 2009


I woke up at around 5:15 am this morning. So far, my most normal sleep. I probably slept around near midnight after watching a film with Rahul last night ( Kundun) , but nevertheless, it’s not like the past 9-10 days here in Roxas where I either sleep 3 to 4 times a day intermittently or wake –up at 2:00am or begin sleeping at 4:00am. ( reading work documents )

I have been consumed by forcing myself or getting overwhelmed by finishing to read all possible documents required before July 13 . It has been followed by resentment of the demands of the new job. I felt and still feel burned-out. I don’t feel the peace of the ashes, but it’s the eternal burning and melting under fire and screaming (reminds of the movie Angels and Demons that Rahul and I watched here recently)

My biggest regret is that I started my vacation with work because I felt that a month is too short to cram everything up. If I remember Mary, the past MYPC ( The Middle years Program Coordinator), she said she read all subject guides during the vacation amongst other things, now, I don’t even think I can reach that level. So far, I’ve been sick and sleepless but have finished only the Personal Project booklet cover to cover and I am halfway the thick FPIP ( from Principles Into Practice) in MYP ( Middle Years program). I plan to visit the OCC ( Online Curriculum Center) for my many questions that are left unanswered.

After 3-4 days of dedicating myself into getting well through Ayurveda ( thanks to Deepak Chopra’s Perfect health book) , I was able to visit Netopia ( an internet café) and kept in touch with some colleagues and students. I felt a great sense of relief. My routine was visited, something that has brought me a lot of comfort and familiarity. I was thrown off balance, by the disruption of my routine, the adjustment in time zone, the climate, the physical demands of traveling etc.. To top that, I came back worried as hell to see my father stuck coughing in bed with clinical depression. I am so grateful my mother picked herself up with her love for her garden and the company of her friends. Now the typhoons and the rains aren’t helping me much either. I never thought, that one day I’d go home here and wish I’d never left the mountain.. But I know I’ll come around, the little shopping here and there and little visits to nearby places are slowly picking me up. I shld. plan a trip with my family as soon as the weather clears up.


My daily life for the past 10 months, were consumed by being online several times a day, and currently the difficulty of accessing internet connection have been throwing me off balance. I don’t feel the starvation of it if I am constantly traveling, but not when I am just watching the rains in the house sick to my chest for 2 weeks. I decided to finish reading all printed materials – in short – it all felt like forcing-forcing-forcing and my resentment grew…. I said to myself “If I am returning a teacher and not as a coordinator, I didn’t have to spend my vacation this way”. I got of resentful of the people who cajoled me into the job, especially resentful to myself for budging in after refusing the offer several times and failed after presenting my resignation ”.. Yes, The “offer”: I did not even apply for the job! ( technically).

The tension of waiting for the first IB ( International Baccalaureate) External Exam results of my students in Psychology, IA ( Internal Assessments – Thesis Lab Experiments) and EE ( Extended Essay ) results are also somehow unconsciously lurking in my subconscious as well. I did all these, learnt all these for the first time apart from teaching 9th grade Chemistry, Physics and Literature for the Learning resources. I wrote our VP ( Vice-Principal ) a letter before leaving, that I did not know whether to resent him or be grateful for him but I thank him for the steep learning curve. All in only one contract, (3 years) I taught 6th , 8th, 9th, 11th and 12th grades and covered subjects as diverse as English Literature, Science, History/Geography ( Humanities), Psychology, ESL, Learning Resources and the dreaded Study Hall supervisions. If it wasn’t for the coordinator job, I was suggested to teach TOK ( Theory of Knowledge)! For heaven’s sake, requires, I feel just about as much reading and brainstorming as MYP and maybe more, except that it spares me the paper works, the numerous draining and uninspiring and generally autocratic meetings.

I need to run away in the dessert and trade salt with the Bedouins or something for a change. Perhaps wait on tables somewhere in Canada like my friend, or plant trees in Australia like someone I know. I need a brain break! After 2012, I don’t what these are all worth for, except one thing in this one may bring me joy, being able to find a more financially rewarding job after this, so my parents can retire financially with my support. I hang on to this surreal promise. I pray for their health and well-being that I may be given an opportunity to give back more..


I feel burned –out. Squeezed-out to dryness of my potentials and energies, I need to re-charge of to some adventure to divert my mind for a while. I have not touched the content and the new guide of the new revised curriculum in Psychology yet that I am about to teach in July as well. I still have semester plans to write for high school Psychology both for the new and old curriculum and at the same time, coach new and old teachers of the Middle School and ALL the subject content under it. What have I done to myself? Any of the external rewards presented me do not seem to energize me. Maybe that’s because I’ve never worked for money nor for the future promises this may bring but have always worked for the joy and challenges of the present, which I don’t seem to feel nowadays.

After writing 1, 042 words here, I still have not written why I decided to write today in my laptop for a journal entry and why I haven’t done it earlier. Perhaps, angels talked to me in my dreams, watching me in my dilemma, in a series of great cognitive dissonance. I dreamt about nothing but a stream of pictures from work and woke-up at dawn with a little bit of energy and a passing thought.

The passing thought was of a leader that did not fit my expectations of how I wanted him to lead us. I was reminded of how I behaved as a young girl towards my father. I must have been victim of my own projections. I lousy defense mechanism but was real at least for me for awhile. I remember how I supported him once, checked the spelling errors in his presentations, wanted only to inspire and be grateful for his support. In fact, who he is now is actually not much different from who he was before, just a little bit more stressed and tense, just like me with additional challenges and responsibilities that cane with the new job. His moodiness just strengthened, but did not suddenly appear from nowhere, it has always been there, only strengthened. His communication skills and leadership style is still the same. All except, the added stress that came with the package. Maybe I started seeing him through my stressed and burned-out lenses.

I stopped seeing him as someone I can work for and with. With my depleted energy and at times, hands thrown in the air, I could no longer count on him to inspire me and pick me up and pat me on the back. But it seems unfair demanding people not to change and not be sympathetic to their plight of responsibility. I have become like a child again, wishing her father never changed. I’m a parent now and I know what stress and tension means from this point of view and how it can affect my relationship with my family. I have barked and roared myself and buckled under pressure. And I am just glad, that my daughter and husband, saw past my barks and bites, and continued to support and forgive me and stood by me in these times. So did my parents. If I have been blessed by a loving family, why can’t I bless others with my patience and loyalty as well, I thought to myself.

The point is, I came to a realization to change my attitude to that of support and stop demanding him to be a superhuman perfect being who is supposed to do this and that for me. That is, to see unfailingly the good in people and support them in their difficult times. He did not choose me to be in his team to tear and wear him down ( perhaps, I have already started that, by my complacency towards new challenges and tasks) , but perhaps because he knows I am there to support him, like I once did in the past. I must grow up, I guess I am growing up, like right now realizing this… I cannot expect people to take care of me like a child forever nor assign people a role to play in my life. I have stopped feeling that way towards my parents only to see myself passing on the pattern to others. I went home here and refused to have my mom cook for me or nurse me and just naturally took care of myself and was focused on taking care of them ( my parents), physically, financially, psychologically. I thought I grew up, only to pass on the buck to an unfortunate soul who saw a grown-up in me. Quite embarrassing, really, on my side, but not a bad sense of psychoanalysis, I guess.

Perhaps, work and the world at large is totally no different from human relationships in family and friends, as work with the same fibers though the cloth come in different colors and designs. Rahul was right when he said the other day, the reason why you are getting sick and having headaches is because you feel forced doing what you’re doing, you’re NOT enjoying it, other wise you could have finished and devoured that manual in a jiffy!


All it took was some catharsis with a colleague friend of mine last night thru Facebook, I ranted on my inability to find peace with the job and its demands. But maybe, it’s not the job I resent, maybe it’s the change of roles, the child in me was very angry that I am no longer parented gently, it’s having to grow-up all of the sudden.

I’m beginning to like growing up. It’s starting to feel like fun. I guess I just gave myself a dose of my own psychotherapy in writing. Not a bad attempt. I feel the energy now, it’s coming back. I feel the knot untied, released…

We await a new principal, our Australian principal is leaving for Belgium to start a United World College branch in there (a dream school of mine to teach in, BTW- any branch would do! he,he). I am looking for a new leader who can lead a team of leaders in their own rights. I feel grateful having been chosen to join them! (feeling it for the first time, I’ve been foolishly resenting and refusing it for a while)

I’m now willing to work in this team (as an adult) and do a damn good job at it. I no longer need pats in the back, nor affirmations from others. I’ve grown-up this morning.
I better take my breakfast now and get back to work because I got an international school to run with my new team in a couple of weeks! Glad to be a part of it!

Word count: 2,025