can i live on less in Random Thoughts

this has been on my mind since the disaster of last school year.

Can i take a different job and make less money?

I don’t think i can be a solo parent and teach at the same time. At least not while little R is small. I don’t have family here. The help i have is random. People have good intentions but frequently don’t follow through or can’t be relied upon. Dear, lovely people. But they have their own lives and stresses and pandemic related issues.

I grew up dirt poor. So poor that we got gov’t commodity food hand outs and moved every 6 months from one trailer to another. I know how to live poor. I know the system- how to apply for different benefits, etc. I just need to know how much i need to make to live and still get help. There is a certain amount that’s too much to make, but not enough to really live by. I think it’s something like 34k a year. As a teacher i love comfortably well above that.

But why? I have a graduate degree in special education and have been teaching for more than 10 year.

I am a child who experienced chronic stress growing up. Things happened that i can’t remember, and likely wouldn’t help to even remember. This is trauma that many, many people experience. The result of it is varied. For me, poor memory, generalized anxiety, imposter’s syndrome, and something that i am sure has a descriptor but i am not recalling it- it’s my reaction to stress. I am either at a 0 or 1, or at a 9 or 10. My lid flips, as the saying goes in trauma theory. Before baby i was so, so good at keeping mellow. Yoga, meditation, etc.... but now.

Now it takes up all my resilience to make it through the school day. By the time i get home, i get to a 9 or 10 on a tiny issue with the babe. Right now it’s her refusal to let me brush her teeth. My thoughts go dark. I want to scream, throw things, bang my head on the wall (i used to hurt myself when i was little- biting usually) and i even have thoughts of hurting my sweet babe.

I know that sounds serious. It is. i wouldn’t ever do that, i have a lot of therapy between me and that reaction. It’s just that the daily minor stressors turn my lizard brain on.

I am spent. Wiped out. I don’t even know what to think or feel about being in my rough class tomorrow. I just want to quit. Last year i took a week’s mental health off. But here i am the 4th week of school and what am i going to do… take a week off after every 4???

I am way to exhausted to be typing. I should be doing yoga. Meditating. Heck, brushing my teeth.