By an anonymous teacher
Content warning: This article discusses the impacts of sexual assault on mental health and may affect some readers.
I started teaching in December 2019, at 24 years old. I’m sure we all know what follows. To keep a long story short, I think the correct, one-word summary would be “trauma.”
At 24 years old, I can without a doubt say that I was not ready to help 50+ teenagers navigate a world-wide pandemic and the trauma that followed after a sudden and stark separation from their friends, family, and school community.
I can also say that as a woman, and as a sexual assault survivor, I was also not at all ready to confront, overcome, and deal with my own trauma that began to bubble up as I started my teaching career.
I didn’t know I had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from my assault. For seven years, I had successfully and completely disassociated from it. Sure, there were times where I would lose it on loved ones for unknown reasons, have mental breakdowns in the middle of the night after a bad dream or any form of intimacy, or have panic attacks in the university bathrooms, but I was doing well in all my courses. My GPA was high and I was on a track to have a successful career as an educator; something I had always wanted. I was fine.
I was fine until a high school student, in that very first year of teaching, inappropriately called me a “naughty, naughty girl” in front of all his peers. This was a phrase I heard seven years prior from the mouth of my rapist. I looked at him in utter shock as he laughed with his buddies. All I could force out was a quiet, “That was very inappropriate. Please do not talk to a teacher like that.” And life went on.
I went home. I cried. Those same awful feelings of shame and disgust began to bubble to the surface. But I woke up the next day, ready to teach again. And I did, over and over again, until COVID-19 shut the schools down.
What followed was Zoom meetings with distraught students who had so many questions about the future of their world. Was COVID going to kill them? Was COVID real? Were their families going to be safe? Would they ever see me again? Would they ever see each other again? Their friends?
I was swarmed with desperate cries of loneliness and confusion; all the while, experiencing this new, traumatic, world for the very first time too. After a day of Zoom meetings, I would sit in my warm bath and sob, wondering if I would ever see my students again. If I was doing enough to help comfort them. I never felt it was enough.
It was also the first time I couldn’t completely disassociate. I wasn’t busy anymore. I didn’t have my peers to talk to at university, or assignments to complete. I didn’t have my friends around. I didn’t have students or heaps of work to help distract me from my personal trauma. I was alone. Isolated. It was awful.
As COVID-19 continued, the trauma also continued to pile on. On top of trying to prepare for and teach seven different high school courses, there were masks, vaccines, exposures, deaths, and tensions ran so high that angry parents started demonizing and devaluing teachers online. The teaching program didn’t prepare me for this. It couldn’t.
My anxiety became so debilitating I finally reached out for help two years in. Medication did help, but I still was unable, or unwilling, to address the root of my problem. To confront what had been haunting me since I was 17 years old.
That all changed when I started teaching middle school. It was the first time in my career I genuinely felt happy. I laughed a lot. The pandemic was over. I could see the kids’ faces again. I was medicated, busy, and I felt … normal.
We have lived experiences that bias us, that challenge us, that change us. Like we so often say about our students, each educator comes to school wearing their own backpack of burdens, filled with stories both told and untold.
Then, one Monday morning one of my students was crying. Something was seriously wrong. I sat with her, and I asked if she was okay and if I could help in any way. It was then she told me her story.
One in every four North American women will be sexually assaulted during their lifetime. This may not even be an accurate statistic; the number may even be higher, as only 6 out of 100 sexual assaults in Canada are reported to the police. (1)
But there we were, two victims, sitting across from each other in a classroom. Eye to eye. One speaking, one listening. One, a child. The other, a teacher. A caregiver, mandated to report.
So, I made those calls and I fulfilled my duty as someone who cares for children. But afterward, the personal spiral that took place was unlike any I experienced before. For the first time I was confronted with my past in a way that was undeniable. I was constantly reminded of my own pain with every tear that she shed. I saw this student every day; a student I cared for deeply, but saw so much of myself in that working became very painful. I became a different person. Throughout my day, I would completely disassociate and sit there quietly with flashbacks that seemed all-encompassing and never-ending. I realized I needed to reach out for professional help. I even “justified” it by saying it was for my students. All I’ve ever wanted was to be a “good” teacher, and seeking help may allow me to be more present for my students.
So, I did. It was the first time since my assault that I ever sought out professional help. I was diagnosed with PTSD and started the long and painful process of healing that I am still currently working through. I ended that year feeling more positive, but still in a lot of pain as I felt deep shame and guilt for how I acted around co-workers and principals who had no idea what burden I was carrying and proceeded to call me too sensitive.
Now, as I reflect on my personal experience living through trauma as not only a woman but also as an educator, I often come back to Ted Aoki’s words in Layered Voices of Teaching. He writes “… good teachers are more than they do; they are the teaching.” (2) This is a philosophy I believe to be true. We educators don’t just teach curriculum, we teach who we are. However, when 73.8% of educators in BC are women, (3) and when such a high number of women experience some sort of sexual assault in their lifetime, (4) it begs the question: how many educators are out there, currently, trying to teach through their own trauma?
Moreover, how many educators are similarly struggling to compartmentalize their deepest lived experiences? Is it possible to truly compartmentalize those parts of yourself in a profession that calls for you to care and build relationships with some of the most vulnerable youth in the province? How can we honour our personal identities through a trauma-informed lens, while still being the best we can be for the kids in our care?
I have no answers. What’s expected of us as teachers often feels impossible. We cannot always be objective, perfect humans that guide youth to water, so-to-speak. We have lived experiences that bias us, that challenge us, that change us. Like we so often say about our students, each educator comes to school wearing their own backpack of burdens, filled with stories both told and untold.
If in that backpack, you have something heavy to carry, offer yourself some grace and time to heal, like we do with our students. Every day, I see how much care educators have for their students. To care and to be vulnerable is brave.
I encourage all educators to not only view their students, but themselves and their colleagues as well, through an empathetic, trauma-informed lens. You never know who might be struggling to teach through their trauma. Healing is a difficult, lonely, and isolating process. But, maybe it doesn’t have to be. If we are brave enough to come forward with our experiences, we will find that a lot of them are shared. For better or worse.
Resources for mental health support
Crisis Support Line: Text or call 988
BC Mental Health Support Line: 310-6789
Canadian Mental Health Association BC resources: bc.cmha.ca
References
1 “Sexual Assault Statistics in Canada,” Sexual Assault Canada: www.sexassault.ca/statistics.htm
2 Ted Aoki, “Layered Voices of Teaching: The Uncannily Correct and the Elusively True,” 1992.
3 Statistics Canada: www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3710015303
4 “Sexual Assault Statistics,” Rape Victims Support Network: assaultcare.ca/services/sexual-assault-statistics